When it comes to childcare and education, parents have a lot on their plates. From managing busy schedules to ensuring their children have access to the best opportunities, the last thing they need is a cumbersome payment process. As an education or childcare provider, creating seamless and user-friendly payment experiences is a small but powerful way to build trust, foster loyalty, and stand out in a competitive market.
Thus, for educational management software companies, embedding payments into their offering can be a game-changer for parents. And as the go-to payment provider for software companies in education, nursery, and childcare, we at Unipaas have a unique perspective on how to create hassle-free payments.
Below are our top-five ways software providers can help the range of educational institutions that use them deliver payment journeys parents love.
1. Simplify the process with the payment methods parents need
Parents are busy. Managing jobs, kids, and the latter’s activities takes a lot of time. They shouldn't have to spend precious effort on figuring out how to pay for tuition, field trips, transportation, or any of the other expenses involved in their child’s schooling. Payments should be easy to make, saving them time and effort.
How does this translate to the payment process?
Software providers should have, in our experience, all the payment methods parents need. This includes credit cards, direct debits, instant bank transfers, and digital wallets like Apple and Google Pay. Next to this, parents also need a variety of ways to pay. For example, they may need automated recurring payments for tuition fees and other regular expenses, and they might prefer an embedded payment link via text or invoice for quickly paying for a field trip or other one-off activities. Software providers powered by us can fulfill all of these requirements, along with providing families with something else essential in education: flexible payment options.
2. Provide flexible payment options
Education and childcare deal with families with a range of financial circumstances. When it comes to payments, this means they must cater to a broad spectrum of ways to pay, especially for larger disbursements like tuition fees and class trips abroad. In other words, flexible payment options are key to allowing parents to do the best they can for their children.
Software providers should be able to offer parents these much-needed options. We offer functionality they can use to customise payment plans and support pay-as-you-go capabilities for those who need to space payments out over time. Payment flexibility management software providers can use to communicate to parents that they and their children are the centre of every part of the services they deliver. Next to this, we’ve also built AI functionality that recommends the payment method that will facilitate the fastest settlement, ensuring parents can easily pay and cash flows are kept flowing.
3. Automate payment reminders and follow-ups
In the childcare and education business, it’s inevitable that invoices go unpaid. Parents are busy and payments can and do slip through the cracks. Yet it’s time-consuming and stressful for administrative staff to chase invoices and parents. This is where management software platforms can come to the rescue again.
They can do so by supporting education and childcare providers, sending automatic reminders to parents for upcoming payments or informing them if they’re overdue. Saving administrative staff the hassle of manual follow-ups and enabling them to more easily track invoices and, in the end, giving the schools they work for a better overview of their cashflows.
4. Offer comprehensive payment insights
We’ve mentioned cashflow a couple of times up to this point. One of the tools we’ve found that’s an absolute must for management software providers in education that want to give schools the clear view of their payments necessary for efficiently managing cashflow, is a comprehensive payment overview.
What does this, in reality, look like?
To give software providers the tools schools that use them need to have a total view on their payments, we’ve implemented a few key functionalities. One is a dashboard that shows real-time payment statuses alongside notifications for overdue payments, analytics, and reporting–a package of tools management software can offer schools to give them the ability to make informed financial decisions.
5. Prioritise security and privacy
Parents are, understandably, particularly vigilant when it comes to safeguarding their children. This extends to their children’s personal information as well as all the financial information present in each and every payment they make. In short, they need software solutions that secure all data for themselves and their children.
This means providers must have payments that are end-to-end encrypted and compliant with card scheme regulations and PCI DSS standards. A combination of technology and compliance that gives software providers, educational and childcare professionals, and parents peace of mind when it comes to sensitive financial information.
Empowering education with seamless payments
As the educational landscape continues to evolve, so will the need for efficient payment solutions that serve both institutions and families, and companies that can provide them.
By implementing embedded payment systems that prioritise simplicity, flexibility, automation, insights, and security, educational software providers can deliver significant value to schools while making life easier for parents.
And at Unipaas it’s our view that these solutions not only streamline administrative processes but also help build lasting relationships between educational and childcare institutions and the families they serve. For educational management software companies looking to enhance their platforms, these embedded payments aren't just a feature—they're a fundamental tool for delivering better educational experiences.
Find more about how Unipaas can empower educational management software companies to help schools meet parents' needs