Once student accounts are set up, invite payers to brightwheel billing to start collecting online payments! Parent contacts can be invited to Billing and/or Autopay individually or in bulk, while other student contacts (Family and Approved Pickups) can be invited individually.

This resource overviews how to add and invite Family and Approved Pickups as payers. If you want to add and invite parents as payers, view our Invite Parents Resource.

By default, for existing schools, the current auto-payer will become the primary payer. If there is no auto-payer, then it will default to the payer with a payment method on file. If multiple payers have a payment method on file, it will default to the first parent that signed up to use brightwheel for that student. For newer schools just starting to use Billing, the first parent contact to sign up will become the primary payer by default.

Programs have the ability to assign invoices, but we don’t want to require that all invoices be manually assigned, as that could be a tedious task. Because of this, it’s highly possible that invoices will be Unassigned. All payers can see and submit payments towards these invoices by paying them directly, but the primary payer will become responsible for them (if unpaid). This means that the invoices will be visible in the primary payer's account balance and also paid for using autopay if enabled. If not using autopay, the balance will simply be displayed in the account under My Account Balance to pay.

At this time, only a program Administrator, or staff with the Billing Only permissions can change the primary payer on a student’s billing account. This is easily done from the student’s billing profile on the Account Details page. Under the ‘Payers’ table, admins can click the Actions menu and select Make Primary payer on a different payer to assign this to them. The primary payer can end up being any payer associated with the student’s billing account.

Each student contact who will be submitting online payments towards student balances must be added as a Family or Approved Pickup student contact first. Once a Family or an Approved Pickup contact is added, they will have to be manually added as payers on the student's billing profile by following the steps below.

Once the steps above are completed, the student contact will be added as a payer for the student's billing account balance. An invitation email will not be sent automatically, but follow the guidance below to learn how to send reminders to add a payment method, enable autopay and prompt the payer to get started.

Parent contacts have an invite option available that automatically sends them an email prompting them to get up further. When a Family or Approcked Pickup contact is added as a payer on a student's account, they are not sent an initial invitation. Follow the guidance below to remind non-guardian payers to add a payment method!

Once sent, the button under the Payment method column will display 'Invite sent,' as seen above. The payer will receive an email that looks similar to the example below, and by clicking the blue button within the email, they will be prompted to log in to their brightwheel account and add a payment method.

Autopay invitation emails are a helpful way to remind payers to enroll in autopay to make sure that payments are submitted on time, every time. While programs can opt to make autopay mandatory, all payers will be able to opt into autopay regardless of this setting. If a program has a mandatory autopay setup, payers will be enrolled automatically and see a prompt in their account to acknowledge they're being enrolled when adding a payment method.

Once sent, the button under the Payment method column will display 'Reminder sent'. The payer will receive an email that looks similar to the example below, and by clicking the blue button within the email, they will be prompted to log in to their brightwheel account and enable autopay.

In our newest Subsidy experience, any agency contributing to students' tuition, educational, or nutritional costs can be added to brightwheel, then added as a payer to a student's billing account, and finally, have a billing plan set up to easily track expected and received subsidy funds!

Learn more about Adding an Agency to get started.