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Autopay Best Practices

Claire Frank
  • Updated

Overview

Providing Autopay is a valuable time-saving feature for parents and schools.  It reduces the burden of managing account receivables and speeds payment times for schools. For parents, it is easier than having to remember to manually pay a bill each month.

By providing an Autopay option, there are additional compliance issues that need to be considered.  Autopay can be required for all billing accounts or disabled within your Billing Setup page. Click here to learn more.

Guidelines

Obtain authorization

  • During the ACH enrollment process, there is authorization built to link the bank account to the school's account for recurring payments.  

  • There is a terms of service notice that's customizable when enrolling in Autopay, which is described in more detail below.  

  • We recommend that your contract provides relevant language to the ongoing processing of recurring payments.

Provide a terms of service

Finalsite Enrollment provides a customizable template, Autopay Terms and Conditions, which is located within Settings > Portal > Parent Portal Templates.  The terms of service should include information on how a charge is defined, how to update or terminate Autopay information, liability waiver, among other service terms.

Provide notice of upcoming payments

Here's a breakdown of some of the automated Billing communications. These communications contain information related to the payer's autopay schedule and dates.

  • Upcoming Payment: Two days before a payment is processed, the Upcoming Payment email is sent. 
  • Billing Day Changed: Sent immediately if you change a payer's Billing Day within the billing overview tab of their record.
  • Upcoming Statement: Sent 10 days before a payer's billing date by default. This timing can be changed within the Billing Setup page. In addition, you have the option to set a 2nd or 3rd upcoming statement email to be sent.

Additional Notes

  • You can view and edit the content of these and other billing emails under Settings > Communication > Billing Emails.

  • You can use the Accounts List page to filter a list of families that are enrolled in autopay and you can email families directly from that page.

  • You can read more about Autopay communications within the Billing: Managing Autopay article. You can also learn more about these and other billing emails within the Billing Communications article.

Provide notice on how to update Autopay banking or credit card information 

  • Your school should provide notice on how to update banking information or revoke authorization for ACH or credit card payments.

Provide notice if the billing date changes 

  • If you change the default Autopay date, you must provide appropriate notice to all accounts. 

  • The default date is listed on the Billing Setup page within your site. If you change the Default Billing Day, you will be prompted to send a communication within the following pop-up message:

Billing Day Changed pop-up in the Billing Setup page.

Finalsite Enrollment cannot provide legal advice.  Rules vary by state and country.  If there are any questions you have regarding compliance, please engage your legal team.

Managing Autopay

You can learn more about managing Autopay within our article: Billing: Managing Autopay

Additional Resources

Related articles

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