Scholarships let you award financial support to community members, based on criteria that may include financial need. Use Community Segments to help define scholarship eligibility to engage potential and existing clients who could most benefit from your services (e.g. lower-income districts).
In this article, you will learn how to:
1. Create scholarships & assign to eligible items
Before you can award a scholarship to clients, you must first create the scholarship. This creates a scholarship tag that you will assign to your eligible offer(s). The scholarship can then be used as payment on those invoice items.
🔑 Click here to see which permissions admins need to work with scholarships.
1.1 How to create a scholarship (click to expand)
1.1 How to create a scholarship (click to expand)
Create a New scholarship in the Communities>Scholarships subtab.
The scholarship name shows in the store and on the client's invoice.
Input the total funds that are available in the scholarship as a whole.
An active scholarship can be applied as payment until the total funds are used.
After the first scholarship is created, you may create other scholarships that pull from the same total funds. Total funds to choose from show in the drop-down.
Say Scholarship A and Scholarship B pull from the same pool of funds. As a result, the total funds of $1000 will be used up more quickly.
To use a new fund instead, enter a new fund amount.
Award this scholarship by person or by account.
By person - The scholarship tag is assigned via the People subtab, to single account members. Only persons with the scholarship tag can use the scholarship. You can't assign this scholarship to an account.
By account - The scholarship tag is assigned via the Accounts subtab, to an entire account. Every member in the account can use the scholarship and is entitled to the maximum amount per person. You can't assign this scholarship to individual account members.
Scholarship coverage can be a % or $ amount for each eligible item, up to a maximum amount per person. When the scholarship expires at midnight on the expiration date (optional), the scholarship can't be used, even if funds are remaining in the pool.
Click Continue to save the scholarship. Once you create or use a scholarship, only its name or expiration date may be edited. You may only archive a scholarship after it's been used.
Once the scholarship is created, a scholarship tag is automatically generated in the Account>Tags subtab. Do not delete the scholarship tag.
1.2 How to assign scholarship tags to items (click to expand)
1.2 How to assign scholarship tags to items (click to expand)
Admins with proper permission(s) can assign scholarship tags in the Tags field when configuring activities, merchandise, and memberships.
Click here for our FAQ to see which memberships support scholarships.
For example, to assign scholarship tags to activities, open the activity's config in the Activities>Edit subtab. You can assign one or more scholarship tags to an offer. Save.
💡 Use mass edit to assign scholarship(s) to activities within the same program.
If activities or memberships eligible for scholarship need to be restricted to residents based on where they live, use community segments for this or to offer other benefits like early registration! Click here to learn more about Community Segments.
2. Award a Scholarship to your Clients
Scholarships are awarded to participants in the Clients tab. Search by Accounts if a scholarship is awarded on a per-account basis or search by People if it's awarded on a per-person basis. You can't award a scholarship on a per-account basis from the People subtab. Likewise, a scholarship on a per-person basis can't be awarded from the Accounts subtab. If you try, you will see a 'success' message, but the tag(s) will not be applied to the client(s).
Check the box next to the account(s) or person's name(s). Scholarships can be awarded to multiple records at once as long as their name appears on the page when you assign the tags.
Click on Operations>Assign tags and select the tag with the name of the scholarship. Selecting multiple scholarship tags means those scholarships will be assigned. Click Save.
👉 Be careful! For now, every time you assign a tag to a client, it overwrites the existing tags already assigned. For example, if a client already has a scholarship but you wish to assign them a 2nd one, you must assign the tags for both scholarships at the same time so as not to lose the record of the first one.
When scholarships are assigned to an account or person, new information appears in the Account Members section in the client's account.
A 'per-account' scholarship vs A 'per-person' scholarship
If a 'per-account' scholarship is assigned, a new Account tags section shows the scholarship tag.
If a 'per-person' scholarship is assigned, the scholarship tag appears in the member's Personal info.
A new Scholarships section appears for all members that have a scholarship (per-account or per-person). It shows how much money has been used of the allocated funds. Allocated means the maximum amount of scholarship money that can be used by the client.
To remove a member's scholarship, return to the Clients>Accounts or People subtab, pull up the person's name, then click Operations>Edit tag and simply click on the X next to the tag name. The tag and applicable sections will disappear upon refreshing the page. No further payments can be made with the scholarship. If scholarship funds were already used, the record remains in the client's billing tab.
3. Pay with a Scholarship
An administrator can use the funds from a scholarship at checkout (only available with Self-Serve Scholarships) or directly within the client's billing tab.
Scholarships are calculated on the cost of an item after any applicable discounts.
For example: A $100 activity is eligible for a 20%, which brings the price to $80. A 25% scholarship would apply to the discounted price of $80, not the original $100.
3.1 At checkout (available with Self-Serve Scholarships)
When making a purchase on behalf of a client, you have the option of paying with a scholarship at checkout. If clients are assigned a scholarship tag, they can see whether an activity is eligible for the same scholarship by clicking for 'More information...' on the activity's details page in the store and (similar to an admin), will be provided the option of using the scholarship funds at checkout.
In the client's file, click on Add purchase.
Add the eligible item(s) to your cart, for the client(s) with the scholarship tag(s). Proceed to checkout.
Upon reviewing your order, you can see which activity is eligible for which scholarship, the conditions of the scholarship and for which member you are purchasing the activity for. NOTE: An activity that is eligible for multiple scholarships will display all its scholarship tags at checkout, whether your member is eligible or not.
Before entering the payment details, you will be prompted to select and use a scholarship. Only one scholarship can be used per invoice. The amount deducted per eligible item depends on the scholarship rule, and the amount is calculated based on the cost of the item before taxes. Click Use $.
Complete the checkout. You can send a copy of the invoice and receipt to the client.
In the client's billing tab, the invoice and scholarship payment are reconciled. The (S) next to the payment receipt number in Client Billing indicates it's a 'shared payment'. Essentially, the payment did not come directly from the client.
3.2 Pay with a scholarship in Client Billing
You can also use a scholarship directly in the client's billing tab. This may be the case if you purchased an eligible activity for the client but did not enter payment information at checkout, or the client did not have the scholarship tag at the time they enrolled in an eligible activity.
In the client's file, click on Operations>Use scholarship.
Choose the scholarship and then the account member. There must be an invoice that includes an eligible item for the scholarship, and the member must have the corresponding scholarship tag. If not, you cannot complete the transaction.
You must reconcile the scholarship payment with the appropriate invoice items. Click Save when done.
Above, the client has an unpaid invoice of $500. Only invoices with eligible items are available for selection in this window. The client has $282.56 remaining of the $500 allocated scholarship funds; which means a portion of the allocated funds have already been used towards a previous purchase. After ticking the invoice, we can apply the scholarship funds to the eligible item. The scholarship rule must be respected, which in this case is 50% of the eligible item's total. A balance of $250 will remain after the scholarship payment is applied.
👉 If you try to use an amount of funds that exceeds the scholarship rule, SmartRec prompts you with an error message to correct the amount. You will not be able to complete the transaction unless the scholarship rule is respected.
3.3 More about scholarship payments
Here's some important information about cancelling, refunding, giving a rebate, doing a replacement and/or reconciling scholarship payments.
❌When cancelling a purchase reconciled to a scholarship payment
When you cancel an invoice item, it auto-cancels any scholarship payment reconciled to the item.
When you mass cancel activities, it auto-cancels all scholarship payments that were applied as payment towards the activity registrations.
When a scholarship payment is cancelled, the billing description is 'Scholarship payment correction'.
💸 Refunds when a scholarship payment is reconciled to the item
If you refund an invoice that is reconciled to a scholarship payment, the client is only refunded the portion they actually paid. For example, say a $300 invoice was paid for with $100 from the client and $200 from a scholarship - the client is only refunded $100.
💸 Give a rebate to an item that is reconciled to a scholarship payment
The maximum rebate amount possible is now the item amount, minus the reconciled scholarship payment. This is to avoid discounting the item further than what the participant paid, thus avoiding an over credit error on the account.
♻️ Replacement feature on items reconciled to a scholarship payment
The replacement tool is disabled for item purchases that are reconciled to a scholarship payment. In order to replace the invoice item, an admin must first cancel the scholarship payment linked to the item in order to proceed with the replacement.
📝 Reconciling scholarships
Reconciliations on scholarships can no longer be manually deleted. If the payment is reconciled to the wrong invoice item, you must cancel the scholarship payment and enter it again so that you can reconcile it to the proper invoice item.
4. Track Scholarship Usage
From the moment a scholarship is awarded, you can track how much money has been allocated from the scholarship funds and how much has been spent from the Communities>Scholarships subtab.
Spent amount indicates how much money from the awarded scholarships has been utilized towards eligible invoices (i.e. an invoice with eligible scholarship items).
Allocated amount indicates the amount of scholarship funds that have been awarded to clients. For example, if a scholarship has a maximum coverage of $500 and a client has been tagged with that scholarship, then $500 has been allocated (but not necessarily used).
Remaining amount indicates how much money is left unspent from your total scholarship funds.
The pie charts give an overview of your scholarship usage. Each 'slice' represents a different scholarship. Click on a slice to open another pie chart that shows which percentage of the scholarship has been allocated or spent on activities or other types of services. Use the Filters to view stats and pie charts for active and/or archived scholarships.
☝️ Above, these three scholarships are pulling from a total fund of $6000. Prior to any of these scholarships being used, the total remaining amount was originally at 6K. Now, it reads 5.7K. Here's why:
From these three scholarships, approx 1.6K has been allocated. This means clients were awarded with a scholarship tag and the grand total of maximum scholarship coverage per person is 1.6 K.
From the clients that were awarded a scholarship, only $279 in total has been spent towards items on eligible invoices. And so the remaining amount of scholarship funds that remains unused (i.e. not been paid out) is approx 5.7K.
4.1 Scholarship reporting
Click 'View the scholarship report' to jump to the Reports tab to view a list of your clients who have been awarded (tagged) with a scholarship and have made payments with it.
The scholarship report displays scholarship payment corrections (i.e., cancellations). It will show a scholarship payment made on one row and also a correction/cancellation on a separate row, each on their own respective dates.
To access a list of all clients who have been awarded a scholarship (but not necessarily paid with it) , click on the Clients>People subtab and apply a filter with the scholarship tag you're looking for. Click on Operations>Export to download the data.
5. FAQs
1. Which permissions do admins need to manage scholarships?
🔑 In the Payments section:
Scholarships (optional) - If you need visibility of scholarship configurations.
🔑 In the Clients section:
View client accounts (required) - Access the client's account.
Client billing (required) - View the client's billing page.
Invoicing (optional) - Add a purchase in the client's account
Manage account tags (optional) - Add or remove a scholarship tag to an account
Manage person tags (optional) - Add or remove a scholarship tag to a person
2. How do I see how much has been allocated in total for a scholarship?
To see how much has been allocated in total for a scholarship, or to see how much was spent in total, click on a slice in the pie chat and hover over it to view the details.
3. Which memberships are eligible for scholarships?
In the past, scholarships were eligible for individual memberships only, to the exclusion of Family memberships and subscriptions.
However, organizations that have migrated to our New Membership (2024) can enjoy scholarship eligibility on all new membership types.
By person scholarships can be applied to Individual memberships only.
By account scholarships can be applied to Multi-person memberships only.