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Frequently asked questions on the lead up to schools returning after the summer holidays.
When a meal is recorded against a pupil the wrong price is being charged?
To change the cost of the meal follow this guidance for ParentPay meals How do I update meal prices and FSM allowances
If you use Cypad through a Caterer for your meals, please contact the caterer to update the meal prices for your school.
Need to refund a parent of a leaver and there isn’t enough money in the funds account what do I do?
Please click the link to the article New process for refunding parents.
Parents not able to book a meal or place for their child, why?
The pupil may not be assigned to the meal payment item. Although this is normally set to add all new pupils, some schools change this How to assign people to a payment item.
The bookable menu may not have been extended to the new school year.You will need to contact ParentPay support team Manager Support - ParentPay
The pupils in key stage 1 are being charged 2p per meal, why?
If your meal prices have gone up and exceed the current UFSM value you will need to contact ParentPay support on Manager Support - ParentPay take a look at this article it may offer some advice How to set up UFSM
Why are the pupils in ParentPay still showing as last year’s reg groups?
This may mean that you have not processed a pupil upload to your site since the end of last term. Once you have carried out all the necessary promotions and marked pupils as leavers in your MIS you should follow the guidance on pupil uploads for your MIS system: Uploading people data.
I’ve added a new payment item, but the parents aren’t seeing this to pay for it, why?
This may be that you have not yet assigned the pupils to the payment item Assigning people to a payment item
If you have added a new bank account to your ParentPay site it may not have been approved yet by our finance team: Checking your bank account details
I have created the new year activation letters but when I print them, they haven’t got the pupils or the parents name just square brackets and consumer name etc. What have I done wrong?
This happens when the information on the second stage of the communication has been changed from Primary to All payers – this should only be changed if you are sending out the additional accounts activation details. Clone your letter again but on the message options second screen change the ‘send to’ option to Primary payers only. Continue through your communication to the preview page – your parents and pupils details should now be visible.
I have parents that still owe money for a trip that has taken place, their child went on the trip, but they can’t see the payment item to make the payments, why?
As long as you have not archived the trip you should be able to find it in the ended section of trips, once located select the trip and go to the attendance and consent section. At the top of the screen, you should see manage attendance. Locate the pupil who owes money and check that they have had their place confirmed on the trip. Save and the parent should then be able to see the payment item back in their parent account.
How do I add an additional account against a pupil, as the parents are no longer together?
Please follow the guidance in this article link: How do I create a second payer (additional payer) account – ParentPay Group
Our pupil upload isn’t pulling through and says its queuing, why?
This may happen if there are a lot of uploads being carried out at the same time. September is the busiest time for uploads so we may have to stack the imports. Please do not worry, your information will be uploaded to ParentPay as soon as possible, please do not attempted to upload your data again as this will only add to the wait. If there is an error with your data the upload will fail, you will be notified either on the front screen of your site and or via email.
Not all students appearing on ParentPay?
Please check the information provided in your last pupil upload – did it fail? If the answer was no, go to your MIS and ensure that all pupils have a Unique Pupil Number (UPN) assigned to them. If there are no UPN the pupils’ details will not pull over to ParentPay.
If you are a Scottish school and use SEEMiS as your MIS, please ensure that you have followed the information below:
Check that the all of the pupils have a main contact in SEEMiS. If they don’t, they will not be included in the upload. Please add contact details and re-upload the following day. Ensure the box is ticked ‘to include in an online payment upload’ this is located on the contact information tab in SEEMis.
I can’t add this year’s term dates as I can’t see the option under Manage calendar?
Please contact our support team Manager Support - ParentPay.
I want to create a PayPoint letter for a few parents, but the bar-code isn’t showing on the letter when I print them out?
This can happen for a few reasons:
- Your payment item hasn’t been set up to allow PayPoint Bar codes to be generated:
- The letter that you are creating does not contain the merge-code <paypointbarcode/>.
Follow the guidance here: How to create a PayPoint barcoded letter – ParentPay Group
We have a few new teachers, and they need a log in to Classroom selection, how do I create a log in for them?
This is done under the Site settings – manage users: follow this guide but choose Teacher from the drop down: How to create a teacher account for (Classroom Selection) – ParentPay Group. Deactivating a teacher account – must be done if they no longer work at your school: How to deactivate teacher accounts (Classroom Selection) – ParentPay Group
How do I add a new member of staff so that they can pay for their meals?
This will depend on the MIS system you use, if your pupil uploads are uploaded straight into ParentPay using an integrated system, such as RM Integris, Bromcom, Scholarpack, or Arbor you will be able to upload staff data following the image below:
If your MIS is not integrated this area will just show the following screen:
Take a look at the articles via the link for the manual uploads using MIS-Sync: Uploads using MIS:Sync.
Year 3 pupils not seeing meal payment item, why?
If your school do not record meals for Key stage 1 pupils on ParentPay you may have unassigned them from the payment item. You will need to follow the guidance in this article: How to add people to an existing payment item.
If you wish to add the entire school to a payment item, especially for meal payments, follow the section in this article: Assigning people to a globally assigned payment item.
I need to refund some credits for school meals to pupils who have left, but I am not seeing the option to refund, why?
If your school meal payment item is associated with a bank account belonging to a caterer, council or LEA the option for you to refund back to a parents account may be restricted to the owner of the bank account. Contact your meal provider as they will have to refund the money back to the parents’ account.
Our wrap around care clubs have changed price, but the system is still charging last years price, how do we change this?
For non-club schools This is a part of the end of year process, however, sometimes the price increases mid-year. Follow the guidance here to update the event price: Amending your meal or event price.
When I’m trying to send an email to all parents with an attachment, I keep getting an error?
Please take a look at this article: How to add attachments.
Students’ meal balances differ on the till system to what’s on ParentPay – we see it says adjustment to match till balance but it’s wrong, why?
Adjustments can happen for many reasons, the most common being payments that have not been acknowledged back to ParentPay, we would then make an adjustment to match till balance removing or adding the value of the payment.
Other adjustments can be triggered by missing meal data, or ParentPay has not been tracking the balance correctly for a few days then an adjustment is made to match the balance.
An adjustment to match till balance is ParentPay bringing its balance back in line with the Tills where we have disagreed.
You can add a zero transaction (TXN) to the consumers account to force a balance sync, this can be done by adding a zero credit or debit via the finance and record adjustment screen. Please note you will need to wait and check later in the day. A zero TXN will not correct an echo payment.
Parent keeps getting an error message when trying to activate their account for one of their children who has just started at our school, why is this when they used ParentPay before?
The parent should log in to their existing ParentPay account and select the ‘add a child’ option, entering the username and password when prompted, they will find this in the activation letter you have issued. If they are still getting an error, please contact our support team Manager Support - ParentPay, (please note this is for schools only).
A parent has contacted us to say their account is showing a debt for wrap around care (breakfast and after-school club) and they receive tax credit vouchers. How do I record the value of the vouchers that have been sent to our bank account?
This will need to be recorded in to ParentPay as a credit against the child, against the relevant payment item. Take a look at this article: Recording tax credits for wrap-around care.