Continuous or Perpetual Enrollment: Overview & Best Practices – Finalsite Enrollment

Continuous Enrollment lets families sign a contract once and renew automatically each year, with an opt-out option, instead of completing a fresh contract every year. Year 1 follows the standard contract flow (sign, pay deposit, set up Autopay). Year 2 and beyond, the school bulk-submits contracts with the option to keep the same payment plans or pick new ones. Schools can also mix continuous and yearly contracts for different student groups.

💡Quick Answers

Can my school use continuous enrollment for some students and yearly contracts for others? Yes. The most common split is new vs. returning students, but you can split by international vs. domestic, day vs. boarding, or any other grouping.
When can I enable continuous enrollment? Any time. But you can only bulk-submit contracts in subsequent years after parents have signed their first-year contract.
What happens in Year 1 vs. Year 2 of continuous enrollment? Year 1: families sign a contract with continuous-enrollment legal language, see tuition and fees, pay the deposit, optionally enroll in Autopay. Year 2: the school bulk-submits contracts and parents can keep the same payment plan or pick a new one and update Autopay if needed.
What's the most important pre-launch consideration? Engage your legal team. State laws on auto-renewing contracts vary, so what works for one school may not work for yours. Specifically discuss notice-of-renewal periods, how parents will indicate non-return, split-household scenarios, and consent to future contract changes.
How should I structure my contract for continuous enrollment? Separate the legal contract, Tuition & Fees agreement, and Truth in Lending Disclosure (TILA) from optional registration forms like field trip waivers or sports sign-ups. Optional forms become custom enrollment forms on their own checklist items, so they can be re-collected each year without re-signing the legal contract.
Where do I learn the actual bulk-submit mechanics? See Bulk Submit Contracts Feature for setup, and Rollover for Continuous Enrollment Schools for managing contracts after rollover.

Continuous Enrollment FAQs

Can a school do continuous enrollment for some students and a yearly contract for others, or does it have to be one or the other across the board?

You can do both. The most common use case for this is new vs returning students. However, you could also have international / day student differences or any other groupings.

When can it be enabled?

You can enable continuous enrollment at any time. However, you can only bulk-submit contracts after the parents have signed their first-year contract.

Continuous Enrollment within Finalsite Enrollment

To learn about enabling the ‘Continuous Enrollment’ feature in Finalsite Enrollment, please click here to navigate to our setup article.

Example Continuous Enrollment Workflow Breakdown by Year

Year 1

Families sign a contract containing legal language for Continuous Enrollment.
The tuition and fees are displayed on the contract.
Once the contract is signed, a deposit or registration fee can be collected and the parent can enroll in AutoPay.

Year 2

The school bulk submits contracts with the option to rollover the same payment plans or choose new ones.
The parent can update AutoPay information, if necessary.

Pro tip: Our Rollover for Continuous Enrollment Schools article offers outlines for managing contracts after rollover. For more details and options on workflows, please refer to that article.

Tips & Best Practices

Engage your legal team. Always talk with your legal team before updating your contract and processes. State laws vary so what works for your school may not work for another.

Review your goals and identify areas where your process can be streamlined to reduce work. In other words, you should consider the following: Where do parents get stuck in the process? Are there easier, smaller changes that could eliminate many issues? Click to expand each of the items below and learn more.

Separate your contract, Tuition & Fees agreement, and TILA from your other enrollment forms.

Registration forms like sports sign-ups and field trip waivers should be independent of your contract. These can be created as custom enrollment forms instead and moved to their own checklist items.

Are you asking for information each year that isn’t necessary?

Finalsite Enrollment supports a powerful set of dynamic checklist items or dynamic content, forms, and fields so that only the necessary information is collected.

Review your contract language history. Are you changing your contract and policies every few years?

If so, talk through the implications of a perpetual process and how you will communicate changes to policy and collect consent to new addenda, if needed.

How do you handle communication around billing information and Truth in Lending (TILA) if they are separate from the contract?

What happens if the parent disputes the tuition and fees because they need to see or approve the amount in future years; for example, if the financial aid amount changes after the renewal deadline date?

What policies will you need to update to support new processes?

For example, what kind of notice of the renewal period will you provide? Will you notify parents 30 or 60 days in advance of the annual deadline? How will you handle a situation when a parent does not notify you that they do not wish to return? How will you collect and verify notice from parents that they are not returning? What happens in the case of split households?

Additional Resources