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How payments in brightwheel work
How payments in brightwheel work

[For Admins & Billing Only Roles] Gain an overview on how payments work, payment types and common questions.

Sabrina avatar
Written by Sabrina
Updated today

Brightwheel makes it easy than ever to track family payments and monitor student account balances!

This resource is useful for new providers looking to gain a comprehensive overview of family payments in brightwheel, as well as the tools available to track and manage payments effectively.


Types of payments you can track

Families can make payments online through brightwheel or you can track payments made offline, outside of brightwheel (E.g. cash, Venmo). You can customize the types of payment methods you wish to accept in your billing settings.

Online payments

Online payments are automatically tracked when a payer adds a payment method and uses brightwheel to pay an account balance. Payments can be made via credit/debit card or direct bank transfer, each with a service fee specific to your program.

Offline payments

Some programs allow offline payments like cash, checks, or 3rd-party systems (Venmo, Zelle, Interac e-Transfers, etc.).

You can log offline payments in brightwheel for tracking and apply them to the student’s account balance, but note that this is for record-keeping only. Payments made offline still need to be deposited at your financial institution


View the status of a payment

Providers can easily review the status of a payment to see if it has been paid or not, or if it is still processing. To do this, you'll want to review the Payment status for a given invoice or transaction.

You can check the payment status by running the Payments & credits report or by heading to the student's billing account and clicking All transactions> Credits & payments:

What each payment status means

  • Pending: The parent has submitted an payment, but it is still processing and has not yet been deposited.

  • Paid (not deposited): The parent submitted a payment, but the money has not been deposited yet due to processing times

  • Paid (deposited): The parent's original payment has successfully completed processing and the funds have been deposited into your account

  • Paid: An offline payment (such as cash or check) is recorded.

  • Failed: The parent's payment has failed.


How families make payments

Once families add a payment method, they can pay specific invoices, all open invoices, or any amount toward the student balance in the brightwheel app. If they are enrolled in autopay, they will be charged automatically on the invoice due date.


Tips for smoother payments

Require automatic payments (autopay)

Providers can require families enroll in automatic payments, which ensures the families payment method is automatically charged for a invoice on the due date. This avoids families making manual payments and makes it much more likely for you to get paid online.

Share resources with families

Empower your families with the information they need and help them find answers to their billing questions with these valuable resources:


FAQs

How do I see which payments have been deposited into my account?

From the student's billing profile, the payment status will show as Paid (deposited), or you can view all of the deposits made into your program's account using the expanded Deposits Report.

I'm located in Canada, will payments appear in the Canadian Dollar (CAD)?

If you are a provider based in the Canada, amounts will be displayed in the Canadian Dollar (CAD), denoted with the dollar ($) sign.

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