It’s time for another Ask an Expert webinar recap! In February we were joined by Drew Izzio, Manager of the Account Management team, and Anthony Piazza, Payments Account Manager, to discuss student Invoice in MySchoolBucks.

If you weren’t able to join us, here’s a look at what was covered:

Integrations (2:00)
To kick off the webinar, Drew showcased a few of our integration partners, like FamilyID and Skyward, and explained how these integrations can support your current programs. Depending on your vendor, MySchoolBucks is able to integrate with these systems to better utilize their capabilities for things like collecting registration, ID systems, facility maintenance, and more. We’re excited to share that we’re also working on integrations with a few new partners, including GiftCrowd, Canvas, Frontline Education, and more!

Parent Portal & Invoice Notifications (6:20)
Anthony provided a refresher on what it looks like to view MySchoolBucks from a parent’s perspective when they receive an invoice. As soon as they are sent an invoice, it will appear on the home page of their account, where they can choose to view invoices as one total or per student. 

He also reviewed how you can notify a parent of a new invoice and shared what it looks like when a parent receives an email alert. If the initial invoice email didn’t encourage them to pay it right away, there’s also the ability to send them invoice reminder notices. These are follow-up emails that remind them to pay outstanding fees that are past due. Features like this help promote faster payment, turning your fees owed into fees paid. In fact, with these tools, we see an average of 86% of invoices paid within 30 days. 

Creating Invoices (11:05) 
This webinar highlighted the use of ad hoc invoicing to help make payment collection easier. Ad hoc invoicing is useful when creating a one-off invoice. To use this feature, visit the invoices tab, where you can choose the “add invoice” button and select a fee from a drop-down that your school has set up. This is a quick and easy way to create a customized fee on the fly. 

When creating an invoice, you can choose between options of requiring it to be paid in full or allow them to create a payment plan, or schedule the payment for a certain date. These are all useful options that give your students and their families flexibility in repayment while providing you with the confidence that the bill will be paid. 

Student Groups (19:30)

There’s a new feature within MySchoolBucks for importing lists on your own. This new feature allows you to import a CSV file to create a student group instead of individually uploading each student to create the group. Anthony walks through how to use this new feature within the student group page. He then reviews how to use this feature alongside smart invoicing to customize and easily create any type of invoice you need. 

What’s coming for invoicing in 2024
Troy Jones, MySchoolBucks Senior Product Manager, joined to share some of what you can expect to see with Invoicing throughout the rest of 2024. The team is currently working on two new exciting features. One will allow users to edit and update multiple invoices simultaneously, and the other will give you the ability to send customized invoice notifications with personalized messages. 

Customized invoice reminder (41:39)

Within MySchoolBucks, you’ll soon be able to send customized invoice reminders.  You’ll have the option to edit just one invoice or multiple at a time. Once you select the invoice(s), it will lead you to a page where you include who the invoice will be sent to. This could be a household contact, student contact, or additional emails on the invoice. Here, you’ll find a text box to which you can add your custom message. This might include information such as the missed due date, late fee information, etc. 

Ability to update multiple invoices at once (45:37)

Similarly, you can edit multiple invoices at once. For example, say you sent a customized invoice reminder notifying a handful of students that if they don’t pay by a certain date, an additional late fee will be charged. This due date has come and gone and none of them have paid their fees still. This is when this new feature will come in handy. You will have the ability to edit multiple invoices at once, adding the additional late fee to all of them.  You would do this similarly to the previous feature, filtering your desired invoices and then selecting all. From there, you’ll be taken to a new page that allows you to edit items such as adding a new due date, or to add that new late fee to the invoice. 

As always, the team wrapped up the Ask an Expert session with a great Q&A, answering a number of questions from the audience. Check out the webinar below to see everything the team covered and to learn more about how MySchoolBucks can help you turn fees owed into fees paid to close out the school year.