A Billing Cycle is defined by how often you bill tuition to your students.
Go to Tuition Billing Settings, found under the Gear (icon) > Settings > Tuition & Discounting > Tuition Billing Settings > Manage Billing Settings (button), to select all the Billing Cycles that apply to your organization. Note: If you bill By Total Hours you are limited to one Billing Cycle.
There are four Billing Cycles to choose from:
- Weekly - You can pick the day of the week that the cycle starts.
- Monthly - You can pick the day of the month the cycle starts.
- By Session Dates - You pick the Session dates, to use this option you must add start and end dates to each session. Session dates are added in the drop-down lists (Gear icon > Settings > General > Drop-down Lists).
- Custom - You can post fees using a custom Billing Cycle (for example, every 4 weeks), select Custom. Indicate the number of weeks in the Billing Cycle (you can select up to 52) and indicate the start date of the first Custom Billing Cycle.
Assigned to each Class record, on the Summary tab, Tuition Billing Cycles tell Jackrabbit how often families are billed for tuition for each class and what day/date the Billing Cycle starts. This is the day/date that the class cycle starts and is not necessarily the date you actually post the tuition fees. For example, you may post fees to families on the 25th of each month for the upcoming month. Your Billing Cycle would be monthly and each cycle would start on the 1st of the month.
Tuition Billing Cycles define the range of days that families are billed for. If you choose to prorate tuition fees, you must select a billing cycle.
Select the Right Billing Method
Classes Billed by Total Hours
For classes billed By Total Hours, you can use only one Billing Cycle.
When you select By Total Hours in the Tuition Billing Settings, Jackrabbit assumes you'll want to bill monthly and defaults the Billing Cycle to Monthly in the Update "Total Hours" Discount Settings. All By Total Hours classes are automatically assigned the Monthly Tuition Billing Cycle and that field is disabled on the Class record > Summary tab.
If you have selected other Billing Cycles (Weekly or By Session Date) in the Tuition Billing Settings, you can opt to use one of those instead of Monthly for your By Total Hours classes. When you update the Billing Cycle selection in the Update "Total Hours" Discount Settings, every class assigned a Billing Method = By Total Hours will be reset to the Billing Cycle you selected.
Billing Cycles for Classes Billed by Class Tuition Fee
If you select only one Billing Cycle in the Tuition Billing Settings, Jackrabbit will automatically assign that Billing Cycle to every class and that field is disabled on the Class record > Summary tab.
It is possible to use more than one Billing Cycle for classes billed By Class Tuition Fee. If you select more than one Billing Cycle, you must ensure each class has a correct Billing Cycle saved to the Class Summary tab.
Note: Use Edit All Classes from the Classes menu, with the search criteria Class Tuition Billing Method = By Class Fee and Class Tuition Billing Cycle = (No Value) to locate classes that do not have a Tuition Discount Rule assigned.
Billing Cycle Examples
- You run Post Tuition Fees on the 25th of each month, however, families are being charged for the following month from the 1st through the end of the month. The Billing Cycle is Each month on the 1st.
- You run Post Tuition Fees every week on Saturday, however, families are being charged for the upcoming week (Monday - Sunday). The Billing Cycle is Each week on Monday.
- You run Post Tuition Fees once per session on the day the session starts. The Billing Cycle is By Session Dates. Note: If you prorate classes and use the By Session Dates Billing Cycle, the prorating is calculated based on the Session dates as defined in under the Gear (icon) > Settings > General > Drop-down Lists (left menu); class start and end dates are NOT considered.