Within TutorCruncher, a Credit Request is a request for upfront payment from a Client so that credit might be applied to their account to be used to pay for future tutoring services rendered to them. When a Client pays a Credit Request, their Client balance will increase accordingly - the credit on their account can then be used to pay for Lessons Invoiced against their name.
Note: Credit Requests act as a means for Clients to add credit to their account. You will still need to issue Invoices in order to deduct that credit and keep your Clients’ accounts up to date.
The Draft Credit Requests page is found via Accounting > Draft Credit Requests and contains a list of all Credit Requests that have been drafted, but not sent out to the Client yet, alongside how much the Credit Request is for and who the paying Client is. The email icon found on items in the list indicates that the Credit Request will be sent by email.
An example of a Draft Credit Requests page.
Here you can:
Select a Client’s name from either list to view their Credit Request’s details.
Use the Create button to create a new draft Credit Request.
Use the Regenerate button to regenerate Credit Requests from any future planned Lessons.
Use the Raise Confirmed Credit Request(s) button to raise any draft Credit Requests found in the ‘Confirmed Credit Request’ panel.
Use the checkboxes next to an item in either of the lists to select it (selecting the checkbox next to a lists' title will select every item in that list).
Use the blue arrows next to items on either lists to move them to the adjacent panel.
An example of a draft Credit Request.
Here you can:
Use the View PDF button to preview the PDF that will be attached to the Credit Request’s payment request email.
Click Confirm to confirm the draft Credit Request.
Click Delete to delete the draft Credit Request.
Use the Add Item button to open the ‘Add an item to the Credit Request’ panel, from where you can specify a category, description, amount and sales code for the charge to be added in.
The description for the Credit Request (or any particular item within) can be edited via the purple icon adjacent to the description text.
How do I create a Credit Request?
There are two ways to create a Credit Request:
A) Create a Credit Request unrelated to any planned Lessons:
If you want to charge a Client ahead of time, but you’re not yet sure when their Student’s Lessons are going to take place, you can create a Credit Request for that Client regardless by following these steps:
Select the Create button to open the Create Credit Request panel.
You will need to specify the Credit Request’s amount, a description for the Credit Request and a paying Client.
You can also specify a category for the Credit Request, a sales code and a specific Student attached to the paying Client.
Enable the ‘Send Immediately’ checkbox to raise the Credit Request immediately - disabling this will keep the Credit Request in your drafts.
Click Create.
Creating a Credit Request.
You can alternatively create a Credit Request to be submitted to a Client by navigating to the Accounting tab on their profile page and selecting the Add button within the Credit Requests panel - this will similarly open the Create Credit Requests panel.
An example of a Client’s Accounting tab, with the Credit Requests panel highlighted.
Once a Lesson has a Credit Request associated with it, you will be able to see this on the Lessons page. Furthermore, when the Credit Request has been marked as paid, the client's Available Balance and Invoice Balance will increase. Their Available Balance will decrease as the Lessons are marked as completed.
B) Creating a Credit Request for planned Lessons:
When your Jobs have Lessons planned in the future, you can regenerate Credit Requests to be sent to your Clients for these specific Lessons. This feature is particularly useful for any organisations that utilise an upfront billing system with their Clients.
Say it was August and you had planned Lessons for the following month of September, and you wanted to create Credit Requests to pay for these Lessons in advance:
Select the Regenerate button to open the Regenerate Credit Requests panel.
Specify a date range for the Credit Requests to be generated for using the ‘Cutoff Start/End Date fields’ - in this instance you would specify the start/end of September here.
Click Regenerate.
The regenerated Credit Requests should now appear on the ‘Draft Credit Requests’ panel on the left hand side. You can review these and make any changes to them before raising them if you wish.
Regenerating Credit Requests for September.
As you approach the end of September, you would want to regenerate an Invoice for the now-completed Lessons, both so that you can reconcile your books and so that the Clients can receive a proper breakdown of the Lessons they’ve received alongside any Lesson Reports.
With ‘Automatically Mark Invoices Paid’ enabled within System > Settings > Accounting Settings > General, the Invoice will automatically be marked as paid in TutorCruncher and this will be reflected in the email the Client receives.
I’ve drafted a Credit Request - how do I raise it?
Simply use the blue arrows next to an item on the list within the ‘Draft Credit Requests’ panel to move it over to the ‘Confirmed Credit Requests’ panel. You use the checkboxes next to items in the list to select multiple items, and then use the blue arrow at the very top to move them all over to the confirmed panel in one go.
Once they’re in the confirmed panel, select Raise Confirmed Credit Requests to raise the confirmed Credit Requests.
Alternatively, you can navigate to a draft Credit Request by selecting its item on the list and clicking Confirm.
How are my Clients notified when I send them a Credit Request?
If the Client has a valid email address, they will be notified via the ‘Payment Request’ Email Definition. If you have ‘Client login’ enabled in your Branch Details then your Clients will be able to log into their Client dashboard and view their Credit Requests from there.
Can I assign a Client’s credit to a particular Job?
In cases where a Client has credit that you would only like to be allocated for use with a particular Job, you can use our Assigned Credit feature:
Navigate to System > Settings > Activity and enable the ‘Use Assigned Credit’ checkbox.
Then navigate to the Job where you wish to assign credit.
Within the Student’s panel found within the Job’s main page, you should see a purple pen & paper icon next to a Student’s listing on the Job - select this to open the ‘Edit Student Charge Rate’ panel, from where you can assign credit via the checkbox before specifying how much credit to assign.
Note: Assigned credit only limits the amount of credit that can be spent on a Job for a Client. That credit is not just limited to that Job, so it can be used against any raised Invoices.
Can I write off a Client’s current positive account balance against any future Credit Requests?
In cases where you might be billing your Clients monthly in advance, you may wish to write off any unspent credit remaining from the month prior against the Credit Request that you’ll be sending for the upcoming month. This can be done via the following steps:
Navigate to System > Settings > Accounting Settings > General and enable the ‘Automatically mark Credit Requests paid’ checkbox.
You will also want to ensure ‘Automatically mark Invoices paid’ is enabled in the same panel.
You will then need to ensure that the outstanding balance on the Client’s account is correct - to do this, make sure you have drafted and raised all Invoices for the current month so that their account is up to date.
Once those are raised, the Invoices will write off the cost of the Clients’ Lessons against their Invoice balance. This will leave any remainder available to be written off against the upcoming Credit Requests.
If I delete a Credit Request, will the credit be deducted from their Client balance?
If a user has not paid for a credit request yet, then you can simply delete that payment request and the client would not be able to complete payment on that either through their login or via email. There may be some instances though that a client has paid a credit request and you want to void/delete that. If this is the case, then it would be a matter of performing a 'Balance Correction' on the users account and issuing a refund for that outside of the platform.
If a Client has not yet paid for a Credit Request, you can simply delete that Credit Request via the Credit Request’s main page. The Client will then be unable to complete payment for that Credit Request via email or their dashboard.