In today’s pandemic world, people expect all businesses, including schools, to accept credit cards. Even before the events of the pandemic, credit card usage was on the rise. More than 72% of millennials now have a credit card (this accounts for many of your potential parents). Plus, online bill payments continue to rise in popularity.
CreditCards.com explains, “Consumers aren’t just shopping online. They’re also paying a larger proportion of their bills from their phones, tablets and home computers. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, for example, consumers paid nearly half of all their bills (43.2%) online.”
Not only are potential parents expecting to pay with credit cards, but they are also expecting to pay with credit cards online – including their school and daycare bills. That’s where we come in. TUIO is the #1 billing & payments platform in the educational space. Our unique program makes it easy for administrators to provide families with a secured TUIO account where they can seamlessly provide pre-authorizations for payment of their upcoming school or daycare invoices – even including a credit card option.
Still not sure it is worth it to accept credit cards? Think again. Here are 7 benefits of accepting credit cards at your daycare, preschool, or private school.
Boost Enrollment
If your school or daycare doesn’t accept credit cards, potential parents will possibly take their children elsewhere. According to a survey by Square, “Thirty-five percent of consumers said that if a business they were thinking about visiting didn’t accept credit cards, then they would look for a different business, according to our recent survey.” Don’t risk losing a potential family to another school because you don’t accept credit cards. Moreover, when you accept credit cards, it legitimizes your business. Displaying the credit cards you accept on your website or in your office will make visitors more likely to trust you.
Speed Up Transactions
Let’s face it. Accepting credit cards really speeds things up. Authorizing a credit card takes only a few seconds, giving you more time to manage the rest of your business. Instead of wasting valuable time depositing cash and checks, credit card payments online allow you to work on the parts of your business that require more of your attention.
Make Parents Feel More Comfortable
People also feel more comfortable spending if you accept credit cards. This is likely because most credit cards offer fraud protection. Additionally, credit cards aren’t tied directly to bank accounts like debit cards, so if their credit card is compromised, their bank account isn’t.
As a result, parents are more comfortable making larger purchases, such as tuition payments, using their credit card, as they’re protected by their bank’s cardholder policies. Moreover, they are more likely to pay online using credit cards. CreditCards.com reports, “Consumers are especially likely to reserve their biggest bills for electronic payments, the Fed’s research suggests – likely because it’s more convenient than sending a check or paying with cash. As a result, more than 53% of the dollars spent on bill payments were paid electronically.”
Make Your Payments Inescapable
While trust and goodwill are important and a given in most cases with parent payments, there will be the odd parent that tries to circumvent your enrollment agreements and try to make a non-refundable payment disappear from your bank account (and theirs).
With bank account payments like ACH/EFT/DD or cheques, it is possible to stop payment. When a payment is stopped, there is no way to dispute the charge and you will likely be forced to hire a collection agency or account for bad debt in your books. With Credit Card, the parent would need to chargeback the payment to get the money back. Within the chargeback process between the banks lies the ability to dispute the chargeback and reverse it back to your bank account! As long as you have proper signed documentation to provide and proof of the agreement the parent accepted to make the payments, we can file the dispute on your behalf and recoup the funds. TUIO support has a proven track record of creating these resolutions on behalf of schools in the rare cases chargebacks occur.
Stop Chasing Checks
Imagine how much weight would lift off your shoulders if you no longer had to chase checks. No more sending repetitive emails or making parents uncomfortable at drop-off and pick-up. This is possible when you accept credit cards online. For example, if a family doesn’t not enough in their bank to cover a month’s tuition, they can finance it using their credit card.
Plus, as The Balance Small Business suggests, “Accepting credit card payments practically eliminates any risk of having to deal with matters that revolve around receiving a bad or bounced check. You will not have to risk a huge chunk of your money on bad checks or wasting time having to track down the customer to properly pay for the goods or services.”
Receive Payments on Time
With online credit card payments, most parents will settle up sooner. This is especially true if you use TUIO to set families up with pre-authorized payments. With TUIO, parents add their own card details, allowing you to charge their card automatically each month. Not only will parents pay sooner, but you will also receive payments quickly. After the credit cards are electronically processed, the money is deposited into your business bank account. No more worries about chasing checks or collecting invoice payments.
Simplify Financial Reporting
Last but not least, when you accept credit cards for your school or daycare, it makes financial reporting much easier. For example, with tuition software that accepts credit cards, payments are linked to the family’s invoices and marked as paid. Instead of having to go through the reconciliation process each month, the software makes it simple to see what is coming into your bank account.
The more convenient you make it for parents to pay, the more likely you will receive their payments. If your school or daycare does not accept credit cards, it’s time to embrace change. Let TUIO help you get started.
