Brightwheel's billing platform prioritizes timely payments for administrators. It enables easy identification of past due balances and allows the option to charge late fees. This article explains late payment fee policy setup and processing.
Configure Settings and Policy
The first step needed is to configure your Late Payment Fees if you have not done so already. In your Billing Settings, you can set the late fee amount, grace period, and how soon the fees should be due once charged.
💡 Learn more in our Configure Billing Settings resource! Once configured, you're ready to process and/or waive fees as outlined below.
Process Late Payment Fees
Once the late payment fee settings have been configured, these charges can start to be processed against that policy.
From the At a Glance dashboard or Students tab, choose to Add a late payment fee from the Select an action drop-down
The table displayed will include all instances of past due payments that have not yet been waived or already had a late fee applied
Use the checkboxes on the left to select the charges for which to charge a late payment fee
Click Review & charge
Add an optional message in Notes to be sent with the late payment charge
Review the charges and make changes as needed, click Create Charges
ℹ️ This will create an invoice that posts to the student's account and payers will be notified immediately. Late payment fees will always be assigned to the primary payer.
Waive Late Payment Fees
Admins reserve the right to waive late payment fees when applicable.
From the At a Glance dashboard or Students tab, choose to Add a late payment fee from the Select an action drop-down
The table displayed will include all instances of past due payments that have not yet been waived or already had a late fee applied
Use the checkboxes on the left to select the charges that should be waived
Click Waive
Click Are you sure? This will waive X charge to confirm the action
💡 If a late payment fee was charged by mistake and needs to be voided, void that invoice from the student's billing profile.
Late Payment Communications
Communication with families is a vital function of brightwheel.
As always, changes to a student account will result in an email or SMS text message to the primary payer contact for students. Only the primary payer will be notified when a late payment fee is added, when the fee becomes due, and when the fee becomes past due. However, all payers will be able to see and pay the late payment fee invoices from their accounts.