Class selects the families to be paid.
Payment may be made via cheque (a combined remittance advice/cheque) or a BACS file.
If a BACS file is used, a further piece of software is required to transmit the file created by Class to BACS (ask Infospeed for details).
The payment currency is determined by the "School" record.

Payment Start
This is how many days a student has to be with the family before the family is considered for payment.

Eg. Student arrives on Sat 3rd March
Payment can start from 13th March

The above rule is ignored for a second booking (same family) in the same enrolment, eg. to reflect a holiday or Christmas break.

Payment Period
This is how many days the host family will be paid.
This is typically 2 weeks in advance and 2 weeks in arrears, but you can adjust this if you pay in different intervals.

Eg. 28 days = the family is paid for 4 weeks at a time. They will be paid less however, if the booking is for less than 4 weeks!

Payment Run Interval
This is how often you physically sit at your computer and do a payment run.
The popular intervals are 7,14 and 28 days, but it is not a problem changing this if you need to plan around staff or bank holidays, for example.

Trailing Days
This is used to make a full final payment if the student is leaving within 2 days of the period you are paying up to.
For example, if you are paying up to Sunday and the student is leaving the family the following Tuesday, payment will be made for the 2 remaining days. This means that the family does not have to wait another 4 weeks before getting their money.

Payment To
This date should always default to the correct date based on your last run, but you can change this in order to cover Christmas, staff or bank holidays, or even pay your host families early.
There is no possibility of duplicate payments being created by resetting the date to an earlier period, as each student's accommodation record is marked with the last "paid up to date".

Only Consider Students Starting Accommodation Before DD/MM/YY
Each accommodation record is considered in turn.
If the accommodation does not start before this date, the record is not considered for payment.

Pay Families...
This is used to capture short stay students that have not yet arrived, but you want to pay the family in advance.
This is generally to capture students who will have stayed and gone before the next payment run.< /P >

Run Type
You MUST always do a provisional run before a final run.
This allows you to review and ensure that all the calculated payments are correct, and gives you the opportunity to make any adjustments before the payments are committed.
Any number of provisional runs can be made before a final run can be processed.

Groups
This option is here should you need to process an individual group for any reason.

Schools
This is available for corporate groups that have schools located all over the country or overseas and wish to run individual payment runs per school. Alternatively, you may be running a summer operation and want to manage the payments for it separately.

A school (or a series of single schools) may be selected for processing.
A single school may be followed by "All" schools.
Schools already paid will be excluded, unless the "Payment To" date has been advanced.

Run Results By

Payment Run
Select to process the run:

In order for you to be able to set the above, please go to Settings > Company > Company > Accommodation

Run Results

Questions

What If - You wish to "stop" ALL payments to the family?
Select the family and put the account on "Hold".
The family will not be paid until "Hold" is deselected.

What If - You wish to "stop" payment of an individual student? (but other students with the family will be paid)
Set the student's arrival status to "No Show".
Reset to the correct setting after the payment run to allow family to be paid at the next payment run.

What If - An adjustment for the payment is required?
Eg. 1 - Family already paid manually
2 - Student caused some damage and £75 compensation is to be paid

Enter a manual adjustment (via Host Family Record > Payments)

What If - The student has been moved and the family has been been paid, or overpaid?
Providing the accommodation dates are adjusted or the accommodation cancelled, the system will automatically sort out the payment.
However, the system will not allow the "paid to" date to be set prior to the date the family has been paid up to.

If this is required, cancel the accommodation and re-enter.
The 'old' family will have the complete payment cancelled out and a new one recalculated.
The net will show a balancing payment or overpayment.
The 'new' family is paid for the appropriate period.

Final Payment Run

A warning is displayed first.
The system will need to update every student record selected.

If a user is updating a student's accommodation record, the run will stop and no harm is done.
Message: "Cannot create new connection because in manual or distributed transaction mode".

It is therefore best to request users, not to enter 'Student Accommodation records' when the run is in progress.

The run automatically updates the host family and student records:

Each accommodation record is updated:

Reports

You are advised to always print the Exceptions.

BACS Output File
BACS output is produced in the format required.
A BACS import program, such as Albacs, is required for onward posting to the banks.

Cheques
Fixed format Remittance Advice/Cheques may be printed.