Financial Accounts and Categories

Setting up your financial accounts is easy and can be done with just a few clicks. Accounts help you organize charges so that your customers will know what they have been invoiced for.  Accounts may be broad or specific, depending on your needs.

The Financial Accounts and Categories are found on the Financial> Settings page.

Note: Some schools choose to have a single account for all charges, while other schools use multiple accounts.  Look below to the tips & tricks section if you need assistance deciding on the best choice for your school.

One important aspect which applies to all pages of the financial suite is the School Year drop-down in the upper right of every page.  Be sure to select the appropriate school year when viewing or editing any information on that page!

To Add a New Account:

    • Click the green ADD ACCOUNT link within the Accounts box.
    • You will be prompted to fill in some details about the account.  These details can be edited in the future if needed.
    • Fill out all fields in this screen:
      •  Name: Customers will see the name of the account (on invoice charges, etc.).
        • Note: At this time CR does not support running reports by account or categories.  Reports can be run using descriptions associated with each transaction.
      • Account Identifier: This will be a short code for the account.  The account identifier may be numerical, alphabetical, or a combination of both.
      • Enrollment Process:
        • All customers are required to enroll means that your users will be prompted to enroll in the account.  Users receive a ClassReach notification to enroll if this button is chosen.
        • Customers are not required to enroll until charges are added to their account means that your users will only receive the notification to enroll after you have added a charge to one of the categories in that account for their family.
        • Customers are automatically enrolled means that all users will be enrolled in the account with or without charges being posted.
      • Require enrolled customers to set up AutoPay
        • Check this box if you want to require users to set up an Autopay using ACH Debits or Debit/Credit Cards.
        • It is possible to turn off AutoPay for specific users even if this box is checked.
  • Customers are automatically enrolled is best for required accounts that do not have payment plan options. 
    • IF you plan to offer different payment plans for the account, do not choose this option.

Note: AutoPay feature requires your school has a Stripe Integration. 

    • Click the green Next button at the bottom of the window.
    • Now you can add the Categories for this account.
      • Note: You can add additional categories and edit the names of categories later. 
        If you need to delete a category you will have to choose a new category to migrate all posted transactions into.
    • Once you’ve entered at least one category, click the green Save button at the bottom of the window.

Payment Plans

Once you've created an account, you have the option to add payment plans to it.  If you click on an account from the list, such as Athletics in the example below, you will open the details panel for the account.

Here in the details panel, you can edit the account as well as add a Payment Plan. 
See the following documentation: Payment Plans

Add or edit your account’s Categories after initial set up:

  • Select the Account you would like to add a Category to.
  • Click the +Category button at the top right of the Transaction Categories window.
  • Input the Name of the Category
  • Click the Save button at the bottom of the window.

Tips & Tricks for Setting Up Accounts and Categories

  • Commonly used Accounts
    • Tuition
    • Incidental
    • Miscellaneous
    • Athletics/ Extra Curricular/ Clubs/ Sports
    • General
  • Should I use one or more than one accounts?
    • The biggest determining factor here is how you will handle payments.  If you will allow payment plans for some charges but not for others, you’ll need two accounts.  For example: you may wish to allow payment plans for tuition, but not for hot lunch orders or sports registrations.
  • Example Account with Categories:
    • Account: Athletics
    • Categories:
      • Equipment (for things like uniform costs)
      • Registration (set to be used for registration costs)
      • Travel (for things like hotel cost for away games).

Related documentation

Payment Plans

Stripe - Payment Processing Integration