This guide explains the different Customer Account Types available in Arbor for card payments, including default, invoice, ad-hoc, and School Shop accounts.
Permissions
You will need the Finance: Administer permission to set up and manage Customer Account Types.
If you don't have the permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.
What are customer account types?
Customer Account Types let you group payments by type into categories and pay them out to a single bank account. They dictate how parents interact with balances and invoices, and allow you to keep money for different areas of school life (like meals or trips) separate
What are default account types?
You get three accounts as standard in Arbor: Clubs, Trips, and Meals. These accounts are automatically created for you, and can all be enabled for card payments by navigating to School > Payments > Setup > Customer Account Types.
Setting up your own account types
In addition to the standard account types Arbor creates for you, you can create custom ones for things like wraparound care clubs, nursery fees and your school shop.
- With the exception of School Shop accounts, all customer account types you set up are top-up accounts.
What are invoice accounts?
Invoice accounts are used for areas where there is no running balance that parents can top up. In Arbor, the default Clubs and Trips accounts are invoice account types.
Parents cannot simply add money to these accounts in advance.
Instead, the amount owed for each club or trip is logged and managed within the Activities section of Arbor.
Parents make payments directly against the invoiced amount for that specific activity.
It is not possible to set up your own Invoice accounts for clubs and trips.
What are top-up accounts?
Top-up accounts include a running balance that parents can add money to, and that the school can deduct from. Top-up accounts are essentially a virtual pot of money that can be used to pay for meals, wraparound care clubs and more.
The default Meals account is a top-up account. Balances are deducted through invoices generated from the Meals section of Arbor.
You can set up additional ad-hoc accounts for other needs, such as wraparound care, a tuck shop, or nursery fees - these are also top-up accounts
What are School Shop accounts?
If you are setting up an account specifically to sell items to students or parents via the School Shop, you can create a School Shop account.
Make sure you select School Shop as the Category when setting this up. If you select the wrong category, you won't be able to select the right account type during setup, and parents and guardians won't be able to make purchases.
School Shop accounts are not top-up accounts; they do not have a running balance.
School Shop account types can only be used for the School Shop.
It is not possible to convert a top-up account type to a school shop account.
Further reading
To set up a new custom ad-hoc account, please see our guide on setting up another Customer Account Type.
To enable card payments for your accounts, read our Card Payments Setup series.
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