Does your dc school take electronic payments?

[cheminotte]

Eg parent pay for school trips, school dinners etc? Or even just direct debit?
Any pros and cons? I would love to be able to pay for school dinners online and not have to faff about with slips of paper and cash or cheque.
Views from school staff also welcome.

[dementedpixie]

Our primary school does but not the secondary school. They use sQuid at the primary.

[dementedpixie]

www.squidcard.com/

[cheminotte]

Thanks pixie - never heard of them. Is it free for the parents or is there any transaction fee?

[dementedpixie]

It's free as long as the amount is over £10. I had it on auto top up for dd's school dinners so if her balance dropped below £5 it would top up £15 from my debit card

[dementedpixie]

You can also top it up as and when you need to online - I use this method for ds as he has fewer school dinners

[RoseDeWittBukater]

Junior and infant both use scopay for dinners, uniform, trips etc. I think it's brilliant, so much better than sending cash in with them!

[Emochild]

Dd's school will ONLY take payment via parent pay

They won't accept cash or cheque

No fee to parents

[hugoagogo]

We have scopay, its great because my two are crap and always lose their little envelopes or just they just forget to hand them in.

[cheminotte]

That sounds really good pixie - much easier.
Thanks Rose , another one I hadn't heard of. Is it free as well? Anyone know how much it costs the school?

[Doublejeopardy]

We have school gateway it's great for dinner money and after school clubs I love it.

Last week got a message about a new club during a trade show at work I paid for it and gave consent with about 5 taps if the phone one less thing to think about

[Doublejeopardy]

No fee for us and you can pay by card or set up a bank account to take the money from

[cheminotte]

Sounds good Emo - but probably a step too far for my dc's school.
I don't trust the DC to hand it in Hugo so have to take it myself on the few days I pick up as the mostly at wraparound care.

[fudgepillow]

Parentpay/via parent mail at primary/secondary. Can also do consent for trips all online, straightforward, top up dinner money everything, no more scrabbling around trying to find cheque book

[cheminotte]

Thanks DJ - sounds like it's just my school in the dark ages then!

[Hulababy]

We can pay for things at DD's secondary through school gateway.

I work at an infant school and we don't yet have an online payment system. The feeder juniors uses Parent pay

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es]

School pay here, it's a bit clunky (can't store card details so have to put them all in every time) but it's free and a lot easier than the old cash/cheques system. It appears as something completely different on bank statements though, I was a bit shocked when these seemingly random payments to the county council popped up, till I realised what it was.

Also more flexible for school dinners, DC can decide each day whether to have dinner or packed lunch, no more having to decide at the start of the week and send in the right amount of money in an envelope. It doesn't send out automatic reminders if you owe money though, those still come home on slips of paper, which seems odd.

[cheminotte]

Are there any plans to get it Hulababy ? If not, why not? I'd like to suggest it and it would be useful to understand the advantages and disadvantages for the school. How is cash dealt with currently? Safe presumably and then how is it paid into a bank?

[cheminotte]

Consent online would be great too fudge - school said they are going paper free unless a signature is needed, but that means the weekly newsletter is emailed but everything else - school trips (whether free or 'donation' needed ), parents evening etc still involves paper to be returned (and potentially get lost).

[PassiveAgressiveQueen]

Parent pay for everything, works great

[DontCallMeBaby]

ParentPay at primary, for everything by the time DD was in about Yr3; Scopay at secondary, but not for dinners.

I was (still am) on the finance committee as a governor when ParentPay was brought in at primary. The huge advantage to everyone is no cash, which was forever going missing, and no cheques, which are a pain to administer. Consent for trips online, a later addition, put an end to slips going missing.

I honestly can't think of any disadvantages. We were concerned early on about accessibility if families didn't have internet, but ParentPay did a topup card you could use instead, so not an insurmountable problem.

Parents evening bookings online at primary, that was a revelation. No more school run scrums with soggy signup sheets and a blunt pencil. Brilliant.

[Inkymess]

Parent pay for everything - easy

[RoseDeWittBukater]

No charge as a parent with scopay, no idea how much it costs the school though.

[Hulababy]

Cheminotte

I'm not sure but don't think so at the moment. We don't really have enough payments that require it tbh. Infant school meals are free. And although we do some trips it amounts to less than £30 per child per year. Optional
School milk is paid for I guess but it's not very much .

If school dinners needed paying it would be different I think.

[Arkwright]

Secondary use Wisepay which is easy to use. Primary still only deal with cash or cheques. They seem to only cash the cheques at the end of the term. I have given up with cheques as it could be 12 weeks since I sent it in and it comes out of my account as a shock.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeG0es]

It's still optional at our school, you can pay by other means but they log it all in the same system (I pay for breakfast club using childcare vouchers). It must save masses of time counting and checking cash and be a big security improvement. I wish we did parents eve slips etc through it though.