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Correct Account Balances
Correct Account Balances

Correct and adjust student balances by creating, editing, or deleting charges and credits

Adrian Ruiz avatar
Written by Adrian Ruiz
Updated over 4 months ago

Payment mistakes can happen, such as accidentally overpaying or paying for only one student. This article provides a step-by-step guide on adjusting and correcting account balances to address these issues.

Account balances are calculated from invoiced (posted) debits. Adjusting the balance on posted and unposted invoices will change students' balances. This may be necessary if an invoice was created incorrectly or needs to be changed for any reason. Click here to learn more about adjusting invoices.

💡 Debits will be included in the account balance on or after the debit post/invoice date.

Offline Payments and Credits

Offline payments and credits can be used to reduce a guardian's balance.

Offline Payments

Offline payments are additional amounts paid by guardians through methods outside of Playground. These are used to track payments made via check, cash, Zelle, Venmo, and other similar options.

Credits

Credits do not increase the amount paid by guardians. Instead, they represent funds provided on behalf of a third party for a student's tuition or other charges. Credits are ideal for recording subsidy payments, scholarships, or grant funds received for a student.

💡 For steps on creating an offline payment, please reference our article on Offline payments.

Create and Apply a Credit

  1. Navigate to the Statements tab under Billing to locate the balances for your students.
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  2. Locate the student you wish to create a credit for and click on their name.
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  3. From the student's profile, click on the blue Actions button in the top-right of your screen.
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  4. Click Add credit.

    1. Enter the amount of the credit.

    2. The date of the credit.

    3. Optionally, enter a description for the credit.
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  5. Click the blue Add Credit button.

Correct Overpayment on a Sibling

💡 To navigate quickly between sibling profiles, click on the Overview tab of the current sibling's profile and scroll down to the Siblings section. Click on the sibling's name to be brought to their Overview tab.

When one sibling is overpaid, it usually means the family's total payment for multiple siblings was applied to just one student. This leads to one student having a credit balance while the others have debit balances.

The best way to resolve this is to create a balance transfer charge on the overpaid student's account and a balance transfer credit on the underpaid student's account.

Follow the steps below to perform a balance transfer:

  1. Navigate to the Statements tab under Billing to locate the balances for your students.
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  2. Identify any overdue or unpaid student accounts by using either the Overdue or Unpaid tab in Statements.

    1. For siblings, check the Family Statements tab or search in the search bar by last name to bring up their accounts and balances.
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  3. Locate the sibling with a credit and click on their name. This will direct you to the student's profile.

  4. Click the blue Actions button in the top-right of your screen.

    1. Make a note of the amount that is credited. We'll be charging the same amount.
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  5. Click Create debits

    1. Name the item Balance transfer from [Sibling 1] to [Sibling 2].

    2. The price should be the amount of the overpayment or credit.

    3. The description should list which charge is being corrected

      1. Ex. Overpayment for April Tuition

    4. Leave the This Charge Should Be dropdown menu set to Paid all at Once.

    5. Set the invoice and due dates to today's date.

    6. Click Save item
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  6. Click Continue to progress.
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  7. Click Create invoices

  8. Navigate to the profile of the sibling with an overdue payment.

  9. Click the blue Actions button in the top-right of your screen.

    1. Make a note of the amount that is overdue. We'll make a credit for the same amount of the charge we created for the overpaid sibling.

  10. Click Add credit.

    1. Enter the amount of the charge created on their sibling

    2. Set the invoice and due dates as today's date

    3. The description should be Balance transfer from [Sibling 1] to [Sibling 2]

    4. Click the blue Add Credit button

Refunds

Online Refunds

Admins can process ACH and credit/debit card refunds via Playground.

  1. Navigate to the profile of the student who is owed a refund.
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  2. Click the Payments tab, and then navigate to Credits.
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  3. Locate the payment you wish to refund.

  4. Click on the three dots next to the payment and then click Refund.
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  5. The Payment Refund window will open. Complete the necessary fields.

    1. Amount: The amount you wish to refund the guardian(s)

    2. Reason: Use the dropdown menu to select a reason for the refund.

    3. Details: Add more details if you would like to leave a memo or note for the refund.

    4. [Optional] If your guardians are paying the processing fee for charges on Playground, you can refund the processing fee as well.
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  6. Click the blue Save button to process the refund.

Offline Refunds

If a guardian pays with an offline payment method (cash, check, Zelle, etc) you must process the refund offline as well. However, it is important to update Playground to reflect this refund.

To record an offline payment refund, you must reduce the associated credit by the same amount. If you want the account balance to remain the same, you will also need to reduce the associated debit by the same amount.

  1. Navigate to the profile of the student who is owed a refund.
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  2. Click the Payments tab, and then navigate to Credits.
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  3. Locate the offline payment you wish to refund.

  4. Click on the pencil icon next to the offline payment to edit it
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  5. Adjust the fields in the Edit Transaction window

    1. Amount: Reduce the amount by the total you are refunding to the guardian.

    2. Date: Leave the date as is.

    3. Description: Include that you are issuing a refund for the offline payment

    4. [Optional] Accounting code

  6. Click the blue Save button.
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  7. Refund the guardian via an offline method.
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  8. If you want the account balance to remain the same, continue with the steps below to edit the associated debit.
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  9. Navigate to the debits tab on the student's profile and find the associated debit.

    1. The debit may be a single installment of a billing plan.

  10. Click the blue edit button to the right of the associated debit.

  11. Adjust the fields in the Edit Transaction window.

    1. Amount: Reduce the amount by the total you refunded to the guardian.

    2. Invoice date/due date: Leave these dates as is.

    3. Item Description: Update the description to include a memo regarding the refund.
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  12. Click the blue Save button.
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  13. The refund has now been properly recorded in Playground.

Discounts

Discounts can be applied to invoices after they are created. If the invoice has already been posted, adding a discount will reduce the total account balance.

Add a Discount to a One-time Charge

  1. Navigate to the profile of the student who you would like to apply a discount to.
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  2. Click the Payments tab and locate the debit you want to edit.
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  3. Click the three dots next to the charge and then click Edit.

    1. If you are editing a single installment of a billing plan, open the billing plan, and then select the blue edit button.
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  4. The Edit Transaction Window will open.
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  5. Click the blue + Add Discount button.
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  6. Select the discount you would like to add or create a new discount. Then click the blue Save button under the discount.

  7. Click the blue Save button at the bottom of the Edit Transaction window.

Add a Discount to an Existing Billing Plan

🚨 A discount applied to a billing plan will be applied to every installment in the billing plan, including installments that have already been paid. If you want to apply the discount to a single installment, follow the instructions above.

  1. Navigate to the profile of the student who you would like to apply a discount to.
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  2. Click the Payments tab and locate the billing plan you want to edit.
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  3. Click the three dots next to the charge and then click Edit.
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  4. The Edit Payment Plan window will open.

  5. Click the blue + Add Discount button.
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  6. Select the discount you would like to add or create a new discount. Then click the blue Save button under the discount.

  7. Click the blue Save button at the bottom of the Edit Payment Plan window.

Reapply Credits to Debits & Reconcile Student Payments

Playground automatically applies all new payments and credits to the oldest unpaid charges for families. When deleting old invoices or editing amounts, credits will remain attached to the debits they originally covered. This can occasionally cause past debits to appear overdue while applying existing payments to future, unposted debits.

Reapplying credits to debits will impact your reporting, as debits will show as paid for by the date on the credits to which they are applied.

🚨 This feature is currently in beta. Please message us through the Playground support chat if you need access to this feature

Reapply credits in bulk

Prefer to watch a video? Click here.

  1. Navigate to My School, then hit the Students tab.
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  2. Navigate to the student's profile who's payments you want to adjust by clicking on their row in the table.
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  3. Under the Payments section, click the Credits tab.
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  4. Select the Checkbox on on the top of the table.
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  5. Click on Reapply all credits in the menu at the top of the table.

    1. You will need to confirm that you do want to reapply all credits
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  6. The screen will refresh, you can now go to the debits tab to see that the oldest debits should be paid for first

Reapply credits one-by-one

Prefer to watch a video? Click here.

  1. Navigate to My School, then hit the Students tab.
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  2. Navigate to the student's profile who's payments you want to adjust by clicking on their row in the table.
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  3. Under the Payments section, click the Credits tab.
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  4. Select the Three dots on on the top of the table.
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  5. Click on Reapply to oldest on the dropdown

    1. You will need to Confirm that you do want to reapply the credit.
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  6. You will need to refresh the page to see the changes take affect.

Remap to specific debits

Prefer to watch a video? Click here.

💡 This is currently in beta. Please message us through Playground support chat if you need access to this feature

  1. Navigate to My School, then hit the Students tab.

  2. Navigate to the student's profile who's payments you want to adjust by clicking on their row in the table.
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  3. Under the Payments section, click the Credits tab.
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  4. Select the Three dots on on the top of the table.
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  5. Click on Remap credit on the dropdown.
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  6. On the modal that pops up, you will be able to see a list of debits

    1. Gray rows have no outstanding balance

    2. Orange rows have some amount of the credit applied to them

    3. Red rows means there is an error. This is one of 3 reasons

      1. It includes non numerical characters

      2. It is a negative number

      3. The amount is greater than the total amount unpaid
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  7. Enter in the correct amounts that the credit should be applied to for each debit.
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  8. Once completed, press the Confirm button on the modal.
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  9. You will need to refresh the page to see the changes take affect


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Related Articles
Create & Manage Billing Plans
Understand & Generate Tax Billing Statements as Admins
Manage Guardian Payments, Autopay, & Overdue Balances
Billing Plans Overview
Family Payments & Deposits Overview
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