Student Fee Management

Each day before 6:00 a.m., EFS receives the previous business day’s SIS ending file from your school or directly from an integrated SIS vendor. Containing student name, grade level, building number and outstanding fee balance, this allows EFS to provide email notifications and automated fee payments.

Our Student Fee Management solution automatically retrieves real-time data for outstanding student fees when parents sign into EFS. In providing parents with outstanding fee information when making an online or mobile payment, your school may choose between a real-time API, a daily file download, or using our automated EFS Wizard to post payments into student accounts.

EFS gives parents and students the opportunity to select optional fees when paying online, via a mobile device, or in person. Optional fees can be paid at the same time a parent is addressing required student fees, funding meal accounts, purchasing tickets, or making donations. Corresponding reports include detailed purchase information, and funds can be divided between multiple bank and general ledger (GL) accounts.

EFS offers four different forms of online and mobile payment: credit card, debit card, direct debit, and K12 Student Wallet. Because of the lower processing cost, on average, over 60% of parents pay by direct debit, allowing for faster and more convenient collections. Schools currently absorbing the processing fees for credit and debit cards will reduce the costs in their annual budget by implementing our direct debit solution.

The purpose of K12 Student Wallet is to reduce the amount of cash and checks processed by schools each day while speeding up payment acceptance. K12 Student Wallet allows students to make purchases and payments throughout a school’s campus, without cash, by using a parent-approved, authorized credit.

Parents and guardians will authorize a daily and weekly spending limits for their student(s). Students may then spend money on food, spirit wear, tickets, or any other school-related item. K12 Student Wallet is only valid for purchases approved by your district and may not be converted to cash. Parental controls provide the option to terminate spending privileges at any time from their EFS parent account.

EFS offers several fee schedules to cover the processing costs of credit card, debit card, direct debit, and other payment forms. The flexible EFS plans allow a school to pass all processing costs to parents, to require that parents pay some of the costs, or to absorb all fees itself.

• No Cost Plan: Convenience fees are paid by parents and added to the transaction total. This “free-for-school” service keeps reconciliation easy because you only receive the funds owed to the school.
• Shared Cost Plan: Parents are charged a flat fee per transaction, while the school pays the processing cost for purchases greater than $100. Perfect for schools whose payments are not high-dollar amounts.
• School Choice Plan: Schools establish a specific fee, per transaction, to be paid by parents. EFS will then charge the school if their chosen fee for parents is insufficient to cover processing costs.
• Full Pay Plan: Schools absorb all processing costs for EFS payments. Some schools will choose to offset their payment processing costs by increasing pass-through fees by 1%.

POS Loaded is the EFS touch-screen-based, onsite platform with easy icons for handling cash, check, credit/debit card, and K12 Student Wallet payments quickly. Your school may add many options to its terminal including a cash drawer, receipt printer, credit card reader or barcode scanner. While optional hardware can be purchased, know that our POS Loaded system is cost-free to schools and includes electronic receipting.

Keep the line and the money moving. Our POS Express module is designed for high-volume cash and credit card transactions. It is best suited for guest payments like ticket sales, concession snacks or spirit-wear. POS Express requires the purchase of a credit card reader and includes electronic receipting and reporting.

More parents are transitioning to making payments with their mobile device instead of making traditional PC-based online payments. Our API integration allows K-12 mobile app providers to seamlessly add a school’s EFS items with little effort, while giving parents the convenience of checking grades, receiving notifications, and making payments from their smartphone or tablet.

For schools without a mobile app provider, EFS has optimized its payment interface for parents. They simply add the EFS icon to their mobile device home screen and tap to make a payment. Our Mobile Pay website responds to the size of the device in use, even if using a traditional PC. Best of all, there’s no app to purchase, install or update.

In a single payment, a parent can allocate funds for their student’s lunch account, pay student fees, address outstanding fines, and make optional purchases. EFS provides standard and dynamic reporting for each department’s received payments, tracks bookkeeping with GL information, and deposits funds into multiple bank accounts.

EFS can use your school’s settings for its free and reduced lunch or SIS discounts in our POS, online and mobile payment platforms. This allows a school to flag other payment items available for discounted pricing campus-wide without any manual calculations by staff or students.

For example, your bookstore sells bottled water and flavored drinks; students with no discount pay full price while students on free and reduced have the cost automatically adjusted at checkout. Discounting can be applied to any item sold by the school, including required student fees.

EFS is helping schools raise money through its online and mobile fundraising solution. Your school may solicit donations and support for any number of causes in your community or beyond. Parents can contribute while funding their student’s lunch account or paying a student fee, and guests without an EFS account will use Mobile Pay or visit online.