Using payments and account balances on Tapestry if you've already started using Invoices

[EmilyTapestrySupport]

The ability to record payments and see a child's account balance was added to Tapestry on 11/12/23. If you have already started using the Nursery Management system on Tapestry, you will notice some changes as to how this works with the addition of these new features. 

I'll run through these changes in this post.

 

New invoice format option

As part of this new release we have included a new format option for your invoices, so you may want to consider this before generating any more invoices on your account.

You can access this from the 'Config' section (1) -> 'Invoices' (2). It's called 'Balance Brought Forward' (3).

If you have this enabled, at the bottom of all your invoices you will see a line that says 'Balance Brought Forward' and it will show the child's account balance at the time of the invoice creation. To see what this would look like click on the 'Show Example' button (4). 

 

 

New 'Finance' tab on a child's page

When you go the 'Children' tab on the left-hand side menu and click on a child's name, you'll notice the previous 'Invoices' tab has been replaced with 'Finance' (the other tabs remain unchanged).

 

 

If you click on the new Finance tab, you'll see a green box with an announcement about the new account balances functionality. Once you've read this you can click on the 'X' to stop displaying it (1). 

Previously the Invoices screen here showed a list of all invoices for a child. You'll see there are now two different tabs, one called 'Transactions' (2) and the other called 'Invoices' (3). The transactions tab will show you a list of all payments and invoices for the child, with the most recent transaction appearing at the top. The Invoices tab displays just the invoices for the child as the Invoices screen did before. 

 

 

Let's look at the Transactions tab in more detail.

Here you can see:

A. The date of the transaction.
B. What type of transaction it is, either an invoice or a payment (if it's a payment it will show what type of payment).
C. The amount. If this is in orange it shows an account deduction, so the parent owes you money. If it is green this means money             coming in to you, the setting.
D. The account balance after the transaction. 

Each individual transaction can be clicked on to see more information. 

Any invoices you created for a child prior to account balances and payments being enabled will display here (E). You may notice there are some 'Other payments (F). These are system generated payments for invoices that have been previously marked as paid. This is to ensure that your account balance is correct for your historical invoices going forward.

 

 

In the top right-hand corner above the list of transactions or invoices, you can choose to show any cancelled transactions/invoices (4) and add a new invoice or payment for the child (5). I've linked below the tutorials that talk you through how to do both of these things.

• Invoices: Generating an invoice
• Invoices: Recording payments

On the right-hand side of the screen you will be able to see the current account balance for the child (6), the child's bill payers (7) and the child's billing address (8). The account balance you see here will take into account any previously generated paid and unpaid invoices for a child. If there are any outstanding invoices for the child you'll see the account balance will be negative. 

The tutorials underneath explain these features in more depth. 

• Invoices: Account Balances
• Invoices: Assigning Bill Payers
• Invoices: Adding/editing a billing address for a child

 

Changes to the Finance tab

There are a few changes and additions to the 'Finance' section (1) in the left-hand side menu. The 'Invoices' screen (2) is still there, with a few small alterations which I'll go through. Also, There is now a new Account Balances screen (3).

 

 

I'll go through the changes on the Invoices screen first.

This screen looks very much the same as it did before, but instead of a 'Status' column there are now two different columns. The first, Payment (1), shows whether the invoice is unpaid, paid or partially paid and the second one shows if the invoice has been sent or not (2). 

As I mentioned earlier, you can now record payments for children on Tapestry. You can do this from the Finance page for an individual child, as shown above, and you can also do this from here. To add a payment from here, just click on the cog button for a child that has an invoice in the period you are viewing (3). Then from the drop-down, select 'Add Payment' (4). 

 

 

The Account Balances screen (1) is completely new with this release. 

This screen shows you each child (2), their current account balance (3), when their most recent invoice was and how much it was for (4) and when their last payment was and how much it was for (5).

Please see this tutorial for more information about Account Balances on Tapestry. 

 

 

New Extra Charges screen

As part of this release we have included another new screen. This page allows you to see the number of extra charges for any given day and week. 

This can be found from 'Rooms' (1), then either selecting to view the whole setting or a specific room (2), then clicking on the 'Extra Charges' tab at the top (3).

This tutorial talks you through the screen in more depth. 

 

 

Export your invoice data

The last new feature included in this release is the ability to export your invoice data. 

You can access this from the 'Exports' tab (1), then selecting 'Invoice Data Export' (2). 

Here you can choose a date range (3), what children's data you want to include in the export (4) and the format type (5). Once you've done this, click 'Generate CSV' (6).

To see how to do this in more detail, what the different format options are and what the CSV looks like, take a look at this tutorial. 

 

 

 

So, those are all the new additions included in this release. We hope you find them helpful! If you have any questions about them, or the Nursery Management system on Tapestry in general, please get in touch with us by emailing customer.service@eyfs.info.