Automatic payments: how families get on autopay

A family on automatic payments has their monthly invoice charged to a saved card or bank account on its billing day, with a receipt each time. They set it up themselves, from the pay link on an invoice you send — there is nothing for you to switch on per family.

How a family sets it up

When a family who can be offered autopay opens an invoice's pay link, the page has one button: Pay [amount] and set up autopay. It pays today's invoice and saves the card or bank account for the monthly charge, under the terms printed directly above it. There is no separate pay-only button for these families.

The terms name the figure. Every family who uses the button agrees that:

• your studio will charge that payment method their monthly tuition — a stated amount, starting on a stated date;

• they get a receipt each time;

• before any payment for a different amount, they will be emailed at least 10 days ahead, and can say no;

• they can ask your studio to stop automatic payments at any time.

The amount is the family's whole monthly invoice — siblings on one bill are one figure — priced exactly as the monthly invoice will be. When the invoice in front of them is not that figure (a first month, a discount), the page says what the monthly tuition will be from which month.

Their first automatic charge is on the date the terms name. The invoice they just paid by hand is never charged again.

Who is offered it

The button appears only when all of these are true:

• your Stripe account is connected and ready to take payments;

• automatic payments are switched on for your studio;

• the family has an email address;

• they have a monthly recurring charge that is billed on one invoice and is not paused;

• they are not already on automatic payments.

Anyone else sees an ordinary Pay button. Automatic payments are switched on for a studio by Encore; if your families should be seeing the autopay button and are not, open a support ticket.

Card or bank account

Whatever the family pays with on Stripe's page is what is saved — a card, or a US bank account where Stripe offers one. A bank payment takes a few business days to clear, and the page tells the family it is on its way so they do not pay twice.

The credit card fee

Under Settings → Fee Setup you can set a Credit card fee (%). It is added only to automatic payments charged to a credit card, as its own line on the invoice. Debit and prepaid cards and bank accounts never carry it, and a family paying an ordinary pay link by card pays no fee. The pay page tells families about it beside the button.

Exactly that amount, and nothing else

A family who set up autopay on the pay page is charged exactly the figure they agreed to — plus the card fee on a credit card. If their invoice comes to any other amount, higher or lower, it is not charged; they get a pay link for it instead, and you are told. To change their tuition and keep them on autopay, see Changing tuition for a family on automatic payments.

Seeing who is on it

• Each family's page has an Automatic payments card: the card or account and the most it may charge, or when and why it ended — opted out by the family, or stopped by you.

• Documents → Recurring counts the families who opted out of automatic payments.

• Your dashboard's Needs attention list names families whose autopay stopped or was refused, who opted out in the last 30 days, or who agreed to autopay but are still being emailed invoices.

• In Settings → Communications, Autopay stopped and Family opted out of autopay email you as it happens.

Stopping automatic payments

A family who wants to stop asks you — that is what their terms say. Open their page and use Stop automatic payments; from then on they are emailed an invoice to pay each month. Only the owner can stop it.

Families who were moved onto automatic payments by a notice from your studio, or emailed about a tuition change, also have a link in that email to stop it themselves. Either way, you see it on their page.

Saving a card in the family portal

Paying an invoice from inside the family portal offers a box to save the card for later. That is not autopay: it saves the card and signs the family up for nothing.