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Make a payment

[For Guardians] Learn how to make a payment to your program with brightwheel

Sabrina avatar
Written by Sabrina
Updated over a week ago

After adding a payment method, you can easily make payments towards your child's tuition and fees directly from your brightwheel account.


Make a payment

  1. Log in to brightwheel (web or app)

  2. Click Payments

  3. Select Change school at the top to select your program

  4. Choose a child or select "All children' to pay for multiple students

  5. Click Make a payment

Note: When making a payment, you will have the option to:

  • Pay all open invoices – Pays all unpaid invoices

  • Pay individual invoice(s) – Select specific invoices and amounts to pay (useful if you're only responsible for part of a bill or are not ready to pay it all)

  • Pay other amount – Enter any amount to apply toward open invoices. If there are no unpaid invoices, the payment will be saved as a credit and will be used to pay the next invoice posted (useful if you wish to overpay or prepay a student's bill)


How to pay for multiple students

If you have multiple children to pay bills for, you can pay them all at once from the 'All children' tab on your Payments page. We recommend paying bills for all children at once so only one processing fee applies.

For student's in multiple programs, you click Change school at the top of a student's billing profile to switch between schools.

FAQs

Can I submit an overpayment or prepay for multiple students at once?

You must go the individual student's billing profile—this option isn’t available from the 'All children' tab.

I've enabled autopay. Will payments for multiple students be paid together or separately?

If autopay is enabled for multiple students with the same invoice due date and payment method, brightwheel will automatically combine the payments into one transaction to help reduce processing fees.


How to confirm a payment was successful

Once payment is made, you can view the 'Payment Status' from the Payments & Credits tab to see if it was successful.

Here is a list of payment statuses and what they means:

Payment status

Meaning

Paid

Payment was successfully processed

Pending

Payment is processing (via ACH/PADs or FSA/HSA). This may take 5–7 business days to process depending on the bank.

Partially Paid

Part of the invoice has been paid

Partially Refunded

A partial payment has been refunded to the payer

Refunded

The full amount was refunded to the payer. Online refunds may take 5-10 business days to appear on a payer's bank account.

Unpaid

Invoice has not been paid

Voided

Invoice was canceled and is no longer due

Failed

The payment did not go through. See My payment failed. What should I do?


FAQs

Can I cancel a pending payment?

Once a payment enters a Pending/Processing status, neither brightwheel nor your program is able to cancel the payment. Once the payment has processed and it is marked as Paid, please reach out to your program to discuss options for refunding the payment.

Why does my account have a negative balance due?

If you pay more than the balance owed, the extra amount shows as a credit on the account (a negative balance) and will automatically go toward your next invoice. No additional actions are required.

Please note, only the person assigned to an invoice can apply credits to it. If that’s not you, your payment will stay on the account as a credit until it can be used. We recommend contacting your provider to manually apply the available credit to any due invoices, or assign you to the invoice.

Why can't I make a payment?

This most likely means the program is not accepting online payments. Please contact the program directly to learn more.

How can I make an overpayment/extra payment?


If you need to submit an overpayment, or are looking to prepay a student’s account, this can only be done from an individual student’s billing profile. You will not see the option to submit an overpayment from the ‘All Children’ tab.

Here's how:

  1. Click on the child's name to view their billing account

  2. Click Make a Payment > Other amount

  3. Input the amount to pay

  4. Click Review > Pay now

Note: If you submit an overpayment before a charge is posted, this will result in a credit on the account since there are no invoices to allocate the payment to. This means the next time a charge is posted, the credit will apply to the charge automatically.

How can I make a partial payment?

You can submit a partial payment for individual students, but not for multiple children at once. To begin, click a student's name to view their billing account, then select Make a payment.

Select the Other amount option to submit the partial payment.

Once you complete the partial payment, the payment will automatically apply to the oldest invoice on the student's billing account.

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