Charges and Balances

Tuition, fees, credits, and payments all live on a household ledger. This page covers what you do day to day: posting charges, recording money that already came in, collecting from a saved card or bank account, and working balances in bulk from Manage Balances.

Families can also pay themselves from the parent portal. The tools here are for when you are doing it from the studio.

Households vs Accounts

This is the piece that trips people up. EnrollmentHive splits “the family” from “who is billed.”

A household is the family record: students, address, and one or more people who can log in. Open Households, then click a household to work on their ledger.

An account is a person in that household who can log in and who can be billed. Payment methods, auto-pay, and a running balance belong to an account, not to the household as a whole and not to a student.

A few consequences of that split:

• Students belong to the household. They are not billed directly. Each charge is attached to an account, and optionally tagged with a student so you can see who it was for.
• One household can have several accounts (two parents, a grandparent, a scholarship contact). Each account can have its own cards, its own auto-pay setting, and its own balance.
• Enrollments have a responsible account. That is the account that receives tuition and other charges for that class. You can bill mom for one class and a scholarship account for another, even when the student lives in the same household.
• When you collect, you collect from one account at a time. There is no single “charge the household” button that hits every parent.

The household Ledger tab has a Viewing billing for selector at the top. Choose All accounts to see everyone together, or pick one account to focus.

Scholarship example: create a household and account that represent the scholarship, then set that account as the responsible account on the student’s enrollment. EnrollmentHive bills the scholarship account for that class only. See Responsible Accounts.

How the Ledger Works

Each row is a ledger item. Most items are either a charge (the family owes you) or a payment (money or credit applied).

The large Balance number only includes posted items (Complete and Pending). Upcoming tuition does not change it until it posts.

Paid on a charge row is how much has been allocated to that charge (including credit). A payment row shows the payment amount in green. Running Balance on the right is the account total after that row.

Payment categories (tuition, registration, costumes, and so on) are how you group charges for reports and for bulk collection. Pick a category whenever you post a manual charge.

Opening a Household Ledger

1. Go to Households and open the household.
2. Open the Ledger tab.
3. Optionally filter to one account with Viewing billing for.

Under the balance you will see whether auto-pay is enabled (for one account) or how many accounts have it on (when viewing all).

Four buttons sit under the balance:

• Add Charge — put something they owe on the ledger
• Add Credit — studio credit (no money moves)
• Log Payment — record cash, check, Zelle, or another offline payment (no card is charged)
• Collect Payment — charge a saved payment method, or send a payment link

The Billing card under those buttons has tabs: Posted Items, Upcoming Items, Payments, Payment Methods, and Manual Tuition.

Adding a Charge

Click Add Charge. Choose the Account that should owe it, and optionally the Student it is for.

Then pick how to build the charge:

Every charge also needs:

• Post date — when it hits the ledger. Use today to put it on the balance now, or a future date so it stays under Upcoming Items until then.
• Due date — when you expect it paid. Used by “only include items that are due” in Manage Balances.
• Notes — optional. Families can see description and notes, so write them as if a parent will read them.

Click Add charge.

Tuition from enrollments is usually created automatically when you enroll someone. Use Add Charge for costumes, extra fees, missed registration fees, and anything else that is not generated for you. You can also add enrollment-related items from the student’s enrollment menu with Add ledger items to household — see Managing Enrollments.

Adding a Credit

Click Add Credit. This does not refund a card and does not take money in. It records studio credit on an account (shown as a Credit payment, hidden from the public payments list as a card transaction).

1. Choose the Account.
2. Enter Amount paid (the credit amount), Description, and Notes.
3. Allocate the credit: check unpaid charges and type how much each should get, and/or check Leave unallocated for credit you want sitting on the account.
4. Allocated total must match Amount paid exactly. Remaining to allocate should be $0.00.
5. Click Add credit.

Unallocated credit lowers what you still need to collect, but it is not fully “applied” to specific charges until you allocate it (here) or reconcile it.

Logging a Payment

Use Log Payment when the family already paid you outside EnrollmentHive — cash at the desk, a check, Zelle, and any other methods you have configured.

Logging a payment does not process a card or bank account. If you want EnrollmentHive to charge a saved method, use Collect Payment instead.

1. Choose the Account.
2. Enter Amount paid.
3. Choose Payment type (Cash, Check, Zelle, or your studio’s extra methods).
4. Optionally edit Description and Notes.
5. Check the unpaid charges this payment should cover, and enter an Allocated amount on each (up to Max). Use Leave unallocated for overpayment or a prepayment that should sit as credit.
6. When Remaining to allocate is $0.00, click Log payment.

If allocated total does not match the amount paid, the form will not submit.

Collecting from a Payment Method

Click Collect Payment. The dialog has two tabs: Collect Payment and Send Payment Link.

Charge a saved method

1. Choose the Account. They must already have a payment method. If they do not, you will be asked to add one first (see Payment methods).
2. Check the unpaid items to collect, and adjust Charge Now if you are only collecting part of a charge.
3. Select a Payment Method. The default method is selected when there is one.
4. Confirm the Charging total. If your studio adds a card surcharge, it is shown here.
5. Click Charge. The method is charged immediately. A confirmation email is sent when the charge succeeds or is processing.

Send a payment link

Use Send Payment Link when someone should pay online without logging in (a relative, a one-off payer, or a family that prefers a link).

1. Choose the Account and the unpaid items to include.
2. Set Link expires after (days) (default is 14).
3. Click Generate payment link, then copy the URL.

The guest must pay the full amount in one card payment. They cannot split it or pay by bank transfer on that link.

Managing Ledger Items

On Posted Items or Upcoming Items, open the menu on a row.

Edit ledger item

Change description, notes, account, student, amounts, category, post date, and due date.

If the item already has payments allocated to it, many of those fields lock. You will see a note that it cannot be fully edited.

Parents can see this information, so keep descriptions readable.

On an upcoming item, Post Now (next to Post date) posts it today. That cannot be undone from this button — it moves the item onto the balance.

On a payment row, you can open Reallocate to point that payment at different posted charges. The amounts you allocate must add up to the full payment.

The edit view also shows what the item paid for, what paid for it, and related items.

Split item

Available on unpaid (or not fully paid) charges. Use this to break one charge into several with their own post and due dates — for example, a costume billed in two installments.

The first row keeps the leftover. Click Add row, enter each piece’s Charge (no tax) and dates, then Split item. The pieces must add up to the original charge (tax is split with them).

Duplicate charge

Creates a new charge with the same account, student, amount, and description. Post date and due date are set to today.

Remove ledger item

Deletes the row. You cannot remove an item that has already been paid, or a payment that was collected through Stripe (card/bank). Upcoming tuition is safe to remove if you need to; dropping an enrollment also removes its upcoming items.

View charge / View refund

Opens the processed payment (or refund) in Payments.

Payment Methods and Auto-Pay

On the household Payment Methods tab:

• Click Add Payment Method, pick the Account, enter card or bank details, optionally a nickname, then Add payment method.
• Set as default marks which method Collect Payment and auto-collection should prefer.
• Delete removes it. That cannot be undone.

Methods belong to an account. Mom’s card will not charge Dad’s balance.

Cards show brand, last four, and expiration. Bank accounts show bank name and last four. Status should be Verified before you rely on it. Bank accounts may sit in Processing or Confirming until verification finishes.

When you are viewing a single account on the Ledger tab, click the Auto-Pay badge to turn auto-pay on or off for that account. Auto collection (below) only charges accounts that have auto-pay enabled and at least one payment method.

Manual Tuition

The Manual Tuition tab is for a student whose tuition should not follow the usual section/global rules — a private lesson rate, a custom monthly amount, and similar cases.

Click Add Manual Tuition and set the student, a name, Monthly price, payment category, Responsible account, start (and optional end) date, and whether to Prorate partial billing cycles. Click Save Manual Tuition.

Deleting a rule does not change ledger items that already exist. Price overrides on an enrollment also do not change tuition during cycles covered by a manual-tuition rule.

Refunds

On a posted payment row, choose Refund. You get two modes:

Check the paid charge rows to include, enter how much to refund on each (up to Refundable), and submit.

Manage Balances

Open Manage Balances from Payments (or search for it). This is the studio-wide view of who owes what, who has leftover credit, and who said they would pay later.

There are three top-level tabs: Collect Balances, Manage Credits, and External Payments.

Collect Balances — Manual Collection

Lists accounts (not households) with a collectible balance.

You can filter:

• Payment categories to collect — only charges in those categories. Leave empty for all.
• Only include items that are due — skip charges whose due date is still in the future.

Household unallocated payments are applied oldest-first before anything is charged, so you will not double-collect money that is already sitting as credit.

Each row shows household, account, Balance, and whether you can charge them:

• Check Charge account to include them.
• Auto-pay disabled or No payment methods means you cannot collect from here until that is fixed on the household.
• Notes become the payment note on the charge. Set all notes fills the same note on every selected account.

Use Select All / Clear All, then Collect All Selected Balances. Confirm the table, type the total amount exactly, and click Process Payments. You can leave the page while it runs, but you will lose the live success/pending/failed counts if you do.

Refresh afterward to see anyone who is still unpaid (failed cards, and so on).

Collect Balances — Auto Collection

Configure rules that charge eligible accounts on a schedule, instead of clicking through Manual Collection.

Click Add Rule, then set:

• Active
• Day of Month
• Collection Time (studio local time)
• Payment Categories — leave empty to collect all categories

Click Save. Edit a rule later from the table.

Only accounts with auto-pay on and a usable payment method are charged. Auto Collection Logs is the history of those runs.

Manage Credits

Lists accounts that have unallocated payment or credit sitting on them — money or studio credit not yet pointed at a specific charge.

Click a row to expand the individual payment/credit lines. Columns:

• Allocatable — how much can still be applied to unpaid charges
• Unallocated — how much is not yet tied to a charge

From here you can:

• Reconcile on one payment — preview applying it to the oldest unpaid charges, then Apply
• Reconcile Account — same idea for every unallocated payment on that account
• Bulk Reconcile Credits — auto-reconcile every account currently listed
• Bulk Add Credit — download the CSV template (Student Name, Household Name (optional), Credit, Note), fill it in without changing the header or column order, upload it, confirm the account on each row (primary is the default), then Add Credit(s)

Reconciliation uses oldest unpaid charges first. Leftover stays unallocated.

Your studio can also auto-reconcile after daily posting (a payment setting). Manual reconcile is for when you want to do it now, or when something was left unallocated on purpose.

External Payments

These are charges a parent marked as pay later at checkout (cash, check, or another offline method you allow). Rows whose due date has passed are highlighted.

This tab is a to-do list: when the money actually arrives, Log Payment on that household and allocate it to the charge.

Bulk Charges

Bulk Charges (under Payments) posts the same charge to many people at once — a recital fee, a costume deposit, a team jacket.

1. Click Create Bulk Charge.
2. Enter Description, optional Notes, Charge Amount, Payment Category, Post date, and Due date. Tax is calculated for you.
3. Choose recipients By enrollment, By student, or By household, then by a list or by tags.
4. Preview the generated items. Remove anyone who should be skipped.
5. Click Add Charges.

Open the bulk charge later to see every ledger item it created. Collect takes you to a collection screen for only the remaining unpaid items from that bulk charge. Deleting the bulk charge record does not automatically unwind every ledger item — treat delete carefully.

Related

• Managing Enrollments — how tuition gets on the ledger when you enroll, drop, or move a student
• Pricing a Section — tuition, drop-in prices, and responsible accounts