Recurring Contributions

Recurring Contributions can be used within Billing Management and Course Confirmations.

If you choose to set up Contribution Configurations in your Billing Run for the year or within Course Confirmations, parents will be able opt-in to pay any invoices within that Billing Run/Course Confirmation using a Recurring Contribution. These will be managed primarily in the Recurring Contributions module, rather than in Billing Management.

Within Billing, there will be changes to how things display in Billing Management when a parent sets up a Recurring Contribution. 

Initially, when you have raised fees for a student, the invoices will be viewable by debtor in the Billing Dashboard tab. There will be one invoice per Billing Item, and the cost will be for the total Billing Item cost (less any Discounts). 

When a parent opts in to a Recurring Contribution, a Credit Note is automatically added to their account to zero-out the outstanding amounts on all of these invoices. Then, new invoices are created, breaking each Billing Item down into the proportions set by the Recurring Contribution. These can be quickly identified by the added text in the invoice description '(Student NAME) - Instalment Date'. 

These invoices will not show as payable in the parent’s Action Centre, and you will not be able to manually add receipts to these invoices. They will show as greyed out invoices when you are adding a receipt for that debtor, and won’t be able to be selected.

As each instalment is automatically debited from the parent’s card, a receipt is automatically generated for the matching instalment invoices. 

Permissions

Staff will require the applicable permissions to access and manage recurring contributions.

PaymentPlansBase - Allows staff access to view recurring contribution details but not edit or add recurring contributions

PaymentInstalmentsAdmin - Provides adminstrative level of access to recurring contributions including the ability to edit/create contributions

Users who need to administrate recurring contributions, will need the PaymentPlansBase permission to access the module AND the PaymentInstalmentsAdmin permission to have administrative access. 

For details on permissions in Compass, please refer to the 'Permissions' article from our Knowledge Base.

Manual Add Recurring Contribution (Billing Management Plan)

To add a Recurring Contribution manually for fees raised through Billing Management, go to the Grid Icon, then Recurring Contributions. Click ‘New Recurring Contribution’.

Check the ‘Billing Management Plan’ box. 

     

Start in the ‘Current Allocations’ section. Click ‘Add Invoices’ to select all of the invoices that the parent wants to pay. You can use the pencil icon to adjust the amount that the parent is contributing towards that invoice.

NB: Changing the amount for an invoice in Recurring Contributions does not change the total value of the invoice in Billing Management. It only changes how much the parent is paying in this Contribution.

For example, for a $100 invoice, a parent can choose to pay $50 towards this in a Recurring Contribution. The invoice will still show in Billing Management and the parent’s Action Centre with $50 outstanding.

Once all of the invoices look correct, you will be able to see the total amount for the entire transaction at the bottom of the list.

You will then be able to set up instalments in the ‘Add Contributions’ section. 

     

Once these have been set up, the ‘Total’ in Current Allocations and the ‘Total Amount (billed + outstanding)’ should match. The Recurring Contribution will not save if these are different. 

Changes to Recurring Contributions

If a parent has set up a Recurring Contribution, had instalments processed, and then wants to make a change, such as changing an instalment amount or change which fees the contribution applies to, you can change their existing Recurring Contribution, and this will automatically update the corresponding documents in Billing Management.

Go to Recurring Contributions, under the Organisation Menu. 

Search for the name of the parent or student to locate the Recurring Contribution. Click on the pencil icon to edit. 

     

You can make changes to the dates and amounts of the instalments by removing existing instalments and adding new instalments.

If an instalment is ‘Pending’, you can remove this using the red X. 

If it has ‘Failed’, you can cancel this by clicking on the blue ‘View Attempts’ button.

     

Select ‘Cancel’ and then ‘Apply Action’.

     

You can also change the total amount of the Recurring Contribution by making adjustments to the Current Allocations section. You can remove invoices using the red X, adjust amounts allocated to each invoice using the pencil icon, and add new invoices. 

Once you have finished making changes to Recurring Contributions for Billing Management Plans, you will need to ensure that the ‘Total amount (billed + outstanding)’ is the same as the ‘Total’ listed in the Current Allocations field. 

     

Then, click Save. 

The corresponding documents in Billing Management will automatically update to reflect the changes made.

     

Archiving the plan will remove all instalment invoices in Billing Management, as well as the Credit Note for the Recurring Contribution. The receipts from any instalments which have already been paid will automatically be reallocated to the original invoices which were raised by the Billing Schedule. Any outstanding amount will become payable again. 

Archive a Recurring Contribution