Viewing and Paying Statements Online as a Caregiver

In Hero, Statements can be either viewed or, with limitations, printed. Viewing statements is the preferred option for these reasons:

• Viewing access rights are set based on a single caregiver for a single student providing greater flexibility for blended families. e.g.  a caregiver may be able to view the finances of one child in a family but not another.
• Caregivers can always view the full statement so can easily check historical payments made.
• Caregivers can see full payment details removing the need for non-donation receipts.
• Caregivers can pay line items instantly using the Stripe Credit/Debit Card processing system.
• Finance Officers do not have to print statements.
• Payments are often more frequent as finance viewing is always available.
• Printing is only possible in a browser using the browser's print functionality (Ctrl/Cmd+P) and formatting may not be optimal.

The access to view finances is caregiver/student specific and is managed separately from the access to view student learning. This means that a caregiver may be able to view student learning for a particular student but not view finances and visa versa. It also means that a caregiver can have access to view the finances for one child in a family but not another. This is particularly useful in blended family situations where students with different secondary caregivers are linked as siblings. The caregiver will only see the student on a family statement that they have access to see.

ENABLING FINANCE VIEWING FOR CAREGIVERS

Before a caregiver can view finances online, their access to view needs to be enabled. This is part of a student's finance Account Settings. Refer to Managing Statement Recipients for details on how to set access.

Once a caregiver has finance access enabled, their name is available for selection, by the Finance Officer, to receive emails and app notifications when statements have been updated.  

WHAT PARENTS CAN SEE

When a caregiver logs into Hero, they will be presented with the Caregiver Menu. The Student Billing icon will only exist if the school has enabled caregiver viewing in the Finance Options. 

If the above slider is turned on, but an individual caregiver does not have finance access enabled, the icon will still show but an error screen will be displayed on click, prompting the caregiver to contact the school for support.

A red ! will indicate to the caregiver that unpaid line items exist.  A green tick is an indicate that the account is fully settled.

The caregiver app offers a user-friendly and mobile-friendly view.  They will see the same details as the school Finance Officer, with the exclusion of any line item that is fully Voided or Written off.   On entry, they will see summary of the debit and credit balances for the entire family with the option to quickly pay all unpaid items.

Scrolling down will enable them to view and select individual line items per student.  The selection displayed will default to UNPAID LINE ITEMS, but a caregiver may choose to view the full statement or the current year only.

Clicking the Line Item name will reveal the payments or other credit transactions applied against that line item.

PAYING LINE ITEMS ONLINE

Hero uses Stripe to allow caregivers to pay their accounts using Debit or Credit Card. This incurs a credit card processing fee which by default is applied to the caregiver transaction.  The confirmation screen clearly shows the fees incurred.  The school does not incur any fees.

Line Items paid using this method will automatically update the Line Item in Hero with an 'ONLINE' payment type so no additional keying is required by the Finance Officer.

1.  If paying online is enabled, the caregiver can click the checkbox on each line item they wish to pay followed by PAY <9> ITEMS ONLINE.  This appears at the bottom of the screen.   

2.  The payment processing screen will be displayed. This includes the fees applied.  A preset minimum payment limit is set for reducing the amount to be paid.  If the amount outstanding is less than the preset limit it must be paid in full.  If the amount outstanding is greater than the preset limit, the payment amount can be adjusted to allow a partial payment.  The new amount entered must be equal to or above the reset limit.

3.  The caregiver will be redirected from Hero to Stripe where they will be able to -

• click Link to create a Link account.  Creating a Link account will speed up the process for them next time they make a payment. 

• enter their email address to use an existing Link account

• or enter their debit/credt card details manually

 Clicking PAY will process the payment in Stripe and update the payment in Hero automatically.

4.  On completion of the process, the caregiver will be returned to Hero.