Card Payments Setup - 4. Entering School Director details

This article guides you through the third step in setting up card payments in Arbor, which involves adding your School Director's details.

This guide is the fourth in a series. The guides in this series are:

1. Introduction
2. Verifying school details
3. Uploading school documents
4. Entering School Director details
5. Entering Representative details
6. Adding a bank account for payouts
7. Checking your details
8. Confirming and troubleshooting verification
9. Enabling Customer Account Types
10. FAQs and further reading

Top Tip: Unsure about where to start with payments in Arbor, or need assistance with your setup? Why not try our In-App Payments Help Guide! 

The School Director explained

Now that you have confirmed your school's details and uploaded the required proof, you must provide the name of the person or people who have a director or equivalent role at your school. Then, you will need to provide proof of their relationship to your school.

Note on Controller/Owner versus School Director details

This section used to ask for details of a School Controller/Owner. This is now clarified as ‘Director’. It is the same person or people you would have used previously as School Controller/Owners. 
 

Who is a Director at a School?

The director is any senior individual responsible for managing the business, or any individual with governing responsibility codified in your school’s formal governing or incorporation documentation. The director is just a named person(s) and doesn't need to verify any changes or actions. You can name up to five directors in this section. 

Examples of roles that typically have this level of responsibility at a school are:

• Headteacher (including Executive Headteacher and Co-Headteacher, so long as they appear in the Department for Education database)
• Director 
• Principal
• Director of Finance or equivalent
• CEO or equivalent
• Chair of Governors
• Chair of Trustees

Examples of roles that typically don’t have this level of responsibility:

• Business Manager
• Administrator
• Office Manager
• Financial Accountant

School Director details explained

You will need the following details for the director:

• Their exact job title
• Legal first and last names
• Date of birth
• Work email address
• Their home address (important: not the school’s address)
• An attestation completed and signed by a school representative

What document do I need to upload and why?

Recent EU regulations require organisations that receive payments to demonstrate that the person or people they declare as directors do indeed hold a director role at the organisation. 

For schools, this is a bit more complicated because the directors and schools don’t typically show up in sources that are checked, such as Companies House.

The easiest way to verify this relationship is a director attestation. This is a signed form completed by a representative at the school who attests that the directors do indeed have a directorship relationship with the school. 

Who should complete the form?

It needs to be signed by the school representative (this should be you, as the person responsible for setting up and managing your school's Stripe payment account). You will be asked to fill in your own details in the next step of the setup process.

Where can I find the template form?

You can find a template of this letter below, or you can click the link to the template in the Director of Relationship Verification Document section.

• Director Attestation Template 

Entering School Director details

You must enter your School Director details into Arbor using the +Add button, as well as uploading the form. Complete both steps listed below.

Step 1: Enter the details into Arbor

To start adding your school's School Director(s) details into Arbor, click +Add in the School Directors section.

Next, enter the nominated person's details on the slide over and press Add school director

Any directors you add are listed in the School Directors section and can be clicked to be reviewed. If you need to make any edits:

• Click on the director's name
• Edit their information on the slideover as needed
• Click Save Changes to confirm your change or Delete to remove the entry completely

Ensuring you enter the right details

You must include the details of at least one director. The address you included must be the director’s home address, not the school’s address.

Include all of the following information for the director:

• Exact job title
• Legal first and last names
• Date of birth
• Work email address
• The Director's home postal address (not the school's address). The address fields below are required:
   
  • Home address line 1
  • City/town
  • Postcode
  • Country
     

Step 2: Uploading the form

To complete the form, follow these steps:

1. Download the form 
2. Fill it in - completed it digitally (e.g. Word or Google Docs) or by hand after printing. Include the following details
    
   • Your School's name
   • The school's address (not your home address)
     
     
      
   • The director's full legal name (first, middle and last names)
   • The director's full job title
   • The director's home address (including postcode) - Not the school's address
   • The director's Date of Birth
     
     
   • Your name
   • Your exact job title
   • Your date of birth
   • Your signature

   • Today's date

     
      

3. Sign the form - you can sign it digitally, or you can print, sign and upload a clear photo
4. Scan or photograph the form (Printed copies only)
5. Save the file as a .PDF
6. Upload it in .PDF form in the Attachments section
   
   

Avoiding issues with School Director details

The most common problems with Director details are related to the address you enter for them. These issues are not always apparent until later in the setup, so it is worth taking the time to get this right.

The address used in this step must be the director's personal home address (not the school's address).

• The address must be a valid, physical address. 
• Ensure this address is accurate and exists; if in doubt, verify its existence using a tool like Google Maps before proceeding.

Please also avoid using abbreviations or shortening words. Examples:

• Use 'Street' instead of 'St', 
• Use 'Wiltshire' instead of 'Wilt'. 

Moving to the next step

Now that you have added your school's director details and have checked that these are listed correctly, click the green Next button to proceed and move on to the following guide in this series: Entering the School Representative