TutorCruncher can take money from Clients before Lessons happen, after they happen, or a mix of the two. This article covers how payments come in, how to collect them automatically, and how your Tutors get paid.
How money comes in
Two integrations handle payment, and you can use either or both.
Stripe takes card payments. Clients pay from a link in their Invoice emails or from their TutorCruncher account, and you can collect from Clients who have saved their card details. Set it up via Online Payments in the main left-hand menu and select Connect to Stripe. Your payments, payouts, disputes and account settings all live under that same Online Payments section afterwards.
GoCardless takes Direct Debit. Connect via System > Settings > Payment Integrations > Direct Debit Integration with GoCardless, then invite a Client to set up a mandate via People > Clients > select the Client > Billing > Add Direct Debit Mandate. Once their mandate is active you can collect from a raised Invoice using Take Direct Debit Payment.
Note: Direct Debit cannot be used on Invoices raised using Split Payments or Automated Payouts, which includes every Invoice raised while operating as an Employment Agency. Those Invoices can only be paid through Stripe.
Charging upfront
Upfront charging runs on Credit Requests. A Credit Request asks a Client to pay in advance, and when they pay, their Client balance goes up by that amount. That credit then covers Lessons invoiced against them later.
You create and review them under Accounting > Draft Credit Requests, and everything already sent to a Client sits under Accounting > Raised Credit Requests, with tabs for Unpaid, Pending, Paid and Deleted. A single Client’s Credit Requests are visible under People > Clients > select the Client > Accounting.
Note: a Credit Request only adds credit to a Client’s account. You still issue Invoices to draw that credit down and keep their balance accurate. Credit Requests are sometimes called Pro Forma Invoices, and appear abbreviated to PFI on exports and ID prefixes.
To have paid Credit Requests marked off automatically, enable ‘Automatically mark Credit Requests paid’ under System > Settings > Accounting > General.
If you sell courses or blocks of Lessons rather than single sessions, Packages let Clients buy a set number of Lessons or hours in advance from the ‘Packages’ section of their dashboard.
Charging after the Lesson
Once a Lesson is marked as Complete it is ready to be invoiced. Go to Accounting > Draft Invoices, select Generate Invoices, choose the date range covering the Lessons you want to bill for, and select Regenerate. Review each draft by selecting the Client’s name, then raise it.
Note: regenerating clears every Invoice currently in a Draft or Confirmed state and rebuilds them from your Lessons and Ad Hoc Charges. Invoices you have already raised are untouched, however anything confirmed and not yet raised is cleared, so raise what you want to keep first. Regenerating also generates Payment Orders for the same date range.
To skip the manual step, enable ‘Auto Invoice’ under System > Settings > Accounting > General. Invoices are then generated and sent as soon as a Lesson is marked complete and its Lesson Report has been written. Clients receive one Invoice per Lesson, and you cannot edit a Lesson Report once its Invoice is raised unless you void the Invoice first.
You can control this per Job instead, using the ‘Auto Invoice’ checkbox under Activity > Jobs > select the Job > Actions > Edit > Accounting Settings. There is also an ‘Automatically mark Invoices paid’ checkbox under System > Settings > Accounting > General, separate from the Credit Request one.
Charging a recurring monthly fee
Subscriptions charge a set amount every month, per Client or per Student, on a day of the month you choose. Enable them with the ‘Use Subscriptions’ checkbox under System > Settings > People and Activity > Activity, then create one via Activity > Subscriptions > Create Subscription.
When you create a Subscription you pick its item type, and that decides which direction it works. ‘Create Ad Hoc Charges’ charges the Client’s balance, which suits billing in arrears. ‘Create Credit Request items’ tops their balance up, which suits charging in advance.
Note: a Subscription generates the charges, it does not bill the Client on its own. You still regenerate and raise Invoices for the Client to be charged.
Collecting payment automatically
With Auto Charge on, Clients who have a valid saved card or an active Direct Debit mandate are charged for their Invoices without you doing anything. Enable it with the ‘Auto charge’ checkbox under System > Settings > Accounting > General.
Note: that checkbox applies to every Client with a saved payment method, not only the ones you had in mind. To auto charge some Clients and not others, leave it unticked and use the ‘Auto charge override’ dropdown under People > Clients > select the Client > Actions > Edit Profile > Accounting & Client Manager.
The ‘Auto charge and deferred payment delay’ field in the same accounting settings controls how long TutorCruncher waits before taking the money. It defaults to 5 days, and the minimum is 0, which charges roughly two hours after the Invoice is raised. That delay applies to Stripe payments only, as Direct Debit timing is controlled by GoCardless.
An Invoice raised for an auto charged Client is given a Pending status rather than Unpaid, and its charge date is stored at that moment. A Client cannot pay an Invoice while it is Pending. If one needs paying sooner, go to Accounting > Raised Invoices, open the ‘Pending’ tab, select the Invoice and use Actions > Cancel Pending Payment to return it to Unpaid.
Paying your Tutors
Payment Orders are the Tutor equivalent of an Invoice, giving you and each Tutor a breakdown of finished work and what they are owed. Manage them under Accounting > Draft Payment Orders and Accounting > Raised Payment Orders, or per Tutor under People > Tutors > select the Tutor > Accounting.
Generate them via Accounting > Draft Payment Orders > Generate Payment Orders and a date range. By default they only cover Lessons that have a paid Invoice against them, and a checkbox in that same dialog lets you include items that do not.
Note: generating and raising a Payment Order does not itself send money to a Tutor. It is an accounting record of work done and money owed, not a payment trigger.