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What is the Billing Operations Checklist?

IN THIS ARTICLE:
Review iClassPro's Billing Operations Checklist, which is intended to give your business a set of guidelines and best practices for your billing process with iClassPro.

What is the Billing Operations Checklist?

The Billing Operations Checklist provides a list of tasks that most businesses will run over each billing cycle to stay on top of issuing charges and collecting payments from customers.

NOTE: Because every business works differently, it is important to note that what works best for your business may be a little different than the recommendations below. Any items in the checklist that do not apply to your business can be skipped.

Step 1. Processing New Enrollments & Online Activity

WHEN: Daily

WHY: To ensure that all requests are handled in a timely manner (and also guarantee that all enrollments are up-to-date when processing billing), it is imperative that employees handle all enrollment requests as they come in from the Customer Portal through the Online Activity window (e.g., approving/denying new enrollment, transfer, and drop requests).

It is also important to note that if an enrollment is manually created by or approved by a staff member, charges and payments are not automatically created/recorded on the customer's ledger (unless a class enrollment is created via the Enrollment Wizard). Enrollment requests approved via the Online Activity window will require staff members to manually create associated charges and/or payments if payment is required at the time the enrollment is approved.

Some examples of enrollment requests that may need to be processed:

Step 2. Keeping Charge Categories Consistent

WHEN: Daily

WHY: Charge Categories are labels that are created by staff and then attached to charges during billing. These labels are used to uniquely identify charges incurred by customers (usually in reference to a billing period or specific miscellaneous fee).

For example, businesses that bill classes monthly will likely have Charge Categories created for each month's tuition (January Tuition, February Tuition, etc.). When used properly, the Charge Category will also allow you to detect whether a customer has already been charged tuition for a specific billing period. 

Step 3. Locate families with invalid/missing Payment information

WHEN: At least one week prior to the day of billing

WHY: To find out which customers may not have any saved payment information on file, or whose payment method may be about to expire/has expired so you can reach out to them to update the information. This will help reduce the number of declined payments and may help prevent chargeback cases.

There are two ways to do this: by filtering the FAMILIES page using the "All Payment Types" filter, or by running the Recurring Billing Report (FIN-9).

Step 4. Generate Category List Report (FIN-6)

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: Depending on how you have your Auto Charge Scheduler configured, you may have a single charge category set for class tuition charges created through the Customer Portal. If a customer registers close to the end of the month, they may be charged a prorated amount (if there are still billable class dates in the month) or charged in full for the following month (if there are no billable class dates left). This can occasionally result in a customer being charged twice. 

  • See the "Auto Charge Scheduler" document for more information about how the system determines which Charge Category to assign to tuition charges created via the Customer Portal.

To help keep this from happening, we recommend running a Category List Report (FIN-6) prior to billing to locate these families. Running the list for the last 14 days of the month is generally sufficient to find these as anyone who enrolled prior to that would have been charged a prorated amount for the current month and should be charged for the next month.

Step 5. Process Class Tuition charges

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: The Class Tuition Charges task will allow you to preview and post (process) outstanding charges for all students with enrollments tied to a specific billing schedule at one time. This task must be run separately for each billing schedule you offer on a regular basis.

NOTE: Accounts with multiple locations will need to run this task separately for each location.

Step 6. Process Camp Tuition charges [IF APPLICABLE]

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: The Camp Tuition Charges task will allow you to preview and post (process) outstanding charges for all students with enrollments tied to one or more camps. Businesses that require payment in full or require a deposit on signup for camps through the Customer Portal will not need to use this tool. However, it can be used as a precaution to make sure that all customers have been billed in full (in the case that some enrollments were entered by staff).

This tool is particularly useful for businesses that operate camps in request mode (i.e., camps that do not Auto-approve requests checked in the Customer Portal tab). In request mode, iClassPro does not bill the enrollees automatically because there is no guarantee that the enrollment will be approved by the staff member. In this case, both the deposit amount and any unbilled amounts of tuition can be charged from the Camp Tuition Charges task.

NOTE: Accounts with multiple locations will need to run this task separately for each location.

Step 7. Process Appointment Tuition charges [IF APPLICABLE]

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: The Appointment Tuition Charges task will allow you to preview and post (process) outstanding charges for all students with bookings tied to one or more appointments.

This tool is particularly useful for businesses that operate appointments in request mode (that is, where "Auto Approve Appointments" is disabled under SETTINGS>CUSTOMER PORTAL>OTHER SETTINGS>APPOINTMENTS>GENERAL APPOINTMENT SETTINGS). In request mode, iClassPro does not bill the family automatically because there is no guarantee that the booking will be approved by the staff member. In this case, any unbilled tuition amounts can be charged from the Appointments Tuition Charges task.

NOTE: Accounts with multiple locations will need to run this task separately for each location.

Step 8. Process Anniversary Charges (Anniversary Fees)

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: Some customers may remain enrolled in the same class or camp for longer than a year or simply may not choose to use online registration when changing enrollments (leading to the possibility that Anniversary Charges are not applied). For these reasons, we recommend that businesses use the TRANSACTIONS>ANNIVERSARY CHARGES task regularly to ensure that no students are missed.

Step 9. Apply Account Credits

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: The "Apply Credits and Unapplied Payments" option of the Payments task will find all customers who have unused account credit in their ledgers and outstanding charges to which it could be applied. Then, it allows staff members to apply the account credit to those charges to reduce their overall outstanding balance. For this reason, we recommend running this option before using the "Charge from Merchant Accounts" option from the Payments task.

Step 10. Generate/Email Statements

WHEN: On the day of billing

WHY: If payments will be collected one or more days after charges are added to ledgers, you may wish to generate and/or email statements at this point to let families know when their payments will be run and what they will be charged for. If payments will be collected immediately after charges are added to ledgers, you may wish to send them AFTER running payments instead so only families who still have an outstanding balance will receive them (to show the charges for which they are trying to collect payment).

Either way, you can still choose to send successful/failed payment emails during the Payments process without sending a statement (as explained in step 12 below).

Step 11. Apply Account Credits (again)

WHEN: On the day payments are to be collected

WHY: If payments will be collected one or more days after charges are added to ledgers, this step is to ensure that any payments/credits issued since the charges were created are applied before drafting final payments from credit cards/bank accounts.

Step 12. Draft Stored Payment Information

WHEN: On the day payments are to be collected

WHY: The "Charge from Merchant Account" option of the Payments task will process any stored credit card or echeck information on file for customers with outstanding charges.

NOTE: This task will only ever look at the "Primary" payment method linked to the Primary Guardian on the family's account. If there is no "Primary" payment method set for the family, the system will consider this as indicating that the family does not have autopay enabled and therefore will not be included.

Step 13. Generate/Email Statements (again)

WHEN: On the day payments are to be collected, AFTER running the Payments task

WHY: After the Payments task has been run, you may wish to send statements so only families who still have an outstanding balance will receive them (to show the charges for which they are trying to collect payment).

Step 14. Process Late Charges/Late Fees

WHEN: 1-5 days after charge due date(s)

WHY: The Late Charges task is a tool that allows you to generate late fees for outstanding class and/or camp charges that are past their due date. Late fees can be applied in one of three ways, using the following Fee Types:

  • Charge a Single Flat Fee Per Family - issues one late fee per eligible family account in the amount that is entered in the late fee amount field.
  • Multiply Fee by Active Students - issues one late fee per eligible family, where the late fee amount is multiplied by the total number of active students in each family.
  • Multiply Fee by Overdue Charges - issues one late fee per eligible family, where the late fee amount is multiplied by the total number of eligible overdue charges in each family's ledger.

[OPTIONAL]: After processing Late Charges, may wish to generate/email statements one last time to reflect the updated amount including these fees, as well as to notify families about when enrollments will be dropped for non-payment.

Step 15. Drop Class Enrollments for Unpaid Accounts

WHEN: 5+ days after processing late charges/late fees

WHY: Class Drops is a tool that allows you to drop all students by options such as Programs, Billing Schedules, Keywords, and specific classes. It can also drop students with outstanding class tuition charges so that delinquent accounts do not continue to stay enrolled in place of a customer that is ready to pay for the same spot in class.

NOTE: It is important to be very careful when using this tool, as this feature could be used to drop all class enrollments account-wide and there is not a way to easily undo this action. To help avoid this scenario, the Drop Amount Due field defaults to a minimum of $0.01 to be eligible for drops.

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