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Taking payments

Families can pay online themselves, and staff can take cards in person, once a processor is connected — see Payment processors. Everything else you record here.

Cash or check, one student

  1. Open Financials → Statements.
  2. Find and select the student.
  3. Check the fees being paid — they go into a cart.
  4. Select the cart icon.
  5. Review the invoice, printing or saving it if the family wants a receipt.
  6. Select Proceed to Payment.
  7. Choose Cash or Check. For checks you can record the check number.
  8. Select Pay.

Record the check number. It costs a second and it's the only thing that resolves "we sent that check in October" three months later.

Many payments at once

Financials → Payment Entry records multiple payments in a single pass — the right tool after a fundraiser night or a stack of envelopes.

  1. Select the fee.
  2. Enter the amount — numbers only, 20 or 20.00, no dollar sign.
  3. Choose the payment method.
  4. Add a note if useful.
  5. Set the date received — leave blank for today.
  6. Save.

Set the date when you're entering a backlog. Otherwise every envelope from last week is dated today, and reconciling against a bank deposit stops working.

Partial payments and splitting

If someone pays part of a fee, myblueboard splits it automatically.

Pay $100 against a $300 fee and the student's statement shows two fees: $100 marked paid, and $200 still outstanding.

This is what makes payment plans work — you don't need to set anything up in advance, just record what arrives. Families see exactly what's left.

Families can also split a fee themselves before paying, if you let them. Two separate settings control it, under Settings → Financials → Splitting fees:

  • Allow splitting fees
  • Allow un-splitting fees

They're independent. Allowing splitting without un-splitting means a family can break a fee up but can't put it back — reasonable if you'd rather handle mistakes yourself, confusing if they expect to undo it. Turn on both, or neither, unless you have a reason.

Anyone with Financials Access can split a fee regardless of these settings; they only govern what families can do.

A split can't be undone once it's been used

Once any piece has been paid or has credits applied, the pieces can't be recombined — by you or by the family. Undo is only available on a completely untouched split.

Payment methods

The methods offered come from your organization's configured list. Add or change them in settings.

Keep the list short and mutually exclusive. "Cash", "Check" and "Online" reconcile cleanly; adding "Fundraiser", "Booster Account" and "Other" produces a report nobody can tie to a bank statement — those are credits, not payment methods.

Payments made online

Online payments post automatically. You don't record them and shouldn't — doing so double-counts.

If a family says they paid online and it isn't showing, check the Payments tab on their statement before taking a second payment.