IN THIS ARTICLE:
Learn about charges in iClassPro, how they are recorded and reported, and how they are created, edited and/or deleted (if needed).
- Definition of a Charge
- The Anatomy of a Charge
- Creating Charges
- Editing Charges
- Deleted Charges
- Future Dated Charges
Definition of a Charge
Simply put a charge is a price or fee assessed to a family or student for the cost of a service or product, such as a tuition fee, pro-shop item, anniversary charge/annual membership fee/registration fee, etc.
The Anatomy of a Charge
A charge is an outstanding bill for goods or services placed on a customer account. Each charge is comprised of a charge date, due date, optional early bird date and one or more line items.
- Charge Date - date the charge is issued and becomes eligible to have payments applied.
- NOTE: While it is possible to future-date charges in iClassPro, we do not recommend doing this as it makes tracking the payment in financial reports more difficult.
- Due Date - date the charge is due, then becomes eligible for the Late Charges task and requires payment in full in the Customer Portal.
- Early Bird Date - date that an early bird discount reverts, to enforce normal pricing.
- Line Item Types (*)
- Class Tuition - allows you to assess a tuition charge for a specific class enrollment
- Camp Tuition - allows you to assess a tuition charge for a specific camp enrollment
- Anniversary - allows you to assess an anniversary charge for the family or student
- Other - allows you to create a custom charge that is not tied to an enrollment
- Discount - allows you to add a custom discount with a title for reference
- Promo Code - allows you to apply any promo code set up under settings
* Click here for more information about Line Item Types
Creating Charges
There are several ways to create a charge in iClassPro, including:
- Manually creating charges on the family ledger
- Running the Class Tuition Charges task
- Auto-charging Tuition via the Customer Portal (using Auto-Approve mode)
Click the links above for detailed information about using each of these functions to create charges.
Editing Charges
The amount of information iClassPro tracks regarding charge history is limited. When you edit a charge amount, you are editing the amount of the charge as it appears throughout the software. There is no record of the previous amount once the charge is saved.
Payments get the information about the program and charge category they are applied to, as well as the amounts that are applied to the charge from the charge data. This also means that when you decrease the amount of a charge after a payment has been applied - you alter past financial reports where the payment appears; primarily the Program Deposit Split report. On the date that the payment was applied to the charge, the portion of the payment(s) applied to the charge that is equal to the difference in the price will now display as unapplied.
Click here for more information about editing charges.
Deleted Charges
When charges are deleted, they no longer appear in the customer's ledger, the Customer Portal or on financial statements provided to customers.
To remain consistent with other financial reports (which will display any payments that had been applied to the deleted charge as applied to the program and charge category of that charge at the time it was on the ledger), the charges will show up in the Category List Report for the time period between the charge date and the date of the deletion.
If a Category List Report is run for dates which extend past the date that the charge was deleted, the charge will not appear on the report. This is so the data reflected will match any payment based reports, which would also show the status of the payment as unapplied at the time that the charge is deleted.
Click here for more information about deleting charges.
Future Dated Charges
A future dated charge is any charge with a charge date that is recorded as a future date. Because all charges issued in iClassPro appear on the customer ledger as outstanding at the time the charge is created, even future dated charges can be marked as paid. This means that a certain amount of a payment can be "reserved" for the charge when it becomes current. At this point, the charge will no longer show as outstanding to the customer in the Customer Portal and on Statements.
However, from the timeline view used by our reporting system, the payment will remain unapplied. When the charge becomes current, the payment will move from being unapplied to being applied toward the Program and Charge Category of the charge. We call this the payment's "applied date." This date is important, because it allows us to track any changes to how a payment is used over time.
Click here for more information about payment tracking.