Use this article to help you set up a simple fee-only event to charge a group of students with parental consent. If you do not require consent, please see our 'Quick Charge' article or watch this Video. This method below should only be used if you require consent.
If you already know which group you wish to add a fee for, please skip to Step 2.
Step 1: Creating a Group:
You need to create a group and add in the students to that group ready for the fee-only event.
- Click the 'Reception' tab on the Homepage
- Click the 'Groups' tab. Located in this tab are all the groups created within your School's site. By default, the groups in which you are the lead organiser will be displayed in a list on the left side of the screen.
- To create a new group, click the '+Add Group' tab
- When selected, a pop-up box will appear on screen like the one shown in the image below. Fill in the details as follows:
Title: Name of the group/team
Description: Description of the group/team
Gender: Gender of the group/team
Location: Location of the group/team
Activity: Sport or activity of the group/team
Group Code: This can be used for further differentiation if required
Billing Code: This can be used by the finance department if required -
Click the green 'Save' button
The group has now been created. You will now need to add students to the group.
- To add students to the group, click the 'People' tab
- Click on 'Students'
- You can either add a single student or add multiple students. To do this, click either 'Add' or 'Add Multiple'
- When clicked, a pop-up box will appear on the screen, like the one shown in the image below. To add students to the group, click the
symbol.
- Students can be filtered by using the filter tools above the student selection box
- Selected students will appear in the selected column
- Students can be removed clicking the red trash can (
) symbol.
When the correct students have been added to the group, click the green 'Save' tab.
The students will now be listed within the group/team under the Students tab. Students/parents will not be notified when they are added to a group/team. However, the group will appear in their groups list within the SchoolsBuddy student/parent portal
Please note: The group created will be a stand-alone group and not associated with a container. You can edit this group of students before creating another fee event, or remove students as needed.
Step 2: Creating an Event:
- Click the 'Organising' tab from the homepage
- Then click '+Add Event'
- At that stage select 'Misc Charges' as the event type. If this option is not available, please let our Support team know and it can be added for you.
If this option is not available, please let our Support team know and it can be added for you.
Note, this is only going to create an event to charge students so parents can pay. It is not designed to act as a register or for recurring events. Please see our guide Creating an Instant Book Event for that scenario.
4. Select 'Send Availability/Consent Requests with auto selection'. This will ensure that consent is given and that the charge is made immediately.
5. Choose Parent Consent if you require parent consent. For some schools this is auto ticked, but this does not mean that you need to actually send the consent invites to the parents.
6. Add the fee you would like to charge, and then the group you would like to charge it to. In this case 'Girls Netball Squad Year 4 - 5'.Give the fee event a name, usually something like '2024/2025 -Season 2 Uniform GNB Y45' would suffice.
7. Then select the date. You need to decide when the consent should expire. Since this 'from date' is in the past, the parent will no longer be able to give consent. Consider this date as the consent expiration date and time.
8. Ignore the Meeting at and Venue location. You can give more information in Vital Information if so desired but it is only recommended if you opt for the consent option.
9. Then click 'Save'.
10. When you click save you will see the event planner screen. You can ignore most of this apart from the Availability / Consent' element (shown below).
11. Click on this section with the green, red and amber symbols. These are the counters of who has been charged.
TO REQUEST CONSENT PRIOR TO CHARGING
1. Select some or all of the students using the INVITE button.
2. Click Save/Send. This will send a clear invite to the parents of the students to respond with consent or decline.
3. Upon consent, the parent account will be charged with the fee. If you make a mistake simply exit from the Organising screen without saving!
4. As parents provide consent, the 'Availability/Consent' fields will update. The counters indicate the status: invited - awaiting consent (Amber) and consent given (Green).
5. In the scenario below, the parent of 'Emily McAllen' has been sent an invite so they will need to consent before they are charged. The parent can now pay the charge from their Fees tab. The payment provider will vary from school to school, depending on the region.
7. Once the parent has paid, you will see this in the Summary Fees tabs.
8. It is possible to add charges for more students, by
- adding them to the group and then
- going to the Organising tab, finding the event and you will see their name appear in the list of available students.