If you have kids or grandkids, you may know that many preschools and private schools start registering for the following school year in February and March. My kids were talking about it for our grandkids just the other day.
If your church or organization offers a preschool, elementary school, or any other program that requires paying tuition or installments over time; you know managing that entire process can be a challenge. We've navigated these waters with many churches through the years and now have an incredible solution that addresses pretty much every concern you are likely to have. Here are some examples:
- We need to limit the number of people who can sign up.
- We need to accommodate many payment options.
- We need discounts for staff and scholarships.
- We need to set up and automate a payment plan.
- We need to require a deposit.
- We need to email payment reminders that have a link to pay.
- We need to communicate with parents including texting.
- We need to view families as a whole.
- We need a secure check-in system.
- We need to take attendance.
- We need attendance reports.
- We need to track conversations with parents.
- We need to track and secure important conversations.
- We need to recruit, schedule, and care for volunteers.
- We need to set up registrations for various other events.
This list demonstrates the value of a single system that is capable of managing all your data for any type of preschool or similar program in one place. The clients we've worked with know this and have helped us find great solutions for these and other problems.
One of the last upgrades to accommodate this solution is not quite a year old. I wrote this blog post to introduce the release of recurring payments last year. It links to this Knowledge Base article on How to set up a registration with recurring payments.
In case your curious about what it looks like, I grabbed the following screenshots to give you a feel for the best way to register and receive tuition payments for a Weekday Preschool.
Parents register first and sign the waiver.
They register the kids next. Pick their classes and any extras.
They set up automated payments
Staff track payment history
I think about conversations I've had with Financial Admins responsible for tracking and collecting fees for their preschool. Initial information started on a paper form which meant data entry ... twice! Once into a financial software and again into an attendance software.
Neither of these was really well suited for sending emails or texts, so parent email addresses had to be tracked in yet another software. All payments had to be manually entered whether by check, cash, or online.
Amounts due had to be calculated and then communicated to parents. How and when they responded all had to be tracked. Then, the whole process had to be repeated every month until the end of the school year and everything was settled.
If you can relate to any of these problems and/or you love what you see in these simple images of our solution, let us know. We're here to serve you and your church.
