Cashless Payments. An online management tool for schools. Key benefits

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1 Cashless Payments An online management tool for schools Save time processing payments for school meals, trips and after-school activities. Receive payments directly into school accounts and run reports to show how much has been banked. Monitor outstanding payments and send chase-up messages by or text with just a few of clicks of a mouse. Produce reports showing all income against projections. Key benefits An online service powered by Save time and resources needed to manage payments Allows schools to go fully cashless Flexibility to record off-line payments Provides real-time balance information on school meal accounts Real-time reporting on screen or exported to Excel Full audit trail and breakdown of all payments Extensive reporting on received and outstanding payments Ability to chase payments by text, or letter Texting service included with full shop package Secure payments via credit/debit cards and/or PayPal Simple, intuitive presentation for parents and site administrators Targeted information for each parent Synchronised with school s MIS via secure data uploads MIS sync places pupils in correct years and classes automatically School-level control over own website A customised website using school colours and logo Available with or without dinner money module

2 Service overview The ParentComms:Pay+ cashless system is designed to provide schools with a convenient online alternative to manually processing cash and cheque payments and consent slips. It will help significantly reduce the administration time and cost spent on managing meal accounts, chasing outstanding payments and administering school trips and activities. The site is made up of a set of modules created specifically to deal with dinner money, school trips, after school activities and clubs, school fund contributions and online merchandise sales. All items requiring payment are listed and controlled by your school, with no limitations on the number of items contained in each module. Simple templates are provided to easily set up each item or product in the website. ParentComms:Pay+ is a secure, fully hosted, easy-to-use service that gives you full administrative control of your own site and the flexibility to accept all or just some of your payments online. School-level control Your school will decide what types of items should be dealt with online and make these available for payment. Everything can then be targeted to the relevant parents. Parents can log in at their convenience, see exactly what and how much they need to pay and make these payments safely and securely. The view of each parent is fully tailored to present only the information and items relevant to their children so as to avoid accidental or incorrect payments requiring further administration. In addition to payments for meals and activities, each website contains an online shop to enable you to sell any items you wish such as school uniform, tickets to school events, etc. Your school has full access to upload an unlimited number of products to the shop and configure each item with the necessary details to make online orders possible. Payments & reports As payments come in, you receive details regarding the amount contained in each transaction. All payments are automatically associated with a pupil (or staff member) and the correct cost centres or other budget codes. A range of reports showing full income breakdown is available. The provided functionality is designed to save time and effort spent on managing income and eliminate the issues which arise from processing cash and cheques. Your school can monitor meal account balances, trip and after-school activity payments, and fund contributions. With just a few of clicks you can immediately text or parents who have failed to make a payment. User-friendly website A simple website will greet parents upon logging in. The site allows them to navigate through the options easily by showing them only items of interest to them. The front page offers an area for your school to post announcements or general messages and even target these to specific parents. There is also a summary for the parents which highlights the items requiring attention. Parents use a familiar style of online shopping, adding items to a basket. When the shopping is complete, the parent can pay securely for different items, such as meals, trips and clubs in a single transaction. A parent with several children at the school can make all payments via one purchase. Mobile compatibility For parents wishing to pay via smartphones or mobile devices another version of the site, optimised for the smaller screen, is also available. The site will be found at the same address but will automatically adjust itself to show the mobile version when a handheld device is detected.

3 Making payments A Pay+ site can be configured to accept online payments by credit and debit cards as well as PayPal. Credit and debit card payments are always made via a secure payment gateway which is fully PCI compliant. Schools can retain the option to continue to accept payment by cash, cheque, BACS or direct debit and record all payments within the site so all income is managed in one place. When a transaction contains payments for several items for a single child or even several items for more than one child the different elements of the transaction will be split by different cost centres or other account codes to show how much of the amount belongs to each. Paying for meals When parents log in, they will see their children s account status and can make payments to top up that account with an amount of their choice. Each time a payment is made it is immediately credited to their account. Payments can be made either in pre-configured amounts defined by your school or you may allow them to enter any amount they wish and pay that instead. When children s meal accounts are in arrears, the amount owed will automatically be shown in the total and parents can add more prior to making the payment. Parent user accounts To use the Pay+ service parents will need to go through a simple, secure online registration process. Registering for an account The parent will need to have their mobile to hand (this must be the number recorded in the school s MIS) and know their child s USO username. They will be required to enter these details into the registration wizard to enable the system to compare the data and ensure that the correct parent-child relationship can be established. This enables the parent to access accurate information when using the site. After registering successfully parents will receive a text confirming their username and chosen password. Using existing accounts Parents who are also school staff and already have USO accounts in their own schools (which may be different to the children s school) can use their regular USO accounts to make payments. They will simply need to link their own accounts with those of their children. Dinner money payments The website contains school meal information that has been exported from your school s MIS. Charges for each meal taken are automatically deducted from the existing balance and new payments are credited to accounts. This allows both administrators and parents to have access to accurate account balances in real time. Free s alerts are available to notify parents when their account balance is low. These alerts are also integrated into the ParentComms mobile app. Staff members who take school meals can also log in and top up their own accounts online. Anyone entitled to free school meals will not be asked for payments unless the entitlement ends. Once the entitlement ends, meal charges will be made each day. Meal administration The administration pages generate daily meal numbers for the kitchen which are based on the attendance data received automatically from your school s MIS each morning. Meals can easily be split by years and classes and all figures can be printed off or exported to Excel. This will allow you to reduce the time dedicated to this task while exercising a tighter control of meal numbers and reducing waste. Administrators can also easily monitor meal accounts and contact those in arrears with a few simple clicks. The data available within the Dinner Money module helps administrators gain a complete overview of all mealrelated information and fill in catering returns. Please note that the dinner money module is currently fully integrated with SIMS only.

4 School trip consent & payment When a new school trip is organised, it can be set up in the website as a payment item and targeted to the relevant parents. Only the parents of the children due to participate in the trip should be able to see this entry. You can also choose to notify parents of the event by sending a text or directly from the site. Trip details In setting up each trip, your school can provide as many details as necessary, such as destination, start and end times, any special instructions and even images to give parents as much information as possible. After school clubs & activities Pupils participating in clubs or other activities, such as music lessons or sports clubs, can have these activities paid for online. Your school can post a list of all the clubs and activities to promote awareness among parents. Applications can be taken in the usual manner or an online process can be implemented. Once pupils have joined the club or activity, you can create each one as a payment item and target the correct group of parents automatically. Online authorisation A consent form is configurable online so that authorisation and payment can be provided simultaneously. If necessary, certain parents can be made exempt from having to pay if prior agreement with the school has been reached. However, even these individuals can provide their consent online. Payments can be monitored as they come in. An overview showing payments received against payments required is available. Automatic reports let you quickly identify those whose payment has not been submitted and they can easily be chased up by text, or letter. School fund contributions As the authorisation is a key part of the trip module, payment can only be made after the authorisation is completed to avoid any discrepancies in the process. Trip administration Schools can easily monitor the progress of authorisations and payments for each trip so that a trip leader can know which pupils are confirmed to attend. Schools that request contributions to a school fund, or multiple funds, can collect such contributions online. Although such contributions are voluntary, seeing the reminder each time parents log in will encourage more people to submit a payment. Pricing can be set on a per child or per family basis and certain parents can be made exempt from payment at the school s discretion. Payments can also be configured to be accepted in instalments. You can use these reports to easily chase any parent who has failed to respond by sending a text, or even generating a physical letter via the site. Trip details can also be updated at any time should anything change after the item is set up. Income can be monitored as it comes in and actual payments received can be measured against expectations.

5 Online shop An online shop offers your school the ability to sell a range of products. These can be school uniform, tickets to events, downloadable products or anything else you wish to make available to parents. Each item is uploaded and configured by your school. This gives you full control over how items appear and provides the opportunity to attach as many images and properties to each item as needed. report of those whose payments are outstanding. Alternatively, physical letters can be generated for any specified group. A full, audited history of each message sent via the site is available to ensure that messages have been delivered and to allow spending to be monitored. Web-based communication On logging into the site, parents are presented with a Home page where various messages and announcements can be displayed. An unlimited number of such messages is possible, running on a continuous loop. Each message can be stopped and viewed in its entirety. Such messages can be targeted to the entire school, groups of parents or even individuals. Your school can configure the messages in such a way that parents are forced to read them, providing you with the ability to track which messages have been read and by whom. The shop can be used to manage stock numbers, allowing your school to exercise tight control over stock and re-order popular items in good time. Out of stock items will show as unavailable if selected for purchase. Each item can be uploaded with a combination of properties such as size, colour, type and gender - you have full flexibility to define the properties you require. In addition, you can attach restrictions to items, such as a maximum quantity for tickets. An easy-to-use, adaptable template is provided to upload products to the shop. Items purchased online can be collected or posted. For easy distribution upon collection, you can access a report detailing which items have been ordered and check them off when a parent presents their receipt. Alternatively, you can choose to send purchased items by post, and in such cases, a school-defined shipping charge is added at the point of payment. Communication The website provides various means of effortlessly communicating with parents. This can be done within the site itself and by the sending of messages to parents directly. Direct communication The shop also comes with a fully integrated texting and service which allows administrators to chase parents by text or through simply generating a Income management reports Full details are available for all online activity. Each payment is broken down into its components and the different elements are automatically associated with the relevant cost centres. Detailed reports are available for every transaction, payment module and individual. Detailed statements of account are possible for every person making online or offline payments helping to make bank reconciliations a quick and simple process. Comprehensive reports by module provide comparisons of received income against projections for any chosen date range. Business managers can quickly generate calculations to present to governors or senior staff. All information can be exported to Excel or viewed on screen. Other reports Your school will have access to the list of parents who have registered to use the site. This will show when a parent last accessed the site (or if they ve ever registered) and can be filtered by the pupils year and class groups. Every announcement posted via the site can be tracked

6 and a report of parents who have seen it can be produced. A full log of every and text message sent from the website is available. This can be used simply to monitor what is sent, when and by whom or to re-send the same message if it was not successful on the first try. Income generation Your site not only helps you manage income in a timeefficient manner, it allows you to generate income through the use of advertising. This feature is part of the core functionality but its use is at your own discretion. An advertising slot is built into the full details available to them to be able to provide information regarding any online transaction. The site also contains a built-in functionality to record off-line payments. Consequently, all types of payments made to the school can be managed and reported on from a single location. All payment modules have a variety of configuration options and an overview to monitor progress. Each item in each payment module should be linked to a cost centre or other budget code at the time it is set up to ensure income received is correctly attributed. Site configuration Your school has the power to configure a variety of site settings by selecting from a choice of options. The configuration of a few basic settings and controls will define how the site functions for your school. For example, you can predefine the amounts parents can pay for dinner money top-ups or decide to allow parents to enter any amount they choose. All such settings are at your discretion. Site setup and usage top of every page allowing you to upload advert graphics of a specified size. These adverts can be external, for local businesses for example, and can link to the company s own website. Alternatively, the advertising can be internal, promoting school events or fundraisers and can link to web pages where additional information can be found. When more than one advert is uploaded, a different advert will be displayed every time a different page in the site is visited. You will also be able to access statistics regarding how frequently the ads are served up and clicked to gauge their effectiveness. Site administration A simple and intuitive administration interface is built into the website which can be accessed by nominated administrators at your school. Payment administration Administrators have full control over the site to configure new items for payment as often as needed, view reports and access information in all modules. Other staff can also have access to this information. This includes a history of all payments made, a breakdown of what each payment is intended for and the pupil affected by the payment. Should any payment be queried by a parent, your staff will have Your school shop will be fully hosted and managed by Atomwide but its contents are fully controlled by you. Your site will be allocated a unique web address where the main part of the address will be payments.atomwide.com/schoolname. The school name part of the web address will be the school name or abbreviation. You can link to this address from the school s website or even redirect to this address from any domain name owned by the school. Automatic dinner money setup Setting up dinner money information in the website is fully integrated with the existing USO accounts in your school. Your school should already be exporting its staff and pupil data via USO-AutoUpdate on a daily basis as part of normal account administration. A few additional fields containing meal information will need to be added to the export. You will also need to export daily attendance data. A USO Nominated Contact will be able to ensure this is configured correctly for your school. Once all the information is regularly being exported you will only need to have minimal manual input to finish setting up and begin managing all dinner money

7 accounts online. Once the setup process is completed, dinner money accounts will be managed automatically by the system. Module customisation All other modules within the site will be configured by the school on an as-needed basis. The school has full administrative access to its site at all times and can make changes or use it to check information 24 hours a day from any location. Site permissions Several different permission types are available to users of the website. Parent and school staff will be able to access the front end of the website only in order to make payments and view messages. Dinner money administrators can have access to all administrative aspects related to dinner money only. Office staff can have read-only access to several administrative pages to enable them to answer any queries from parents regarding their own online transactions. Site administrators can have full administrative rights to all aspects of the site. Full documentation on all features is available online with further support available from Atomwide. Pricing The full system, comprised of five modules, annual subscription charge of 500 (exc VAT). has an A system which excludes the Dinner Money module but includes School trips, Clubs & Activities, Funds and an online Shop is 300 (exc VAT). All text messages sent via the site are charged at 5p. All transactions incur transaction charges levied by Lloyds TSB Cardnet and the secure gateway provider. Full details are available on application. Further information An online demonstration of the way the shop works from the front end is available on our website at If you have any questions or require further information please do not hesitate to contact us by calling or ing sales@atomwide.com. Related services AutoText A USO-AutoText subscription is included as part of the ParentComms:Pay+ package. As well as being used to send payment requests to parents, USO-AutoText offers a general school-to-parents text and messaging service in its own right. The service allows a school to send messages to pupil contacts and filter contacts by whole school, year, class or bespoke groups so that specific messages can be sent only to the relevant parents. It can also be used to contact staff. Custom groups, to whom regular messages need to be sent, can be created and saved. The service fully integrates with USO-AutoUpdate allowing absence alerts to be generated automatically. It also offers extensive reports to show the accuracy of your school MIS mobile phone data. For more details please see ParentComms:Reporter Reporter is a secure, user-friendly website that gives parents and guardians easy online access to school-related information. Parents who have already registered to use the Pay+ service can access the Reporter site using the same user accounts. Once logged in, parents have access to a range of information. The site encourages parental engagement by providing up-to-date reports on areas such as attendance, behaviour and achievements. Schools can also upload end of term/year reports for parents to view securely online. Your school decides exactly what information should be made visible to parents and then securely uploads it directly from the school s MIS. For more information please see the website. Value for Money Package Purchased individually, ParentComms:Pay+, AutoText and ParentComms:Reporter services are available to schools for a total cost of 1400 per year. However, a special ParentComms:Pay+ & ParentComms:Reporter package is available to schools at just 999 per year and includes the full AutoText service. Prices exclude VAT. Specifications are subject to change. E&OE.