How to invoice term fees without chasing everyone

Invoice from the roll, not from a spreadsheet

The slow way to invoice a term is to open last term's spreadsheet, update who's still enrolled, work out each family's total, and then create invoices one at a time. It takes a weekend and it goes wrong in the same two places every time: a student who left is still being billed, and a student who joined in week one isn't.

If your invoices are generated from who is actually enrolled, both of those problems disappear. The enrolment is the source of truth, and the invoice is derived from it rather than maintained alongside it.

Send before the term starts, not after it

Fees invoiced in week three are fees you're chasing in week eight. Sending before the term begins puts the payment in the same mental slot as the school stationery list and the uniform, which is when families are expecting studio costs.

It also gives you a real number to work with. If you know in the week before term what has been paid and what hasn't, you know whether you can afford the extra Saturday hire.

Get GST right once

If you're GST-registered, decide whether your advertised fees are GST-inclusive and then hold that line everywhere. New Zealand retail convention is inclusive pricing, and parents compare the invoice against the fee on your website. If one says $180 and the other says $207, you'll spend the term explaining it.

Set it at the studio level rather than per invoice, so it can't drift. And make sure it carries through to your accounting — invoices that land in Xero already correct are invoices you never touch twice.

Sibling and multi-class discounts

Most studios discount the second child or the third class. If that discount is applied by hand at invoice time, it will be missed at least once a year, and the family who spots it will not be quiet about it.

Whatever your discount rule is, write it down and make it part of how the fee is calculated rather than something you remember to subtract. And bill the family once, not each child separately — a family with three dancers should get one invoice with three lines.

Offer a payment plan before you're asked

A full term's fees for two children lands as a large single number, and for a lot of families that's the reason they hesitate rather than any doubt about the classes. Splitting it into instalments across the term usually costs you nothing and keeps a family enrolled.

The important part is that the instalments are collected automatically. A payment plan you have to chase each fortnight is worse than a single invoice, because now you're chasing four times instead of once.

Make chasing a short list, not a project

Chasing is only painful when you have to rebuild the picture first — cross-referencing bank statements against a spreadsheet against your memory. If unpaid invoices collect in one place with the family attached, the job becomes a list you work down for twenty minutes.

Record payments made outside the system too. A parent who paid cash at the desk and still gets a reminder is a parent who feels the studio is disorganised, and they're right.

How this works in Olune

Term invoices are generated from who's enrolled, so the roll and the billing can't disagree. GST is set once at studio level, payment plans split a term into instalments that collect automatically, and everything unpaid gathers in one collections view with the family attached. Invoices and payments flow through to Xero rather than being keyed in twice.