We’re all familiar with the headache of school payments.
In some ways, collecting money hasn’t changed much since many of us were in school: teachers and administrators are still handling wads of cash, chasing down outstanding fees, and trying to match payments to permission slips. And while online payment options are technically supposed to help streamline the process, they often lead to a mishmash of collection methods that make it difficult to manage tracking and reporting.
To make collecting money as easy, effective, and painless as possible, ParentSquare Pay brings payments into the same platform that your school community already uses for communication.
ParentSquare Pay for families
With ParentSquare Pay, families can make payments directly in the ParentSquare app with just a few clicks. This means they don’t need to juggle login credentials for multiple systems, or even log in again to their ParentSquare account: payments are made in the same place they get all of their school and district notifications, and it’s easy to pay by credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay.
ParentSquare Pay for administrators and staff
For school districts, ParentSquare Pay helps eliminate the need to manage multiple systems, manually send follow-ups, and route payments to the right accounts. Administrators and staff alike can keep track of who has or hasn’t paid, set up reminder notifications that get delivered through families’ preferred communication channels, and consolidate reporting for multiple schools in a single location.
What you can collect with ParentSquare Pay
We’re especially proud to have built ParentSquare Pay to handle a wide range of K-12 payments, from field trips to fees to fundraisers.
- For collecting optional contributions and expenses, like donations, event tickets, or merchandise sales, add a payment option to any ParentSquare post you send to ensure maximum visibility.
- For collecting fees and other incurred costs, create an invoice and set up automatic notifications to make it more likely for families to see and complete payment requests.
5 ways to streamline payments with ParentSquare Pay
Here are some of the most popular ways that school districts are streamlining payments that you might not have been familiar with—and best practices for making sure you’re set up for success.
1. Field trips and chaperone expenses
- Visits to farms, zoos, museums, government buildings, historical landmarks
- Activities like amusement parks, state fairs, sporting events, theater shows
- Trips to Washington, D.C., outdoor education centers, state capitals
- Chaperone fees and expenses
Whether your students are going on a day trip to a local farm or a weeklong visit to Washington, D.C., you can use ParentSquare to manage all the payments and information you need to collect.
Any post you create on ParentSquare can include event RSVPs, forms, and payment requests—so families can sign up for an activity, fill out the permission slip, and make their payment, all in one place. To make it even easier for parents to respond, and for you to get all the pieces of information you need, you can even require payments to be completed when forms are submitted.
Tip: Standardize field trip forms across your school or district by creating a form template in ParentSquare that teachers and staff can use.
2. Afterschool programs
- Afterschool care
- Extended day programs
- Summer camps
- Out-of-school time programs
For afterschool care, extended day programs, summer camps, and other out-of-school time programs, use ParentSquare Pay to set up invoices that let families pay all at once or on a monthly basis.
Because payments are integrated with ParentSquare communications, it’s easy to send notifications to all of a student’s parent contacts to make sure nothing gets missed. At the same time, built-in safeguards help prevent families from making multiple payments for a single invoice.
3. Technology insurance and device repairs
- Chromebook insurance
- Repair fees
- Damaged device fees
As your technology department will likely tell you, it can be especially challenging to collect device-related payments—like Chromebook insurance or repair and replacement fees—since they usually don’t have as close of a connection with students and families as teachers and coaches do.
With ParentSquare, you can increase response rates by notifying families through their preferred channels about fees that need to be paid. It’s also easy to follow up with targeted reminders, since administrators also have the ability to track which invoices have or haven’t been paid.
Families can complete their payments right in ParentSquare instead of logging into a separate system, and they can see a list of paid and outstanding invoices for their student if needed.
4. Sports, extracurriculars, and academics
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Creating invoices is often the most effective way to streamline payments for costs that have already been incurred and need to be collected, like most types of fees. These can include club dues, instrument rentals, AP exam fees, sports participation fees, and more.
Because invoices include built-in ParentSquare notifications, they’re
more likely to be seen and completed by more of your families—
helping you bring in funds that might have been stalled.
5. Fundraisers and contributions
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For collecting optional contributions, like fundraisers and donations, you can let families make payments through a post—the same kind you send out with updates and other information.
For teachers, this option can help fund class experiences that they might not otherwise be able to provide. Often, more families will contribute if they can do so directly in ParentSquare, rather than having to deal with cash and checks.
Tip: Make posts public to broaden your reach and collect community contributions.
ParentSquare Pay is now available as an add-on for all ParentSquare customers! If you’re interested in adding it to your ParentSquare plan, connect with our team here to learn more.
And a big thank you to all the districts that participated in our pilot. All of our products and features are built with input from all of you, and we’re grateful for your time and feedback 💚
