Billing Initial Set-up
Overview
When using the Billing module for the first time, you will need to complete some initial steps before you can post invoices. You will also need to go over these steps when setting up a new Billing Run for each school year, to make sure that everything is still set up correctly.
Firstly, you will need to set up Debtor profiles for the parents at your school.
Then, you will need to set up your Billing Run for the year in the Billing Run tab, including any Recurring Contribution options you want available to parents when paying online. Then, go to the Discounts and Item Templates tabs, and either set these up or check that they are still correct from last year.
If your school uses Discounts, add Discounts to your students in People Management, before raising any fees.
Permissions
| Billing.Admin | Allows the user to manage the Compass Billing management module. |
| Billing.Base | Gives the user access to the Billing page and lets you view the dashboard & log tabs as well as viewing the billing schedule itself. |
| Billing.Configure | Allows users to access the Item Templates tab and perform all actions inside. |
| Billing.Create | Users with this permission have the ability to create ad-hoc transactions, receipting, creation of billing schedules, modification of billing schedules that you've created, duplicate billing schedules. |
For information on assigning permissions, please refer to the 'Permissions' article from our Knowledge Base.
Bulk Creating Debtors
Create the initial Billing Run
Any Billing Schedules issued are contained within a Billing Run. We recommend having a single Billing Run for each year.
To create the initial Billing Run, go to 'Billing Management' under the 'Organisation' menu and click to the 'Billing Runs' tab.
Click 'Add Billing Run'. This will open a pop-up for completion.
Add in the applicable title and description content. Parents will see this information when logging into their parent portal to make payments. The description field can be used to communicate all the information pertaining to how your school allocates funds etc.
To see how this appears to parents, please refer to the 'Parent View' section of the 'Billing' article.
You can then add any Recurring Contributions Configurations you would like to offer i.e. a four part payment plan, a two part payment plan etc. These will be available to parents to choose when completing payment, and will automatically debit the payments from the card they use to pay.
When all content is added, click 'Save' and the Billing Run will be created.
Once you have saved the Billing Run, you will be able to see the Run in the Billing Run tab.
You can click the associated edit pencil icon to adjust the settings of an existing Billing Run i.e. the details communicated to parents about the contributions, Instalment options etc.
Clicking the title of a Billing Run will show you all Billing Schedules issued within the Run, and also allow you to add/manage Recurring Contribution Configurations and Agreements and Questions.
Contribution Configurations
To manage the Recurring Contribution options available to parents throughout the year, you can click the title of the Billing Run for that year and go to the Contribution Configurations tab.
You can add new Recurring Contributions Configurations throughout the year using the 'Add Contribution Configuration' button.
As the year progresses, the Contribution Dates and Charge proportions will update automatically to reflect what parents will be able to select when going in to pay through the Action Centre.
For more information on Recurring Contributions, please refer to the 'Recurring Contributions' article from the Knowledge Base.
Agreements and Questions
To include Agreements and Questions for parents to complete (i.e. BYOD Agreements, ICT Agreements etc) add them to a Billing Run.
To do so, go to Billing Management under the 'Organisation' Menu. Click to the 'Billing Run' tab, and then click on the Title of the Billing Run you want to edit to open the Billing Run Administration page.
Click to the Agreements & Questions tab.
Agreements
Agreements are compulsory for parents to agree to in order to finalise payment. This usually includes things like ICT Usage Agreements.
To add an agreement, click 'Add Agreement'.
In the pop-up, give the Agreement a title, add in the content then designate who must sign the agreement, i.e the student, the parent or both. You will need to tick as visible to the parent if you want parent completion as part of the annual contribution collection process.
Then add the applicable students that the agreement pertains to.
Click 'Save' and the agreement will be added to the list of Agreements within that Billing Run.
To edit, click the associated edit pencil icon.
You can then export the responses when needed.
Questions
If you have additional questions that parents need to complete as part of the annual contribution process, you can add them to the 'Questions' tab within the Billing Run.
Questions must be completed by parents as part of the contribution process, but do not require parents to agree to them. Common questions include asking about medical information like allergies, or whether a parent is happy for a student’s photo to be used in school publications.
Type in the question details, add in the students the question pertains to and then click 'Save'.
Parents will be prompted (when visibility to parents is enabled) to complete the questions as they complete the annual contribution process.
You can then export the responses when needed.
Discounts
Once you have set up your Billing Run, you will need to set up any Discounts that you want to be available to families.
For details on setting up Discounts, please see the 'Creating a Discount' article from the Knowledge Base.
Create Item Templates
When creating a Billing Schedule, you will add charge items. So that you don't have to set up the same item types for each Billing Schedule, you will need to create Item templates.
Please refer to the 'Items Template' article from our Knowledge Base for further details on how to do this.
Ready to go
Once your item templates are created, you can commence using the Billing module. Please refer to the 'Billing Schedules' article and the 'Billing' article from our Knowledge Base for further information.
Related Articles
Billing
Overview Billing Management allows you to set up and manage parent payments of school contributions, donations, and other items, as well as respond to agreements and questions as part of the payment process. You can also export summary Reports for ...Billing End of Year Rollover
Overview When you reach the end of the school year, you will need to make sure that parents don’t have any outstanding fees showing as payable in their Action Centre, and start to get ready for the next year’s school fees. Closing out the current ...Billing Day to Day Management
Overview Once you have set up Billing and are ready to start recording payments, you will primarily be working in the 'Dashboard' tab. This is where you will create receipts and print them for parents, raise ad-hoc invoices, print Statements of ...Billing Schedules
Overview Billing Schedules are used to generate and process invoices for items such as school fees, consumables, resources etc. This is where you will set up all of your school fees before the start of the school year. You will also check in here ...NSW - Billing
Overview The Billing Management module has been developed as per the requirements of the NSW Department of Education Student Finance projects, and is one of the approved vendors of third party parent payments. This module allows you to set up and ...