End-of-Academic-Year-Guidance

Debt balances against pupils remaining at the school 9 8.3 PayPoint Cards available for school meal payments only 11 9.. The key tasks that need to be carried out include: • Managing en

End of Year Guidance

Manual guide to assist with managing ParentPay end of year requirements and optional tasks

1 Introduction 3

2 Managing end of term school meal debt 3

3 Credit balances for pupils remaining at the school 5

4 School leavers with credit balances 5

5 Debt balances against pupils remaining at the school 9

8.3 PayPoint Cards (available for school meal payments only) 11

9 New academic year, term and closure dates 11

13 Managing booking and selection services 18

14 Creating or Removing Manager Accounts 18

14.1 Creating Administration Manager Accounts 19

14.2 Creating Classroom Selection Teacher Accounts 19

14.3 Removing Manager or Teacher Accounts 19

1 Introduction

The purpose of this document is to provide best practice guidance in respect to managing end of academic year tasks associated with ParentPay services The focus of the document is to assist with the management of debt (especially in the case of school leavers) and to prepare the system for the new academic year These activities may be undertaken throughout the summer term but must be completed prior to its end in order to ensure a smooth transition

The key tasks that need to be carried out include:

• Managing end of term debt;

• Dealing with school leavers;

• Remaining debt process;

• Administration for new pupils;

• Updating the school term dates;

• Updating the school meal price;

• FSM allowance adjustments;

• Managing meal patterns;

• Booking period extensions;

• MIS integration considerations

A checklist can also be downloaded to assist you with keeping track of the tasks you have completed

2 Managing end of term school meal debt

In order to minimise end of year debt management schools are encouraged to work with payers, throughout the academic year, to reduce any outstanding meal debt they may accrue This is particularly important during the summer term when some pupils or students will be leaving at the end of the period The following will assist with determining accounts with meal debt and with communicating to payers that are associated with those accounts

2.1 Balance letters for parents

Payers should be informed of current meal balances for any associated child accounts during the summer term to encourage them to manage those balances before the end of the term Communication should focus on reducing any

outstanding debt and where appropriate, reducing balances for school leavers to minimise end of term refunds

The ParentPay communication facility can be used to send emails and letters to payers reminding them of their balance and asking them to ensure their account remains in credit

Templates exist in this feature to assist with communication of this type

2.2 Account balance report

In the run up to the end of the academic year it is important to get regular full balance reports This will clearly show you which parents are in credit or debt

This report can be used by the School Office to focus efforts on those parents that are still showing as having a debt

How to obtain a school meal account balance report

1 Navigate to Payment Items > View Payment Item

2 Locate the payment item used for school meals

3 Select Actions button and then View assigned people

The report will be shown in Balance order with any debtors listed at the top of the report and the pupils will a Credit balance at the bottom on the report

3 Credit balances for pupils remaining at the school

Any remaining credit balance in place for a pupil will remain on their account and

be carried forward to the next academic year

4 School leavers with credit balances

Ideally all pupils leaving school will have a zero balance on the last day of the summer term Where credit exists against a leaving child’s account, you can simply action a refund back to the parent’s My Account balance, where they can reuse the funds for other purposes or arrange for a withdrawal directly through ParentPay

NOTE: If you settle your school meal payments to a Local Authority or Caterer account and not a direct school account, you will need to refer to the relevant Refund Policy to receive guidance on how to process leaver refunds

4.1 Refunding a balance to a payer

Refunding balances (paid through ParentPay online)

1 Navigate to People > Pupils and Staff

2 Search for the relevant pupil

3 Select Actions and View Statement

4 Enter a date range which will show the last online payment received and ensure the school meal payment item is selected

5 Click Search

6 Find the last online payment made and click on the description, ‘ParentPay’ This will take you into the receipt for the payment

7 Select Refund payment

NOTE: If the ‘Refund payment’ button is not showing on your ParentPay site

and you are able to offer refunds directly, please contact the ParentPay service desk and ask to have your site ‘refund enabled’

8 Enter the remaining balance from the school meal account above into the

‘Refund amount’ field and a summary of the payment in the ‘Notes’ field, for your records

shorty_roro@hotmail.co.uk>

9 Select Confirm refund

Refunding balances (paid manually and recorded in ParentPay only)

1 Navigate to Finance > Record Adjustments

2 Select the school meal payment item

3 Select Debit as the method

4 Search for the relevant pupil

The balance remaining will show against the pupil in the ‘Balance’ column

5 Enter the balance amount into the ‘Amount’ field and a summary of the

payment in the ‘Internal comments’ field, for your records

6 Select Debit

You will be presented with a breakdown of the debits you have made It is recommended you print this report for future reference

Once you have brought the leavers balances back to zero on the ParentPay

system you will then need to provide the appropriate refund to the parent via manual means (cheque/cash)

5 Debt balances against pupils remaining at the school

All school meal balances will remain on the School Meal Payment Item Parents with an outstanding debt, whose children are still “on roll” at the school, will continue to see their balance on the School Meal Payment Item

6 School leavers with a debt

Once a pupil leaves the school their account will be archived and parents will no longer have access to the account to make payments For leavers that still have

a debt we recommend that a barcoded letter be created prior to the pupils

leaving the school This barcoded letter can then be used by parents to pay any outstanding debt using the standard PayPoint method

Once the leaver accounts have been archived, information relating to leavers accounts remains available in the reports and in ParentPay screens where the

‘include leavers’ check box is present If you need to look at leaver information, select the relevant year the pupil was assigned to prior to leaving and tick the check box to include leaver details

7 Archiving accounts

The archiving of pupil account occurs automatically upon uploading the rolled up MIS data at the start of the new academic year There are no additional

requirements beyond running a pupil upload once you have promoted your MIS system to the new academic year When you complete this upload, all new

pupils will be added to the ParentPay system, all leavers will be archived and any additional year and/or registration group changes will be completed

NOTE: If a school operates an external nursery where a child is not on their MIS but where they have a ParentPay account for paying fees, a new account will be created when they are added to the MIS When this occurs, any remaining

nursery balance will need to be transferred from the nursery account to the pupil account

8 Adding new pupils to ParentPay

8.1 Reception class intake

The new Reception class intake will need to be uploaded to ParentPay as soon as they are ‘on roll’ at the school This is likely to be on their first day of the new school term, and is the date at which they are allocated their Unique Pupil

Number (UPN)

When the pupils are ‘on roll’ within the school’s MIS, a refresh of data into

ParentPay is required Once loaded into ParentPay, account activation letters can

be produced and issued to the parents of the new pupils

NOTE: Activation letters should include simple instructions on how to use the activation codes Parents should either add the child to an existing account using the ‘Add a child’ functionality or, where no account exists currently, they should use the codes to create a new account, automatically adding the child

The new pupils should automatically be allocated to any payment items that have been ‘Globally assigned’ but may need to be added manually to other

payment items

8.2 Non-reception intake

Pupils joining from another school can be uploaded into ParentPay using the pre-admission upload process prior to the start of the new term Some schools might find this useful as the activation letters can be issued to parents in advance, avoiding debts on accounts at the beginning of term

Pre-admission pupils can only be uploaded if they have a PERMANENT UPN

number The UPN number acts as the unique identifier for the pupil to ensure the account is not archived when they switch from pre-admission to pupil

Failure to use the UPN in the pre-admission upload will result in a new pupil account being created during the first upload of the new academic year and may require a refund to the original account

When the pre-admission pupils are uploaded they can be found in appropriate

filter fields under Group 1 > Pre-admissions

NOTE: Automated admission uploads from SIMS will require the

pre-admission pupils to have a status of ‘Accepted’

NOTE: Schools using a MIS system other than SIMS need to request that their pre-admission pupils are uploaded manually via the ParentPay Service Desk

WARNING: If you wish to upload pre-admission pupils into ParentPay, it MUST be completed prior to the end of term Please do not attempt to upload pre-admission pupils once the summer term has ended

NOTE: Due to the volume of pre-admission upload requests during this period

we can only accommodate one request from each school Please ensue that your pre-admissions are recorded accurately prior to submitting your upload request

8.3 PayPoint Cards (available for school meal payments only)

PayPoint cards can be ordered for any parent of a new pupil where required This will allow payers wishing to make payments for school meals using cash or

cheque to do so at a PayPoint store, rather than sending money directly into the school

NOTE: PayPoint cards are uniquely assigned to individual school’s meal

payment item It is not possible for cards to be transferred between schools PayPoint cards for school leavers should either be returned to the school, or destroyed, to ensure payments are not inappropriately made to the wrong bank accounts at the start of the new academic year

9 New academic year, term and closure dates

A new academic year is available for you within ParentPay for you to configure your school’s term and closure dates Term dates should be entered in full, without consideration for inset days, bank holiday and other days that the school

is closed These additional days should be configured as closure dates

WARNING: If you have not correctly entered your term and closure dates

before the end of the current academic year, all bookings, meal patterns and other date dependant elements of the ParentPay system will fail to process correctly which could result in parents paying for items inappropriately Term dates cannot be amended retrospectively, so it is essential they are entered correctly BEFORE the Autumn term begins

9.1 Configuring term dates

1 Navigate to Settings > Manage Calendar

2 Scroll down to ‘Manage term dates’

3 Enter the next academic year from the ‘Choose academic year’ dropdown

4 Select Choose

5 Enter the ‘Start date’ and ‘End date’ for each of your terms in order These should not accommodate other closure dates which are dealt with in the next section

9.2 Configuring closure dates

1 Navigate to Settings > Manage Calendar

2 Scroll down to ‘Manage closing days’

3 Enter the next academic year from the ‘Choose academic year’ dropdown

4 Click Choose

NOTE: Closure days can be added individually or as a block of days

5 Enter the ‘Start date’ and ‘End date’ for your closure period

6 Select Save

7 Repeat steps 5 and 6 for all closure days

All closure dates will be listed within the ‘Choose closing days’ drop down menu allowing you to adjust any dates entered inaccurately

WARNING: Once meal patterns, menus or other modules that use periods are enabled for the new academic year, any manual changes to term and closure dates will not change the schedule Payments that have been made as a result

of meal patterns or bookings will need to be

refunded

10 Meal periods and prices

You should check your current meal prices to ensure that they are appropriate

for the new year If the costs of meals are due to change as the new year

starts, you will need to have made the appropriate corrections to ensure meals

are charged at the new rate

NOTE: Most cashless tills manage the costs directly and do not need to be

changed in ParentPay If the meal value is set to £0.00 on your setup, it should

not be changed

If the meal cost is not increasing, you should ensure that your existing meal

type is set to continue at the existing price for the next academic year

10.1 Extending existing meal costs

If there is no change to the meal price at the start of the new year, the existing

meal type periods can be extended

1 Navigate to Attendance, meals & events > Settings > Event types and prices

2 From the ‘Choose time’ drop down select the relevant period (e.g Lunch time)

3 From the ‘Choose type’ drop down select the relevant meal type (e.g Pupil

Paid Meal)

4 Select Manage periods

5 Find the current meal period and select Actions and then Edit

6 Adjust the ‘End date’ to an appropriate date in the future e.g the end of the next academic year (this can

be changed at a later date if the meal price changes)

7 Select Save

8 Repeat steps 2 to 7 for each combination of meal times and types that you wish to check and extend meal prices for

10.2 Changes to meal costs

If there is a requirement to change one or more of the meal prices at the start of the new year, new periods will need to be defined

1 Navigate to Attendance, meals & events > Settings > Event types and prices

2 From the ‘Choose time’ drop down select the relevant period (e.g Lunch time)

3 From the ‘Choose type’ drop down select the relevant meal type (e.g Pupil Paid Meal)

4 Select Manage periods

5 In the New period section, enter the new ‘Start date’, ‘End date’ and ‘Price’ for

the new meal type period (suggested dates are start date of 1st September and end date of 31st July)

6 Using the ‘Payment Item’ drop down select the appropriate payment item for your school meals

7 Select Save