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

3. How to allow parents to set 'Auto Top-ups'

Parents can set their monthly billing payment plan to automatically top up their balance to a specified amount. For example, they can set their Afterschool payment plan to not only clear the balance but also top it up to £10 each month. 

If your school has a cashless catering system then the Cafeteria Account will be automatically enabled for auto top-ups. 

The school can control which other Pre-payment accounts this is available for (auto top-up function is not available for Trips). 

• Log in to SCO

• Select the Configuration tab 

• Select Banking configuration

• Select Pre-payment accounts

• Select the relevant Dinner money or Extended Day club 
  If your school have a Cafeteria Account this will be enabled for auto top-ups already therefore you do not need to follow these steps.

• Tick 'Require positive balance' 

• Click Done 

When the parent's log into their SCOPAY account they will be able to set their top-up amounts for the relevant accounts. The pre-payment accounts that do not have 'require positive balance' ticked will display under Clear Debts and the accounts enabled for auto top-up will display under Target Balances:

For more information on how the Parent can set-up Monthly Billing payment plans on SCOPAY, please view the Parent Guide. 

4. Reporting on Monthly Billing

How can I see who has set up Monthly Billing for a Trip?

Within the Trips and events tab, you can view which pupils are set up with payment plans for a trip. 

• Log in to SCO

• Select the Trips and events tab

• Double click the trip name

• If the box in the Monthly Billing column is ticked, then the pupil has Monthly Billing set up

How can I view which pupils have Monthly Billing plans on the Debt reports?

You can use the Debt Report to include parents with outstanding debt who are currently set up with a monthly billing plan.

This can help schools to reduce time spent debt chasing as it will show which parents have already set up monthly billing to clear their debt.

You can run the Debt Report for Dinners or Extended Day. 

a. Create the Dinner Debt Report

1. Either:

   1. Click on the Reports tab and select Dinner money reports or

   2. Click on the Dinners tab and select the Reports button on the right of the screen

2. Select the Debt report

3. Select the Class or leave as All classes

4. Select any of the following options:

   1. Minimum debt amount

   2. Minimum age of debt (days)

   3. Include staff

5. Tick Include accounts covered by monthly billing

6. Click OK

b. Create the Extended Day Debt Report

1. Click on the Extended day tab

2. Select the required Club

3. Click Reports in the top right of the screen

4. Select the Club Debt report

5. Select the Class or leave as All classes

6. Select any of the following options:

   1. Minimum debt amount

   2. Minimum age of debt (days)

   3. Include staff

7. Tick Include accounts covered by monthly billing

8. Click OK

The pupil's with monthly billing set up will display as Has Monthly Billing in brackets next to their name in the report.

5. Cancellations of Monthly Billing agreements

If the parent’s monthly billing payment has not been met after 5 attempts over 5 days, their payment agreement will be cancelled.

The school and the parent will receive an email regarding the cancellation.

Schools will also receive a cancellation email if the parent has opted to cancel their monthly payment agreement.

Cancellation Email

The cancellation email to the school will include (see example on the right):

• The name of the parent

• The reason of cancellation

• Their contact details

• Breakdown of outstanding balances