It may be necessary for some payers to continue making payments by cash. To prevent payers bringing cash and cheques into the school office, and increasing the administration time, a PayPoint barcoded letter can be issued to any pupil assigned to a PayPoint enabled trip or payment item.
This letter can then be taken into any convenience store or supermarket where the PayPoint logo is displayed, and payments can be made.
Each PayPoint barcode is unique to the pupil and the payment item/trip it is issued against. This is to ensure that any payments are correctly attributed on the ParentPay site.
Please note: PayPoint payments can take up to 48 hours to process through the PayPoint system and onto ParentPay.
Setting up the payment item for PayPoint
Before creating the letter, it’s advisable to check whether the payment item that the letter will be created against is PayPoint enabled.
Please note: All trips created on the Trips module are automatically PayPoint enabled.
- From within your ParentPay manager account, navigate to Payment items > View or edit an existing payment item
- Locate the payment item that the barcode will be created for, and select Actions > Edit payment item
- At the bottom of the Service details window, ensure the PayPoint barcode enabled check box is selected
- Select Save at the bottom of the screen
Creating the PayPoint barcoded letter
1. Within your ParentPay manager account, navigate to Communication > Create letter
2. Select the Template name drop-down menu to view all the letter templates
3. Select the letter template to use. Any barcode enabled template will mention barcode or PayPoint in the template name.
- Activation Letter Dinner Money PayPoint – Activation letter contains a PayPoint barcode to make payments for the dinner money payment item
- Gentle debt + barcode – Debt reminder letter containing a PayPoint barcode to make payments for the dinner money payment item
- Final debt + barcode – Firm debt reminder letter containing a PayPoint barcode to make payments for the dinner money payment item.
4. Select the template that best suits your requirements
5. Click on the blue link to enter the template set up screen
6. Alternatively, select Create new message to create your own letter.
- Edit the Letter Name (If you want) in the Template Name. This will be used once the letter has been created to easily identify it should it be used again
- Ensure the Send as a printed letter check box is the only one selected (NOTE: PayPoint barcodes can only be sent on printed letters, not by email or text message.
- The letter template will be displayed below the check box. Select Edit letter to make changes to the template
- Once you have clicked Edit Letter, you will see a list of Merge Field on the right-hand side. To ensure the PayPoint barcode is included in the letter, copy and paste the Paypoint barcode merge field (Located in the Financial details section) into the body of the letter.
- Once the changes have been made, select Continue in the bottom right hand corner
12. Once you have made the relevant changes, click Continue to Message options
13. Set the Priority to Normal
14. Set Send to as Primary payer only: one message/child.
- Select Continue to Add people
- At the top of the page in the Add people / payment items section, select Payment Item – All assigned in the Add group drop down box. Then select the Payment Item/Trip you want to print off the barcoded letter for in the Option 2 drop down.
Please note: you can only add one payment item per letter.
17. Click Add to add the item/trip group to the selected people section
- To select an individual person to the letter, select the Add recipients drop-down menu again, and select An Individual. You can locate and select the pupil in Option 2 section, and select Add to add them to the letter
- If a Payment Item/Trip or recipient group is not added to the letter, you will see a Red Error Message stating ‘No Group specified.
- Once you have added your recipients, you can click Continue to Preview
- To review the details of individual pupils/staff that the letter will be sent to, View recipients and preview messages at the top of the page
- Review the information for the message run, and select Send messages
Please note: Selecting Send messages for a printed letter will not automatically print the letters. It will allow you to review the letters in a PDF format before choosing whether to print them.
23. The message summary page will then show
- Select View and print PDFs to open then PDF documents and print them off (The PayPoint barcode will appear at the bottom of the letter)