What to expect once your school is enabled for Monthly Billing

Once Monthly Billing is enabled for your school, all parents who have outstanding balances will receive an automatic email asking them to set up a monthly billing plan or settle their outstanding balances. They will also see SCOBOT on their SCOPAY accounts who will ask if they want to set up a payment plan.

Monthly Billing is not year group or cohort specific, once it is enabled for your school any parents with outstanding balances will receive the monthly billing communications. 

These parents with outstanding balances will continue to receive emails and SCOBOT prompts until they have set up a plan or cleared their outstanding balances. 

When the parents set up their monthly billing plan, they can choose the date of the month they would like payment collected. Once their plan is set-up, they will not receive further emails asking them to sign up to monthly billing, but they will receive an email reminder the day before their payment is collected.

If payments are unable to be collected, 5 attempts will be tried over 5 days and email reminders will be sent to the parent. If the payment is still unsuccessful, both the school and the parent will be notified of the cancelled monthly billing plan.

1. How to set the school email for Monthly Billing notifications

If a parent’s monthly payment cannot be collected, they will receive an email (to their SCOPAY account email address) to notify them it was unsuccessful.

The payment will be re-attempted 5 times over 5 days and if it remains unsuccessful then their monthly billing schedule will be cancelled.

The school and the parent will receive an email regarding the cancellation. You will need to set which email these monthly billing notifications go to for your school.

Follow the step-by-step instructions below and refer to the diagram on the right.

Enter the Monthly Billing email address

• Log in to SCO

• Select the Configuration tab

• Select System options

• Enter the appropriate email address in the box next to Contact email address for monthly billing

• Select Done

If no email address is set for monthly billing, then communications will go to the primary contact we have for the school.

2. How to set up a payment plan for Trips

When setting up a Trip, you can allow Monthly Billing to calculate the instalments (equal amounts per month until the trip start date) or create a Payment Schedule to set specific monthly amounts (this option is useful if the monthly payment amounts are variable).

a) Allow Monthly Billing to calculate the instalments

• First, create your trip - see Add a Trip or Event for the steps on how to create different types of Trips

• Ensure the Cost per pupil and trip start date are correct

• Tick Enable monthly billing

• Do not select Save and edit payment schedule

• Click Save and exit 

Monthly Billing will be automatically calculated by the total Cost per pupil divided by the number of months left until the Trip start date. For example, a £100 trip in four months time will create a monthly billing of four £25 instalments. 

The instalments will be collected from the parent on the day of the month they have set in their SCOPAY account. 

b) Creating a Payment Schedule

• First, create your trip - see Add a Trip or Event for the steps on how to create different types of Trips

• Ensure the Cost per pupil and trip start date are correct

• Tick Enable monthly billing

• Select Save and edit payment schedule

• Follow the steps on the Trip Payment Schedule page to add the instalment dates and amounts

Please note: The parents set which day of the month they want their Monthly Billing payments collected, including for Trips. By using the Payment Schedule, you can set the instalment amount for each month but this will be only collected on the day of the month the parent has set on SCOPAY. For more information on how the parent sets their Monthly Billing on SCOPAY please view the Parent Guide