When families pay online, they can choose to pay all open invoices, select a specific invoice, or make a general payment without allocating it to any invoice.
If a family makes a general payment not for a specific invoice, the provider will need to manually apply it to a specific invoice. Similarly, offline payments (via cash, check, Venmo, etc.) must be manually applied to the correct invoice.
This resource explains how to ensure a payment is correctly applied to a specific invoice.
Allocate a payment to an invoice
The steps to apply payments to an invoice differ depending on whether the payment was made online in brightwheel or offline via cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, etc.
Allocate online payments
If a payer made an online payment in brightwheel that wasn't automatically assigned to an invoice, follow the steps below to assign it manually.
Log in on the web, then go to Billing
Select a student, then Available credits & payments tab
Next to the payment click Actions > Apply to invoices
Enter the amount to apply > Save & Apply when done
Allocate offline payments
If you log a offline payment (cash, check, Venmo, etc.) in brightwheel, you’ll need to manually apply it to open invoices.
When you log the offline payment, you'll see the option to allocate the payment to specific invoices. The steps below outline how to apply an offline payment to a invoice at a later time, after the offline payment has already been logged.
Log in on the web, then go to Billing
Select a student, then Available credits & payments tab
Next to the offline payment with a status of 'Unapplied,' click Actions > Apply to invoices
Enter the amount to apply > Save & Apply when done
Unapply a payment from an Invoice
If you no longer want a payment applied to an invoice, you can unapply it.
The unapplied payment will then be added as a Credit to the account, which can be applied to another invoice or will automatically apply to the next posted invoice.
Log in on the web, then go to Billing
Select a student, then All transactions tab
Next to the invoice the payment is applied to, click Actions > View/Edit
In the individual payment, click Actions > Unapply
FAQs
A student has open invoices and credits, yet their account balance shows as $0.00. How do I fix this?
A student has open invoices and credits, yet their account balance shows as $0.00. How do I fix this?
If an account balance is $0.00 but you notice that there is an open invoice and credit balance for the same amount, this means that there is an available payment or credit that can be applied to the open invoice. Once you apply the available payment or credit to the invoice, the invoice will be marked paid.
Can families make payments even when there are no open invoices to pay?
Can families make payments even when there are no open invoices to pay?
Yes, payers can submit a payment at any time, even if there aren't any open invoices on the student's account. When a payment is submitted when the account balance is $0.00, the payment will create a credit balance and the payment will be available to apply to any new invoices that are posted on the account.