Making the most of Payments in Arbor

This guide is the third in a series of four. The guides in this series are:

1. Introduction to Payments in Arbor
2. Payments setup options
3. Making the most of Payments in Arbor
4. Should I set this up as a Trip, Club, School Shop, Meal or Account for payments?

To take Payments to the next level, let's take a look at some of the ways you can automate meal choices and streamline payment management.

Top Tip: Some of these features require your school to have purchased a certain package. To upgrade or for more information, please contact our Partnership Team by emailing customersales@arbor-education.com 

Get parents and students to choose their meals

Using our built-in meals option, you can have teachers select meals each day in the meal register, or add daily meal choices. You may wish to explore further options to save your teachers time and more accurately record exactly what students are eating.

Rotating Meal Menus

Rotating Meal Menus enable you to have changing meal choices that parents can book in advance through the parent Portal and Arbor App.

• Here's how to get this set up (please note there are package requirements): Set up, edit or delete Rotating Meal Menus
• Once set up, you can find our resource for parents and guardians to use (that you can share with them) here: Meal Menu choices on the Parent Portal or Arbor App
• Parent and guardians having trouble? Follow these troubleshooting tips: Parents can't see or make Meal Menu choices

Cashless Catering

Using one of our two-way Cashless Catering integrations means payment information for meals is up-to-date in both systems with no need for double entry.

For parents, the Parent Portal and Arbor app can become their single point of access for making top ups and checking balances, without needing to jump into a different system.

• Save time - no need to update, top up and log in and out of multiple systems.
• Easy reconciliation - balances are automatically copied between systems in almost real time.
• Automate account balance updates - when a child pays for their meal, the price is automatically deducted from their account balance in Arbor.

Arbor can integrate with CRB Cunninghams, Live Register or Civica - see how to set up the integration here: Cashless Catering

Other ways to pay

Apple Pay and Google Pay

As well as topping up an account by card, parents can make payments on their devices using Apple Pay or Google Pay. You can see how to get set up (and see the package requirements for this feature) here: Making payments with Apple Pay and Google Pay

Payments using vouchers

Many students receive childcare support in voucher form, which parents can use to pay for various childcare services such as wraparound care clubs.

• Once your school receives the bank transfer from the company that provides these vouchers, you can top up your voucher account with the voucher balance, then use this balance to pay for the wraparound care club: Making and managing payments for Wraparound Care using vouchers
• For parents and guardians, the process for signing children up to wraparound care sessions is the same whether using the voucher balance or not: Signing up for a Breakfast or After-School Club on the Parent Portal or Arbor App

Managing balances

Using our built-in page in School > Payments > Accounts > Balances you can send a reminder to top up. Simply tick the boxes next to the students you want to follow up with, and use the green Bulk Action button to send a follow-up email, SMS or in-app message.

Top Tip: If you want to send to staff, or customise your own message, you'll need to set up a Custom Communication Template based on a Custom Report Writer report - see how to do this here: Using a custom template

For more guidance on moving money and managing debt, you can see these resources:

• You can move balances to a different account, or to a student's sibling's account: Refund leavers or give the money to siblings
• You can use credit notes to settle a debt: Write off or settle debt for leavers
• Check out our Payments FAQs
• Check out our In-App Payments guide