Reviewing Balances and Adding Top Ups

This article explains how to review account balances and add top-ups for Clubs, Trips, and Meals within the MIS. It details the permissions required for viewing and administering finances, the process for topping up accounts, sending reminders for negative balances, and making card payments. It also provides guidance on bulk top-ups and the types of cards accepted for payments.

Permissions

• Finance: View - see account balances and access the Payments section on profiles
• Finance: Administer - top-up accounts

If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.

Which accounts can admins top up?

In the MIS, admins can log cash or cheque payments for Clubs, Trips and Meals. 

You can also take card payments for Meals and other Customer Accounts (that have card payments enabled), but not Clubs and Trips through the MIS as an admin. 

• You would need to Log in as a guardian to complete a card payment for a standard club or trip.

Using the Account Balances page

The School > Payments > Accounts > Balances page lets you review balances of different customer account types for students in school. This page only shows balance-based account types like Meals and Wraparound Care. Account types like Clubs, Trips, and School Shop use running balances and will not show.

The Account balances tables are listed so that the most overdrawn balances appear first, but you can also order by Student or Registration form by clicking on the column headers.

Use the tabs to switch between account types. The page defaults to the Meals tab.

Click the filter box at the top of the page, and apply additional filters like:

• The Academic Year you want to look at
• The Account status (All accounts or Accounts Owing Money)
• Students in specific groups

Or use the tick boxes to add/remove columns for Year Groups or Registration Forms. 

Sending a reminder to top up

Please see our guidance here on sending communications to students' guardians or staff about account balances: Send out reminders to top up a negative meal or account balance

Exporting statements

If you need an overview of every incoming and outgoing transaction associated with a top-up account within a specific timeframe, you can use the green Bulk export statements button in the top-right corner.

More on how this works here: Exporting Statements For Top-up Accounts

Topping up balances with the Bulk Action

You can bulk add Cash, Cheque or Bank Transfer top-ups from the School > Payments > Accounts > Balances page. It is not possible to add card payments from here.

To record multiple top-ups in Bulk:

• Select the students you wish to top up with the check boxes, 
• Click the Bulk action button 
• Choose Top Up Accounts.

• Enter the details for each top-up, such as:
   
  • The Amount 
  • The Bill Payer 
  • The Method (Cash, Bank Transfer or Cheque)
  • Any Narrative notes. 
     
• Click Save. 

Topping up a student's account by card as an admin

To top up a student's account by card as an Admin, you need to head to their profile (see Finding a student profile):

• Go Payments in the left-hand menu. 
  
  
   
• Click on the top-up account (e.g. Meals)
  
  
   
• Go to the Top-Ups page in the left-hand menu.

• Click the green Top up by card button (next to Top up by cash and Top up by cheque)
   

• Complete the following details on the slide-over:
   
  • Select the Bill payer 
  • Set a Payment amount (minimum £2)
  • Leave an optional Narrative note to label the payment
    
    

• Click Pay now button to be redirected to the secure Checkout page
  
  Top Tip: Can't click the button? Follow this article: I can't click the button to pay?

Using the secure checkout page 

If you have not previously saved Onelink payment details, you will see an overview of the top-up on the left-hand side and payment options on the right.

If you have previously saved payment details, the system will ask you to provide a verification code to reuse these payment details.

In all likelihood, these saved details will not be the parent's card details, so select Pay without Onelink if you see this screen, so that you can manually enter the correct card details.

• Enter the cardholder's details, including their email address
• Make sure you do not tick Save my information for faster checkout if you do not want to save the parent's details
  
  
   
• Click Pay

After you click Pay, you may need to perform Card Payment Authentication to complete the purchase.

Once the payment is complete you are redirected to a confirmation page and an email is sent to the default email address listed on the Bill Payer's Arbor profile.