Tuition and billing
Rates, ad-hoc charges, late-pickup fees, subsidy families, and getting money to actually arrive.
Before you can charge anything
Payments run through Stripe, and your center needs its own payments account connected before any charge can be taken. Until that's finished, RoundUp shows what's outstanding but can't collect it. Start from the Set up payments card on Payments; the walkthrough is in Set up payments and payouts.
If the card reads Finish setting up payments or Action needed: payouts paused, tap it and check what's still needed — usually identity or bank details. Money doesn't move until the payments account is fully set up.
Some centers keep tuition where it already is and use RoundUp for everything else. Families at those centers see Billing is managed by your director instead of a payment screen.
Tuition and charges
Tuition is set per family, which means siblings, part-time schedules and negotiated rates are all just a different number rather than a special case.
One-off charges — a field trip, supplies, a late payment fee — are added as ad-hoc charges against the family. Give them a description a parent will recognize on a statement; "March field trip" saves you a phone call that "Charge" guarantees.
Late-pickup fees
Late-pickup fees are driven by the check-out record, so they rest on the same times your attendance does. If a family disputes one, the answer is the check-out time and who signed them out — which is a much better conversation than a memory against a memory.
Fee amounts follow your center's policy. Set them to match your enrollment paperwork exactly; a fee you can't point to in a signed document is a fee you'll end up waiving.
Subsidy families
For families with agency support, add a subsidy against the family with the agency name and case number. RoundUp then tracks the agency's portion separately from the family's, so the parent is billed for their share and not the whole amount.
Keep the case number accurate — it's what ties the record to your ERDC attendance export at the end of the month.
Autopay
Families can save a card and enable Auto Pay so tuition is collected automatically. This is the single biggest reduction in chasing you can make, and it costs a conversation at enrollment.
Autopay can pause itself after repeated failures. A resumed autopay charges from the next cycle — it doesn't quietly sweep up what was missed while it was paused, so collect arrears deliberately.
Payment runs
Automatic payments are processed on your billing schedule. Check the results rather than assuming: a run that processed successfully and a run where every card declined both count as "processed".
When a payment fails
Card declined
Usually an expired card or insufficient funds. The family updates the card themselves in the app — you can't do it for them, and shouldn't be able to.
Bank rejected the deposit
This is your payout account, not the family's card. The money was collected; it couldn't be deposited. Payments shows it as Payout failed with the bank's reason. There's no screen for changing the payout bank account once it's set up, so email support.
Payouts paused
Stripe needs something from you, or is still checking what you sent. Charges may still work while payouts don't, so this can run for a while before anyone notices the bank balance hasn't moved. See When something's stuck.
More: All director guides