Contract Payment Plan Dates

Karla McNamee
Karla McNamee
Eighth Anniversary Kudos 2 Name Dropper Participant
in Blackbaud Enrollment Management System™
I am interested in learning how other schools handle rolling admission contracts. We offer 3 payment plans, one of which is a 10 month payment plan that starts in May. As we accept students through the summer I need to change the information on all of the payment plans to reflect new payment due dates and to lower the number of monthly payments that are available. I am wondering how other schools handle this issue with the contracts? With our previous database I could edit that information easily but I can't edit it on the contracts in Enrollment Management once the contract is viewed. Do you create numerous contracts with different payment plans/dates? Or do you have specific wording for the payment plans for those that enroll later?


Thank you!

Comments

  • Suzan Moffett
    Suzan Moffett
    Tenth Anniversary Kudos 1 Name Dropper Facilitator 1
    Hi Karia,


    We have some wording (which I can't seem to find right now...) that basically says monthly payment plans end in May 2021 and you will make monthly payments until then from June 2020, or whatever month you begin after June. This seems to work with with Smart integration. Single pays on June 1, though, always mess up the contract submission after June 1. We also make custom arrangements  in Smart with parents all the time after they submit their contract.


    ~Suzan
  • Anita Li
    Anita Li
    Seventh Anniversary Kudos 1 Participant Facilitator 1
    When we set up our 2020-21 contracts in February, we initially set it up with 3 payment plans.  Around June 20, we started having problems -- parents who wanted the One Payment Plan and were trying to sign their enrollment contract were being blocked by SmartTuition, because they were signing too close to the due date for the first payment.  SmartTuition regarded it as "invalid" and would not let them sign because they were considered "late" for a July 1st payment (on June 20).  However, parents who were choosing the Monthly Payment Plan could still sign, because SmartTuition would schedule their first due date as August 1st, and automatically recalculate their monthly payment amount. 


    We believe that for midyear enrollees, we will need to enter a pro-rated tuition amount on the contract, and then when the parent chooses Monthly Payments and signs, SmartTuition will spread the total amount due over however many months remain.  So Monthly Payments for midyear enrollments will work (we believe), if we remember to pro-rate the amount. 


    However, we have found that we cannot use the One Payment Plan or the Two-Payment Plan that we had intended to use.  We had to go in, and edit all contract types to remove the payment plan options that won't work.  Then I had to delete and regenerate unsigned contracts.  We are now telling parents:  "If you want to pay in one big payment or two big payments, and receive the discount, please contact the Business Director."   The Business Director then makes adjustments in the SmartTuition account, to reflect the parent's wishes.


    Blackbaud Tech Support had offered a different work-around, but it was very elaborate and looked like it would require a lot of monkey business every month.  Our Business Director and I felt uneasy about it.  I spoke with someone from another school who had tried an elaborate workaround, and was very dissatisfied.   Anyway, we decided to simplify and go with the solution identified above.  We will see how it works out during the course of the year.   In short, we believe we WILL be able to handle mid-year enrollments fairly easily.

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