Registration Fees

How to charge parents a registration fee before their child starts, and how refunds are automatically applied to future invoices.

Registration Fees

Registration fees let you charge parents a one-off fee before their child officially joins your setting. This is useful for deposits, admin fees, or uniform charges that need to be paid upfront.

Each registration fee has a cost (what the parent pays) and an optional refund amount (what gets credited back against their future invoices). For example, you might charge a £100 registration deposit where £50 is refunded once the child starts attending.

How It Works

Here is the full lifecycle of a registration fee:

1. Set up your fees in Settings — define the name, cost, and refund amount for each fee.
2. Create a registration invoice for one or more children from the children list or waitlist.
3. Send the invoice to parents — they receive an email with the invoice attached.
4. Parent pays the invoice — the refund amount is automatically stored as a credit on the child’s account.
5. Future invoices are created — the credit is automatically deducted, reducing the amount the parent owes.

Registration invoices can only be created for children who do not yet have any invoices. Once a child has received any invoice (registration or standard), they cannot receive another registration invoice.

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Setting Up Registration Fees

Open in app: Settings → Invoicing → Registration Fees.

1. Go to Settings > Invoicing and select the Registration Fees tab.
2. Click Add Fee to create a new registration fee.
3. Fill in the details:

Field	Description
Name	A descriptive name for the fee (e.g. “Registration Deposit”). This appears on invoices.
Cost	The amount the parent will be charged.
Refund Amount	The amount that will be credited back against future invoices. Set to £0 if the fee is non-refundable. Must be less than or equal to the cost.

4. Click Save to create the fee.

You can edit or delete fees at any time. Deleting a fee does not affect invoices that have already been created — the fee is archived rather than permanently removed.

You need at least one registration fee configured before you can create registration invoices.

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Creating Registration Invoices

Registration invoices can be created from the children list or waitlist:

Using Bulk Actions

1. Go to Children (or the Waitlist tab).
2. Select one or more children using the checkboxes.
3. Click Bulk Actions > Create Registration Invoice.
4. In the dialog, select which registration fees to include. All selected fees will be applied to every selected child.
5. Click Create to generate the invoices.

Children who already have invoices are automatically filtered out. If some of your selected children are not eligible, you will see a message showing how many are eligible.

Using Row Actions

Each child in the children list has a row action menu (the three dots on the right). If the child is eligible (no existing invoices and registration fees are configured), you will see a Create Registration Invoice option. This opens the same dialog as the bulk action but for a single child.

Registration invoices are created with today’s date and a due date based on your invoice payment terms setting (Settings → Invoicing → Payment Required Days).

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Sending Registration Invoices

Registration invoices follow the same workflow as standard invoices:

1. After creation, the invoice has a Created status.
2. To send it to the parent, click Send from the invoice actions menu, or use Send All to send all unsent invoices.
3. The parent receives an email with the invoice PDF attached.

Registration invoices use their own email template (see Customising Email Templates below), so you can write different wording for registration emails compared to regular invoice emails.

Zero-Cost Invoices

If a subsequent invoice has a total of £0 (for example, if the registration fee refund ist greater or equal to the invoice cost), sending the invoice will automatically mark it as Paid since nothing is owed.

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Customising Registration Email Templates

Registration invoices have two dedicated email templates that are separate from your standard invoice templates:

Template	When it is sent
Registration Invoice Sent	When a registration invoice is emailed to a parent
Registration Invoice Reminder	When a payment reminder is sent for a registration invoice

To customise these templates:

1. Go to Settings > Email Templates.
2. Find the registration invoice templates in the list.
3. Edit, preview, and save as you would with any other template. The same variables are available (parent name, reference, due date, etc.).

The email subject line for registration invoices is “Registration Invoice” rather than the month-based subject used for standard invoices.

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How Refunds Work

When a registration invoice is fully paid, the refund amounts from each fee are added to the child’s credit balance. This balance is then automatically applied to reduce the cost of future standard invoices.

Automatic Credit Deduction

When you create a standard invoice for a child who has a credit balance:

• A line item called “Credit” appears on the invoice, showing the names of the original registration fees in brackets (e.g. “Credit (Registration Deposit, Admin Fee)”).
• The credit reduces the invoice total. If the credit is larger than the invoice, the invoice total goes to £0 and the remaining credit rolls over to the next invoice.
• Zero-cost invoices are still created so there is a complete record, but nothing is owed.

What Happens When Invoices Are Deleted

• Deleting a standard invoice that had a credit applied will restore the credit back to the child’s balance.
• Deleting a paid registration invoice will reverse the refund — the credit is removed from the child’s balance (capped at zero if some credit has already been used).
• Deleting an unpaid registration invoice has no effect on the credit balance since no refund was ever credited.

Editing the Credit Line

If a standard invoice is in Created status, you can edit or remove the credit line item like any other additional item. If you reduce or remove the credit, the difference is automatically restored to the child’s balance.

What Happens When a Child Leaves

If a child is archived (deleted from the system), any remaining credit balance is forfeited and reset to zero.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Can a child have more than one registration invoice?

No. Each child can only receive one registration invoice. Once any invoice (registration or standard) has been created for a child, the registration invoice option is no longer available.

Can I create registration invoices for waitlist children?

Yes. Children on the waitlist have full child records, so you can create registration invoices for them using the bulk action or row actions on the waitlist page.

What if the refund amount is more than a future invoice?

The credit deduction will never exceed the invoice total. Any remaining credit rolls over and is applied to the next invoice, and the next, until the credit is fully used up.

Do registration invoices sync to my accounting software?

Yes. Registration invoices sync to QuickBooks, Xero, and Sage using the same process as standard invoices. The registration fee line items appear as normal charges in your accounting system.

Can I change a registration fee after invoices have been created?

Yes, you can edit the fee’s name, cost, and refund amount at any time. Changes only affect future invoices. Existing invoices retain the values that were set when the invoice was created (the values are snapshotted).

What if I delete a registration fee?

The fee is archived so it no longer appears when creating new invoices. Existing invoices that reference the fee are not affected.

Do parents see registration invoices in their portal?

Yes. Once a registration invoice is sent, parents can see it in their invoice list alongside their other invoices. It looks the same as a standard invoice but contains the registration fee line items.