Billing Terminology & Glossary

Glossary

Billing Account

Financially responsible account for tuition and incidental fees.  Billing accounts are attached to contact records within the system and are linked to portal user accounts so parents/guardians can sign contracts, view billing history, pay balances, and manage Autopay settings.

Billing Day 

The day of the month that the account balance is due.

• For accounts, with a single billing day, that day of the month is when their balance is due.
• For accounts that have multiple autopay days per month, the last autopay day of the month is considered the account's Billing Day. 

AutoPay

The feature that enables automatic drafts from billing accounts each month. Read more about Autopay in our Billing: Managing Autopay article.

Statement

A statement is generated showing all current transactions.

• If generated within 10 days of the billing day date, the statement will show any upcoming balances that are due.

• Click here to learn about automated billing emails.

Grace Period

• Defines how long after the AutoPay date is before the account becomes overdue.

• Click here to learn how to set it up.

Balance

The current total amount of money owed to the school by the billing account.

Overdue Balance

The current past due amount owed by the billing account.  

Financial Split

• The percentage of responsibility for the billing account for a student.  This is set on a per-student basis, enabling flexible household relationships.  There is a limit of 4 financially responsible accounts for a given student. 

• Click here to learn more. 

Financial Responsibility

• Financial responsibility is a yes/no toggle setting within the Parent Portal Access tab of a student record.
• It allows parents/guardians access to the contract.
• It can be used by admins to send emails to financially responsible parties or export this information as part of student data.
• A parent/guardian that has financial responsibility disabled will still see the contract checklist item listed, however, they will not be able to access and sign the contract as there will be no 'complete form' button that displays, and no printable PDF to view once it's been submitted by a financially responsible parent or guardian.
• Click here to learn more.

Billing Category Type

• Billing categories are used to classify ledger items. They have unique labels and can have additional properties such as account and ledger codes.

• Click here to learn more. 

Billing Ledger Items

Ledger items comprise of charges, credits, and payments.  They contain metadata regarding the date posted, amount, billing category type, associated student, and school year. 

Charge

An amount applied to the billing ledger that is owed by the billing account.

Credit

An amount applied to the billing ledger that is credited to the billing account.

Payment

A posted payment.  Payments can be split across students and billing category balances.

Billing Account Ledger

The billing account ledger is a historical record of ledger items that are comprised of charges, credits, and payments for that parent’s account.   

Billing Categories Balance

Billing accounts maintain a sub-balance for each student's billing, split by billing category and school year.  For example, a billing account maintains a sub-balance for categories like Tuition, General fees, or any other custom billing category.