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[For Admins + Billing Only Role] Learn how to log and apply online and offline payments to invoices.

Sabrina avatar
Written by Sabrina
Updated over 2 weeks ago

Payers and admins can pay specific invoices — this makes it clear what exactly has been paid, providing more transparency on account balances and making accounting cleaner.

Review the processes below to learn about applying online payments to invoices, logging & applying offline payments to invoices, and unapplying online and offline payments to invoices.

Payment Methods

Admins can enable payers to pay online through Billing Settings, using either their direct bank information (ACH) or a credit card. These payment methods must be set up by the payer in the mobile app. Admins can also accept offline cash and check payments.

Learn more about payment methods here. To see an overview of online payments and better understand how to log and void offline payments, please see this resource.

Apply an Online Payment to an Invoice

Online Payments are automatically tracked when a payer uses the brightwheel billing platform to send funds directly to the provider to pay down an account balance, but may sometimes still need to be applied to a specific invoice by following the steps below.

  1. Navigate to the student’s billing profile on the web

  2. Open the Available credits & payments tab

  3. Click Actions from the drop-down menu and select Apply to invoices

  4. Under the Amount applied column, type the amount of the payment that you’d like to apply to an open invoice

  5. Click Save & apply

Log & Apply Offline Payments to an Invoice

You can log and apply offline payments (payments made via cash, check, or a third-party payment tool like Venmo) to invoices all at once, or there may be scenarios where you've logged an offline payment but need to go back and apply it to an invoice at a later time.

ℹ️ Please remember that logging an offline payment is strictly for tracking purposes of offline payments that you have already received. Any checks or cash payments will still need to be deposited at the program's financial institution.

Log & Apply Offline Payment toward an Invoice

  1. Navigate to the student’s billing profile on the web

  2. Click the Select an Action drop-down menu

  3. Choose Log a Payment

  4. Enter the Payment Method, Amount, Date Paid, Payer, and an optional Note

  5. Add details into the Apply payment to open invoices section, if needed
    ​NOTE: To apply the offline payment to an open invoice, just locate the specific invoice and under the Amount applied column, type the amount of the payment that you’d like to apply to the open invoice

  6. Click Save & apply

Admins do not need to apply payments to invoices right away and can skip Step 5 above if needed. Unapplied payments will show up as an available credit/payment in the account balance on the Current Activity tab and can be applied at a later date following the process below.

Offline payment is already logged but needs to be applied to an invoice

  1. Navigate to the student’s billing profile on the web

  2. From the Current activity tab, open the Available credits & payments tab

  3. Locate the offline payment that is unapplied to any invoice
    ​NOTE: The 'Paid invoices' column will show a status of 'Unapplied'

  4. Click the Actions drop-down menu next to the unapplied payment

  5. Select Apply to invoices

  6. Under the Amount applied column, type the amount of the payment that you’d like to apply to the open invoice
    ​NOTE: The Payment Details fields will be uneditable, besides the Notes field. The 'New balance' and 'Payment status' columns will auto-update for this invoice to reflect the applied offline payment.

  7. Click Save & apply

Unapply a Payment to an Invoice

Online and offline payments can be unapplied to an invoice they were previously applied to as well!

  1. Navigate to the student’s billing profile on the web

  2. Click on the All transactions tab

  3. On the invoice that the payment is applied to press Actions

  4. From the drop-down menu, select View/Edit

  5. Select Actions on the payment, from the drop-down menu press Unapply

The payment will then be unapplied from the invoice and will be visible under the Available credits & payments tab on the student’s billing profile. You can apply this payment to another posted invoice or it’ll apply automatically to the next posted invoice on the account.

FAQ

A student's account shows a $0.00 balance, but there is an open invoice and a credit balance. How can I correct this?

If an account balance is $0.00 but you notice that there is an open invoice and credit balance for the same amount, this means that there is an available payment or credit that can be applied to the open invoice. Once you apply the available payment or credit to the invoice, the invoice will be marked paid.

Can a payer make a payment when there aren't any open invoices on the student's billing account?

Yes, payers can submit a payment at any time, even if there aren't any open invoices on the student's account. When a payment is submitted when the account balance is $0.00, the payment will create a credit balance and the payment will be available to apply to any new invoices that are posted on the account.

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