Learn how to charge late fees for overdue balances in Playground. Late fees can be applied automatically based on your billing settings or added manually to specific accounts. This guide walks through both options so you can choose the approach that works best for your program.
Manually Add Late Fees to Overdue Balances
View Which Families are Overdue
To create late fees for your students, a comprehensive list of all overdue payments can be found in the Overdue tab in your Statements dashboard nestled under Billing. You will notice the status on the Statements dash for the students will reflect as "Overdue".
Create Late Fees for Overdue Payments
To charge the families a late fee for their overdue payment, follow the steps below.
From your Admin Dashboard, click into the Billing tab and the Statements tab. Go to the Overdue tab.
Click on the checkboxes next to the applicable students.
Click the Billing Actions button in the top right and select Create Debits.
You will notice the students populate on the right side of your screen. Confirm that the correct students have been checked off and click Next: Add billing items.
You will be able to create a charge for the currently selected students. You will want to enter a line item that will be displayed on the statement for the guardians and ensure the fee is correct. Now that you have confirmed the line item and fee amount, click "Save item".
💡You can create a Saved item in your Billing Overview dashboard to quickly add the line item and fee by selecting your "Late fee" saved item from the Item name field dropdown menu.
6. The system will prompt you to review the currently added charge, and you can click on Next: Review to proceed.
7. You will now be able to review how the charge will appear on guardian statements. If you would like to send a notification to the guardians that the charge is being added, then you can choose to notify the primary guardians via email or the app and click Create debits.
Your late fee charges have now been created and added to the student's profile!
Automatic Late Fees for Overdue Balances
🚨 Automatic late fee feature is currently in beta and must be enabled by the Playground Support team. Reach out to us if you’d like this turned on for your account.
Set Up Automatic Late Fees
Once the feature has been enabled, you can set it up in your billing settings.
From your Admin Dashboard, click the Settings tab.
Select the Billing tab.
Toggle on Enable late payment fees.
Next, set up your Fee item. Click the pencil icon next to Fee item to edit the late fee details. From here, you can:
Enter the name of the late fee.
Choose whether the fee will be a flat fee or a percentage of the overdue amount (excluding other late fees).
Set the amount you would like to charge.
Optionally, assign an accounting code if you use accounting codes for reporting.
Click Save once your late fee details are complete.
Choose your Grace period, if you’d like to give families a few extra days before a late fee is applied. Enter the number of calendar days (weekends included) to wait after your billing period ends before Playground checks for unpaid balances.
Set a Grace amount, if you don’t want to charge late fees on smaller balances. This lets you decide the minimum overdue amount required before a late fee is triggered.
Select your Charge scope. Decide whether late fees should be applied per student or per family.
Per student means each student with an overdue balance will receive a late fee.
Per family means only one late fee will be charged, even if multiple students in the household are overdue.
💡 How late fee timing works: The grace period counts from the end of your billing period (your school's billing day) — not from each debit's individual due date. Once the grace period passes, Playground checks for unpaid balances at midnight in your school's time zone and creates any late fees in Fee Approvals.
Example: Your monthly billing day is the 15th and your grace period is 5 days. Playground checks the period ending on the 15th and creates late fees on the 21st. A debit due on the 10th is checked at that same cutoff — it doesn't get its own 5-day countdown.
Review and Charge Automatic Late Fees
Once automatic late fees are set up, they do not post directly to a student’s ledger right away. Instead, they follow the same process as program, attendance, and overage fees and appear in Fee Approvals tab for review.
From your Admin Dashboard, click the Billing tab.
Select Fee approvals.
Click the Late payment fees tab.
Here, you’ll see all pending automatic late fees that have been generated based on your settings.
From this screen, you can:
Click Charge next to a student’s name to apply the late fee to their ledger.
Click Edit if you need to adjust the fee amount before charging.
Click Forgive if you do not want to apply the late fee.
You can also use the checkboxes next to student names to charge or forgive fees in bulk.
Once charged, the late fee will be added to the student’s ledger and reflected on their account balance.
NSF Fees
NSF fees, or non-sufficient funds fees, can be utilized to charge families fees if a payment attempt fails. Follow the steps below to get NSF fees set up in your account:
🚨 Before these fees can be enabled on your end, the feature itself must be turned on by a member of the Playground Team.
Once NSF Fees has been turned on by Playground, navigate to your Settings -> Billing tab.
Scroll down to the Non-sufficient funds fees section and turn the Enable NSF fees toggle on.
After this has been enabled, click the Add NSF fee button.
Enter a Name, Amount per failed payment, and Accounting code (Optional).
Click Save when finished.
🚨 NSF fees will be automatically added to student profiles. You won't have to approve them under the Fee approvals tab like other fees in Playground.
These fees will only generate for failed ACH payments, as Credit Card payments tend to fail instantly.
FAQs
These questions cover automatic late payment fees.
Does the grace period for automatic late payment fees count weekends?
Does the grace period for automatic late payment fees count weekends?
Yes. The grace period is counted in calendar days, including weekends, starting from the end of your billing period (your school's billing day) — not from each debit's individual due date.
When will an automatic late fee appear in Fee Approvals?
When will an automatic late fee appear in Fee Approvals?
Playground creates late fees at the first midnight (in your school's time zone) after your billing period ends and your grace period has passed.
Example: If your monthly billing period ends on the 15th and your grace period is 5 days, late fees appear in Fee Approvals on the 21st.
Does each debit get its own grace period?
Does each debit get its own grace period?
No. Late fees are checked once per billing period, not per debit. At the cutoff, Playground looks at every unpaid debit that was posted and due before the cutoff — including one-off debits, not just recurring tuition.
A debit that's posted or due after the cutoff isn't included in that check.
Why didn't a late fee generate for an overdue balance?
Why didn't a late fee generate for an overdue balance?
Each billing period is only checked once, when its grace period ends — it isn't re-checked every day. Common reasons a fee wasn't created:
A payment was pending at the cutoff. Pending payments count toward the balance. If the payment fails afterward, a late fee isn't created for that period.
Late fees were turned on after the cutoff. Periods whose cutoff has already passed aren't charged retroactively.
The overdue amount was below your Grace amount.
The debit was posted or due after the cutoff. It will be checked in the next billing period instead.
You can always add a late fee manually by following the steps in Manually Add Late Fees to Overdue Balances.
Do failed payment attempts prevent a late fee?
Do failed payment attempts prevent a late fee?
No. Failed or declined payments don't count toward the balance, so the debit is still overdue at the cutoff. Only a payment that's still pending at the cutoff can prevent the fee.
If a family pays after a late fee is created, is the fee removed?
If a family pays after a late fee is created, is the fee removed?
No. The late fee stays in Fee Approvals until you act on it. If you don't want to charge it, click Forgive.