For reference - Shop or uniform payments through Clubs or a Customer Account Type

Gwyn Mabo

December 22, 2023 16:05

We have new School Shop functionality to help you manage payments

You can see how to get started by taking a look here: School Shop - Setting up and managing shop or uniform payments and purchases

Until you're ready to switch, this is what we previously advised:

Clubs are best if you would like guardians to select specific items to purchase through the Parent Portal or Parent App
Customer Account Types are best if you just need to charge for a pre-agreed amount, such as an annual fee and want guardians to top up the account for payments to be deducted from

You'd need to use your Payments Report to see payments has been made, as you won't get a notification.

Method	Positives	Negatives
Using Clubs	Parents can purchase items in advance of collection through the Parent Portal or Parent App Parents can choose which specific items to purchase Choose specific groups of students to sell to	If you have many different items with different prices, it can be difficult to manage who has purchased what and when Payments are all paid out to the bank account linked with Clubs
Using a new Customer Account Type	Parents top up their child's account through the Parent Portal or Parent App The balance can be amended by your school when an item is purchased Payments into each Customer Account Type can be paid out into different bank accounts	An invoice must be created each time items are purchased to deduct the amount from the balance If you have set up each item as a separate Customer Account Type, it can be difficult to manage who has purchased what and when All students will have this account, there isn't a way to only set up the account for certain students

What permissions are needed?

Extra Curricular: Administer - Set up the shop as a Club
Finance: Administer - Manage payments for Clubs or other Customer Account Types

Setting it up as a Club

Step 1 - Add your club

Go to School > Activities > Clubs. This will bring you to the Clubs overview page. From here you can view the clubs you have already created in school and set up new clubs here as well.

Click +Add to create a new club. Select that your club is paid.

You can then choose the name and select the students the club is available to. If you allow parents to sign up to this club through the Parent Portal, parents will be able to pay for items through the Parent Portal and Parent App.

You can also specify a maximum number of participants, choose whether parents have to give consent when they sign up and whether to create an attendance register for this club, then click Save.

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Step 2 - Add sessions (number of purchasable items)

After having created your club, you will need to add some sessions in the future to tell the system that guardians should be able to make payments. Click +Add in the Sessions section.

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Select to add a single session.

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The number of sessions you set up should be the maximum number of each item that can be purchased. For example, 3 shirts.

Set the dates to the end of your academic year.

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Step 3 - Add membership periods (items to purchase)

You will need to add memberships by clicking +Add. Each membership period will act as a different purchasable item.

Set up your item as shown below, adding your school's price. Add in the dates between which guardians should be able to purchase this item through the ParentPortal or Parent App.

Repeat this process for each item you want to charge for.

Please note: When creating another membership, if the Period chosen and the Pricing Basis are the same, your first membership will be overwritten. Make sure to set them with slightly different availability dates to prevent this.

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Using the club

Parents will be able to purchase items through the Parent Portal or Parent App. If you need to issue a refund, take a look at this article.

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You can log whether Cash, Cheque or Bank Transfer payments have been made for items by adding Club Participants.

Select the students, select the item to charge for and add in how many were purchased.

Add in the payment method then add the log. You'll be able to see any purchased items in the Club Participants section.

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Need to issue a refund? Take a look at this article.

Setting it up as a new Customer Account Type

Setting up the account

Follow the instructions in this article to set up your account: Setting up a new Customer Account Type

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Once you have set up the accounts, you can set initial balances (if there are outstanding debts) from School > Payments > Setup > Set Initial Balances . Follow these instructions: Creating Initial Account Balances

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Using the account

Guardians can top up the account in the same way as topping up the Meals account through the parent Portal and Parent App.

You can top up or add invoices for a particular student from the Payments section of their profile. You can also add invoices in bulk for students from School > Payments > Accounts > Invoices.

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