Accept Step Up and ESA payments

Families with a Step Up For Students scholarship or another ESA or scholarship award can pay for a class with it instead of a card. Famlo holds their spot, writes an invoice in the child's name, and the program pays you directly. You need the Scholarship plan ($49 a month) or the Website plan, and you don't need a Stripe account for this.

Famlo takes no fee on scholarship money: scholarship bookings carry no booking fee, because the program pays you directly and the money never passes through Famlo.

How it works

1. A family books a class that takes scholarships and picks My scholarship pays at checkout, then chooses their program from your list. The spot is theirs straight away.
2. Famlo issues an invoice for that child at once, made out with your payment details.
3. The family does their part:
   • Most programs: they download the invoice, send it to their program, and select I've submitted it.
   • Step Up For Students: they reserve the funds for you in Step Up's EMA portal and select I've reserved the funds. You then bill Step Up in EMA yourself.
4. The program pays you, outside Famlo. You select Mark payment received, and Famlo tells the family.

There is one invoice per child per calendar month. If the same family books another class for that child in the same month, it's added to that month's invoice.

Set up scholarship payments

Families only see the scholarship choice once three things are true: your plan includes it, programs know who to pay, and you accept at least one program.

1. If you're on the Free plan, open Money › Scholarships & ESA and select Upgrade to Scholarship, or go to School settings › Plan & billing. Only people who can edit School settings (by default the Owner and Co-leaders) can buy a plan. Anyone else sees "Ask the owner or a co-leader to add it." See Famlo plans.
2. Open School settings › Scholarship billing.
3. Next to How programs pay you, select Add (or Edit) (1).
4. Fill in Make payments out to, your legal or banking name if it differs from your organization's name.
5. Fill in How to pay you: "Include a mailing address, bank details or a vendor ID — whatever they need to send the money." A reviewer at the program reads this and nothing else about you. Select Save.
6. Select Choose payers (2) to choose the programs you accept (next section).

When everything is in place, the card on this page reads Families can pay with a scholarship with three ticks. Until then it reads Not yet offered at checkout and names what's missing.

Choose the programs you accept

Open Money › Scholarships & ESA › Programs you accept (or Choose payers from Scholarship billing).

1. Tick each program you can invoice (1), then select Save. Families pick from this list at checkout. "With none ticked, families won't see the scholarship option at checkout at all."
2. If a program isn't listed, type it under Not listed? in Program or payer name and select Add. Name the body that actually sends the money, not the scholarship the family qualified under. Only your organization sees what you add, and you can Remove it later.

If you accept Step Up For Students

Step Up pays through its EMA portal, so a card appears under Paid through a program portal asking Are you an approved provider in EMA?

• Yes, we're a provider (2): "Parents choose Step Up For Students at checkout, reserve funds for you in EMA, and you bill Step Up For Students there." Fill in Your name as it appears in EMA and EMA provider ID, so families can find you in EMA.
• No, not yet: "Parents pay by card. Famlo gives them a receipt to get reimbursed through EMA." Step Up isn't offered as a scholarship choice at checkout. Families pay by card and claim the money back from Step Up with their receipt.

As a provider, choose How soon must families reserve funds? (3): 24 hours, 48 hours or 3 days after the invoice, or Before the first class. Then select Save.

Families see the deadline at checkout and on their invoice, and Famlo emails them once, 6 hours before it. If the deadline passes, the family shows up in Needs you on Today. Nothing is cancelled automatically, so you decide what happens to the spot.

Turn it on for a class

Each class chooses whether a scholarship can pay for it.

1. Open Classes, choose the class, and open it for editing.
2. In How families can pay, turn on Step Up for Students. This switch covers every program you accept, not only Step Up.
3. For any other way to join (single dates, for example), tick A scholarship can pay for this beside its price.
4. Save the class.

If your scholarship setup isn't finished, the editor says "Turning this on will not offer it yet" and links to Set that up. Classes that take scholarships show to families with the Takes Step Up or ESA filter on famlo.co. On a payment plan, monthly payments are by card only; a family paying with a scholarship pays for the whole term.

You can also let a scholarship pay for a payment request (the Step Up scholarship switch) or a store item (Step Up can pay for this).

Work with your invoices

Open Money › Scholarships & ESA › Step Up invoices. Each row shows the child, the invoice number, the month, its status, and whether the family has done their part.

Status	What it means
Sent	Issued and waiting for the program to pay. The printed invoice reads "Payment due".
Paid	You recorded the payment.
Void	Cancelled. It no longer counts.

Beside the status you'll see the family's step: Funds not reserved yet or Funds reserved (Step Up), Not submitted by the family yet or Family submitted (other programs). When a family marks their step done, you get a notification.

Open an invoice to act on it:

• Download PDF (1): the invoice as a document, ready to file or submit.
• Mark billed in EMA: Step Up only. It appears once the family has reserved the funds. Bill Step Up in EMA, then select it. "Marked billed. Record the payment when Step Up For Students pays."
• Mark payment received (2): when the money arrives. This marks the child's spot as paid, and Famlo emails the family that you received their scholarship payment. You can record it even if the family never marked their step done.
• Email to owner (3): sends the invoice, with the PDF attached, to your organization's owner.
• Void (4): cancels an invoice that shouldn't be paid. You're asked to confirm.

Generate last month

Invoices are issued at checkout, and on the 1st of each month Famlo also issues anything still owed for the month before. To do that yourself, select Generate last month on the Step Up invoices page. You'll see "N invoices generated — one per child.", "That period is already fully invoiced." or "No scholarship usage to bill for that period."

Needs you, reminders and emails

• Today › Needs you lists Step Up families who are past your reserve deadline (Follow up) and families who have reserved funds and are waiting for you to bill (Bill, or Open list for several).
• When invoices are generated for a month, your organization's owner gets one email listing them.
• Every Monday morning, the owner gets a reminder of invoices that have been unpaid for three weeks or more.
• When an invoice is marked paid or void, the owner gets an email saying so.

Cancellations and refunds

Scholarship money never passes through Famlo, so Famlo can't refund it. As the refund screen puts it, a Step Up seat "never went through a card, so any refund of it is yours to give." Settle it with the family and their program under that program's rules, and void an invoice that should no longer be paid. See Refunds.

If your plan ends

Invoices you already have stay open: you can still view them, download them, record payments and void them. Families can't choose a scholarship at checkout again, and you can't generate new invoices, until the plan is back.

Troubleshooting

Families don't see "My scholarship pays" at checkout. Check the card on School settings › Scholarship billing: all three lines need a tick. Then check that the class has Step Up for Students turned on. For Step Up itself, you also need Yes, we're a provider on Programs you accept.

Generate last month says an invoice "already bills part of that period". An existing invoice covers some of those days. Void it first, then generate again.

The owner didn't get an invoice email. Open the invoice and select Email to owner. It always goes to the organization's owner.

What's next

• Paying with Step Up or an ESA: what families see and do.
• Your own scholarship funds and awards: give families help from your own money.
• Famlo plans: Free, Scholarship and Website
• Prices, spots and ways to join