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January 2024 Product Spotlight

NEW: Form improvements, new staff profiles, and top tips for tax season!

Vee Avenir avatar
Written by Vee Avenir
Updated over 10 months ago

Happy 2024! As you think about the year ahead, see how brightwheel can help make it your strongest year yet.

*New* improvements and resources for you below:

đŸ§‘â€đŸ’» Improved staff profiles

đŸ“ș [Webinar] Top tips for managing tax season this year

📔 Form improvements, including resharing forms

and so much more.

NEW: Staff profile refresh for easier viewing.

Staff profiles have been redesigned to be more easily navigated! Personal information is easy to view at a glance, staff members’ brightwheel roles and statuses are visible from their profiles, and there’s a new tab for attachments so any important documents are in one place.

Plus, for Gusto payroll users, view more payroll information directly in brightwheel staff profiles so you can save time and avoid switching between platforms. Learn more here.

Take charge of tax season with brightwheel’s billing features and our expert tax webinar.

Be prepared for tax season:

As you get ready to file 2023 taxes, you can count on the Taxes Resource Hub in the brightwheel Help Center to answer any questions you may have about 1099-Ks, billing reports, year-end statements, and more.

Families can access year-end tax statements by 1/31:

  • Families will have a direct link to their statement in their account, making it easier than ever to access what they need!

  • Families are being notified once statements are available, reducing inbound questions to you & your staff.

  • You can also access student statements by going to their billing profile and then Statements in your account! We will be notifying you as well once all payer statements have been made available.

Watch the webinar highlight below to learn how to:

đŸ‘Ș Ensure that you and your staffs’ qualifying life events or change of addresses are accounted for

❗Avoid any common pitfalls that may impact your taxes

💰 Proactively avoid tax penalties and interests

and more!


​Forms are getting a big upgrade. You’ll be able to use forms to complete incident reports, permission slips, and so much more.

Here’s what’s new.

Send the same form every year? You no longer have to duplicate forms. Just resend the form(s) previously sent so families can fill them out again.

Looking to use brightwheel for incident reports or permission slips? Soon, you’ll be able to fill out fields of a Fillable Form before sending it to families. Create a form template, prefill sections such as an incident description or field trip itinerary, and have parents fill out the rest!

Search and filter forms

No more scrolling through long lists of forms! You’ll soon be able to search and filter forms and submissions to easily find what you’re looking for.

And even better, families can now view forms on the mobile app, making it even easier to submit them back to you.

Learn more about these improvements here.
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  • Student portfolio upgrades. Families can now view student portfolios from their mobile devices and print portfolios from the actions drop down.

  • Observations on the web. You no longer have to switch devices to log observations—you can now log observations and activities from your mobile or web app.

  • Report absence reasons. Last month, we shared that you could choose from a list of preset reasons when marking a student absent in brightwheel. Absence reasons now carry over to custom reporting!


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Additional Resources

  • Brightwheel billing: if you are not currently using brightwheel's billing feature, learn more here and join providers who save 5 hours each week using the platform.

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    Premium administrator and you're not seeing these monthly newsletters in your email inbox, sign up to start receiving them here.

    • You can also take a look at all our past newsletters in this hub.

  • Account Setup: If you are still setting up your brightwheel account, complete our two onboarding trainings today to build quality connections, efficiently run your program, and simplify billing with brightwheel.

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