With brightwheel Billing, providers can easily accept online payments through brightwheel and also record offline payments made outside of the platform such as cash, check, or third-party apps like Zelle.
This added flexibility allows you to accept a variety of payment methods while keeping student balances accurate and making end-of-year tax reporting simple and stress-free.
What are offline payments?
Any payment made outside of the brightwheel platform—like cash, check, subsidies, or third-party apps (e.g. Venmo, Interac e-Transfer)—can be logged as an offline payment and applied to a student’s invoice or balance.
Logging an offline payment is for tracking purposes only. You'll still need to deposit cash or checks with your financial institution.
Admins can choose to email a receipt when recording these payments.
Log an offline payment
Providers can take the steps below to to document payments made outside of brightwheel via cash, check, or a third-party app.
Log in on the web
Click Billing > Students > Select a student
Press Select an Action > Log a Payment
Complete the steps to enter the amount, payment method, notes, and apply it to any open invoices
Note: You can log an offline payment without immediately applying it to any invoices—especially if there are no open invoices at the time.
Unapplied offline payments will appear as an available credit on the student account. You can allocate and apply this credit to an invoice at any time in the future.
Report on offline payments
Accurate reporting is essential for administrators to get a clear picture of their program’s finances.
Offline payments will be documented in all brightwheel Billing reports, except the Deposit Report since this includes only online payments processed through brightwheel. For a full breakdown of available reports, check out our Overview of Billing Reporting Options.
FAQs
Why can't I log an offline payment?
Why can't I log an offline payment?
It could be you need to finish setting up. Before you can log an offline payment (cash, check, etc.) the billing setup must be complete and at least one payer added to a child's billing profile.
Can international providers use brightwheel for billing?
Can international providers use brightwheel for billing?
Providers outside the U.S. and Canada cannot process online payments or receive deposits through brightwheel, as our payment processor is not compatible with these regions. However, international customers—or those who choose not to accept payments through brightwheel—can still leverage the platform to manage billing plans for families.
These providers can still track cash or check payments as offline payments, post charges to student billing accounts, notify parents of due balances, view what is owed, and issue receipts.