1 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
End of Year Guidance
Manual guide to assist with managing ParentPay
end of year requirements and optional tasks.
2 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
Table of Contents
1. Introduction 3
2. Managing end of term school meal debt 3
2.1 Balance letters for parents 3
2.2 Account balance report 4
3. Credit balances for pupils remaining at the school 5
4. School leavers with credit balances 5
4.1 Refunding a balance to a payer 6
5. Debt balances against pupils remaining at the school 9
6. School leavers with a debt 9
7. Archiving accounts 9
8. Adding new pupils to ParentPay 10
8.1 Reception class intake 10
8.2 Non-reception intake 10
8.3 PayPoint Cards (available for school meal payments only) 11
9. New academic year, term and closure dates 11
9.1 Configuring term dates 12
9.2 Configuring closure dates 12
10. Meal periods and prices 14
10.1 Extending existing meal costs 14
10.2 Changes to meal costs 15
11. FSM Allowance 16
12. Managing meal patterns 17
12.1 Open ended meal patterns 17
12.2 Meal patterns with an end date 18
13. Managing booking and selection services 18
13.1 Extending a booking service 18
13.2 Extending menus 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
15. Homepage notifications 19
3 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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.
4 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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
5 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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.
6 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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
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ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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. [email protected]>
9. Select Confirm refund
8 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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
9 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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.
10 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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 pre-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.
11 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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.
12 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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’
13 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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.
14 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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
15 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
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
16 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
NOTE: The system will now know to charge the existing meal price up until the
end of the academic year and will charge the new rate from the start of the new
year onwards.
11. FSM Allowance
If the meal prices for any periods are increasing, the free school meal allowance
should be checked to ensure that pupils receive the appropriate FSM
entitlement.
WARNING: If the FSM allowance is set to a lower amount than the associated
meal price, payers will be automatically charged for the difference in cost which
may also result in bookings being cancelled.
WARNING: If a cashless till systems is used, the allowance is normally
managed by the till system and should not be changed. NRS systems do
however use ParentPay’s allowance values and should be configured
appropriately.
1. Navigate to Attendance, meals & events > Settings > FSM allowance
2. Check the entries for each group (each group may contain multiple years). If any changes are required, in the ‘Apply to all allowance group …’ fields enter new
values for: o Allowance value – the new daily FSM allowance value for all years in the
group o Start date – the date the new meal rate commences
o End date – this should always be entered a double hyphen (--) to ensure the new value continues indefinitely
17 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
3. Select Dry Run
4. Once confirmed select Commit changes
12. Managing meal patterns
If ParentPay meal patterns are used to mark attendance automatically, the
patterns should be checked to ensure that they are accurate for the new year’s
requirements. To check a pattern, navigate to People > Pupils
Meal patterns will need to be set for all new intake pupils that require them once
they have been uploaded. This can be achieved individually or as a year group.
12.1 Open ended meal patterns
If meal patterns have been set up as open ended (no end date), the system will
automatically end any pattern associated with a leaver on the last day of term.
The patterns for the remaining pupils will continue into the new academic year.
18 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
12.2 Meal patterns with an end date
If meal patterns are used and have been set up with an end date before the next
year begins, new meal patterns will need to be created for pupils for the next
term.
WARNING: If meal patterns are used but have not been correctly set up for the
start of the new term, the system will NOT mark attendance automatically and
manual entry will be required.
NOTE: If you have pupils that are on an irregular meal pattern, for example
Monday, Wednesday, and Friday only, it is recommended that you set the
individual meal patterns against the individual account via the Edit Pupil Details
section rather than the bulk create patterns option in the Groups section.
13. Managing booking and selection services If the pre-ordering system is being used to pre-book meals or to book places for
before or after school care places, the booking periods need to be checked to
ensure they are extended into the new academic year.
13.1 Extending a booking service
During the summer term, ParentPay will attempt to contact any school that has
not extended the booking periods for meals or breakfast and/or afterschool
clubs. If you do require these services in the new year, you should contact
ParentPay support at your earliest opportunity to renew them. If these booking
services are not extended, payers will not be able to book meals or sessions.
13.2 Extending menus
Schools using menu selection, that have created their own menus, will need to
either extend their existing menu cycles or create new menus.
WARNING: To ensure that your pre-booking menu is available for parents to
book from, schools MUST ensure that the term and closure dates are set
correctly and that meal periods are valid for the upcoming academic year,
before the end of the summer term.
14. Creating or Removing Manager Accounts
Quite often new members of staff join the school at the start of the new
academic year. Schools are able to manage their Manager Account logins from
the Settings > Manage users section.
19 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
14.1 Creating Administration Manager Accounts
If new staff require access to the ParentPay system to perform administration
tasks schools will need to create new Manager login accounts for each relevant
individual member of staff.
14.2 Creating Classroom Selection Teacher Accounts
Schools using the Whiteboard: Classroom selection feature will need to
determine if there are new teacher accounts that need to be added to the
system in order for the new teachers to be able to manage the meal selections
in the new academic year.
14.3 Removing Manager or Teacher Accounts
If a schools has staff leaving the school that previously had access to the
ParentPay system, or the Classroom Whiteboard facility, we would recommend
that these accounts are deactivated.
15. Homepage notifications
As part of the End of Year and Start of New Academic Year processes, ParentPay
will activate additional Notifications within the My notifications area.
These notifications will provide you with important information relating to several
required or advised actions, for example, if a pupil upload needs to be processed
or if you have meal type periods about to expire.
Non Critical messages are flagged in GREEN
Warning messages are flagged in YELLOW/AMBER
Urgent messages are flagged in RED
Once the relevant action has been taken the notification will be removed.
20 ©ParentPay Ltd 2016
ParentPay Ltd Registered at 11 Kingsley Lodge, 13 New Cavendish Street, London W1G 9UG. Registration number 04513692 Correspondence: The Exchange, Express Park, Bristol Road, Bridgwater TA6 4BB
16. Further Assistance
If you do require further assistance with any aspect of the End of Year tasks
please do not hesitate to contact the ParentPay Service Desk Team either by
calling us on 02476 994820 or by email [email protected]
Alternatively, you may find useful guidance via the ParentPay Online Support
Site which you can access from the Help link on your My ParentPay page.