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Welcome to Famly's Finance Setup! Just starting out? No worries—we’ve got you covered with this easy step-by-step guide to setting up your finances. Let’s make sure you’re ready to go, from pricing to billing, so you can focus on what matters most: caring for the little ones!
What’s Inside?
Step 1: Fundamentals — Create schedules and billing cycles tailored to your center’s needs.
Step 2: Pricing structure — Set up tuition plans, one-time fees, and more.
Step 3: Plans — Add and manage children’s attendance plans seamlessly.
Step 4: Invoice Layout — Customize your invoices to fit your style.
Step 5: Automatic Billing — Automate your billing to save time and effort.
Step 6: In-app Payments — Quick and easy ways for parents to pay, including autopay options.
Let’s dive in and get everything set up smoothly together!
Setting up Fundamentals
To get started setting up your finances, you must first set up your pricing fundamentals. (Your pricing fundamentals are used to determine how to charge your parents for their children's care.)
You can do this by going to Settings → Finances → Pricing → Fundamentals.
💡 You can create multiple billing profiles to account for multiple attendance schedules.
Step-by-step guide
Step-by-step guide
Create a new billing profile:
Click Add billing profile
Create an attendance schedule (the days that your children can attend the center)
Create a title for your billing profile
Select a billing cycle (the types of prices you charge at the center)
Attendance schedule:
Full year attendance: Year-round attendance
Specific dates: School year term such as Sep-May, summer camp or other non-year round attendance schedules
If you choose to create a schedule using Specific dates, the calendar view will open up for you to select those dates. Anything highlighted in purple means children can attend on those days (and bookings on these days will be charged for). If any dates are left blank, children will not be expected to attend on those days and they won't be billed for them either. If you have closure days entered in your Basic info section, these will show up as padlock icons on this calendar view.
💡 You can create multiple billing profiles to account for multiple attendance schedules.
Billing cycle:
Options:
Monthly: For monthly prices only
Actuals: For weekly, daily, or hourly prices
💡 You can create both a monthly and an actual billing profile if you bill both monthly and weekly.
Setting up your Pricing structure
Once you've finished setting up your pricing fundamentals, it is now time to add your pricing groups and prices. To start, go to Settings → Finances > Pricing structure
Step-by-step guide
Step-by-step guide
Pricing Groups
Select Pricing Groups at the top right of the page.
If you charge different prices based for the same program, enter the names of your groups here.
If there is no distinction in prices based on age, enter All children
Pricing
Create Packages and Products (and if relevant, Sessions) by clicking on New item and selecting an option from the dropdown menu. A pop-up window will open up for you to enter the details for the item you're adding.
Options:
Packages: Mostly used for weekly or monthly tuition plans
Products: Used for one-time fees such as Registration Fees, Supply Fees, Lunch Fees, etc. (They can have a per-product price or a monthly product price.)
Sessions: Used for daily or hourly prices (i.e. Drop-in rate)
Creating a package:
💡 If you charge a flat rate for weekly or monthly tuition, make sure you select "Closing day," "Child sick day," and "Child absence day" before saving this package.
Creating a product:
💡 Make sure you enter an "Price" and an "Ad hoc Price," so that the system recognizes the product. They can both be the same price.
💡 Looking to add drop-in care or any other daily or hourly care? Check out this article to learn more about creating those in Famly.
Setting up Plans
Now, it's time to add those prices that you just created to your children's plans, which informs both child expected attendance and a parent's invoice.
Creating a child's plan:
Adding plans for multiple children at once (bulk planning):
Step-by-step guide
Step-by-step guide
In the Plans section (Finances → Plans), you'll find an overview of all the booking plans at your center. If you haven't added a plan for a child yet, you can start the process in this section by clicking the Add plan button in the "Plan period" column.
Fill out the information to set up the child's plan:
Select the start day of the "Plan period"
(Optional) Set an end date for the plan
Select a "Pricing group" to apply the correct prices
Select a billing profile on the left
Add the necessary packages, products, or sessions to the child's plan
Click Save changes to create the plan
💡 Check out the article below to learn more about creating a plan for a child
From the Plans overview, you can click on any child to get a closer look at their plan, and click on Go to full profile → Bookings to make changes to their plan.
You can also filter for specific plans using the Filter by button
Finally, if you click on the checkbox next to a child's name, the Actions button will activate where you can
Add new plans in bulk
Create a new plan that can be added to multiple children at once
Update plans
Update plans to pick up any changes you’ve made to the settings of a session/product/package, this includes price changes
Add/remove discount
Add/remove a discount to selected children in one go. New plans will be created from the selected date option
Setting up your Invoice Layout
After adding plans for your children, you're ready to start billing! First, you can customize your center's invoice layout with a look and feel that works for you.
Go to Settings → Finances → Billing → Invoice layout
For more information about customizing your invoice layout check out the article below:
Setting up Automatic Billing
Famly allows you to set up automatic billing, saving you time from having to send invoice manually to your parents every week or every month.
To set up automatic billing, go to Settings → Finances → Billing → Automatic billing
When you have finished setting up your automatic billing, you need to assign your frequency (or frequencies) to your bill payers. Clicking on Bill payers page will take you to your Bill Payers page to do this.
For more information about setting up automatic billing, including billing frequencies, invoicing periods, and payment deadlines, check out the article below:
If you want to invoice manually, so that you are responsible for creating and sending out invoices to your families at the frequency you choose, check out the article below:
💡 Make sure you have already created and assigned bill payers to your children before doing this step. If you haven't, check out the article below for a step-by-step guide on creating bill payers.
Setting up In-app Payments
Famly offers a quick and easy way for parents who are bill payers to pay their outstanding balances in the app. They can pay by debit card, credit card, o ACH, and can even set up automatic payments.
To setup In-app payments, go to Settings → Finances → Invoicing → In-app payments:
The system will guide you through some prompts to help you get in-app payments up and running. For more information on how to set your center up with in-app payments, check out the article below: