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Help Guides |
Accepting Card Payments
Contents:
How it works
It is important you understand how the fees feature works on the system before you read the following guide. If you haven't done so already, please see Fees > How it works (in the help section)
You can accept card payments online from parents for fees. The parent portal is required for parents to access fees information in order to make payments.
They can select which invoices they want to pay and also decide if they want to cover the transaction fees which must remain optional.
Once payment is made, the card payment will automatically be entered into the system as fees entry. There is no need to enter the fees manually.
Feature Overview
- Parents can choose how much they want to pay for each invoice.
- They can choose to pay for upcoming invoices also.
- They can choose to cover the transaction fees if they wish
- The transaction fees amount can be set by you depending on what rates you get for each payment gateway.
- All children/siblings can be paid for under a single transaction. Parent can also pay partially if they choose to.
- Payment will automatically add the entry for the invoice so you do not need to add it manually.
- You can enable or disable the payment gateway whenever you want.
Transaction Fees
The transaction fees are from the payment gateway provider. We have no control over this. This is usually a percetage plus a fixed amount e.g. PayPal fees are 2.9% of the transaction plus +30p. So if £100 is paid by parents then you will be charged 2.9%+30p = £3.20 meaning you will receive £96.80. However, we have implemented Stripe (not PayPal) which means you'll get the best rates for this purpose at 1.4% + 20p
To get a better rate, you can contact the provider and provide your charity number.
Does IBEUK/IBEAMS collect money on our behalf
No. The fees go from parents directly to you via the payment gateway provider. We receive no amount, no information nor any data in any form about the payments.How Direct Debit Works
How do parents set up direct debit?
Via the parent portal only. Parents should go to the fees menu item on the parent portal and click on "Set up direct debit" button. If they've already set it up, the button will say "View Direct Debit" where they can select which students get processed via their Direct Debit mandate.
When do payments go out?
- The process starts on the Due Date of the invoice. (Please see invoicing first as all invoices should be created for the entire year beforehand).
- The process start between 8 and 9 am (GMT).
- The payment gateway provider usually gives 3-5 days to the customer to stop the payment. If there's no intervention, the payment is processed by them on the 3rd-5th day from initiation
- It can take up to 10 days for the payments to reach your account.
Can parents cancel their direct debit?
Yes. From the parent portal they can unselect the students. The invoices can be sent using the fees reminder feature.
CHECKLIST:
- Check that Direct Debit is enabled on the payment gateway page.
- Ensure your Parent Portal uses SSL (https)
- Check the "Direct Debits Stats" page from the fees menu to ensure parents have activated it
- On the due date, check at 9pm that direct debits have started. You can do this by going to Fees Reminders page and see that it says "Processing"
How to configure Payment Gateway
We no longer provide support for Stripe Direct Debit issues. Card payments with Stripe are working perfectly without issues but direct debit has been problematic with Stripe's API holding payments as "pending" and not providing any support to resolve matters with our users. We therefore recommend using GoCardless for Direct Debits. You can still set up stripe if you want to take card payments.