This guide walks through how tuition billing is set up in Bloomily: the building blocks (school years, tuition templates, and billing plans), the enrollment contract that puts a child on a payment schedule, and the autopay that collects it. Billing foundations live in Money > Setup & reports > Billing setup in Admin OS. Availability depends on the organization’s program kind, features and billing permissions.

One thing to keep in mind throughout: Bloomily runs the mechanics, but your center owns the numbers. Tuition amounts, fees, discount eligibility, and late-fee policy are your decisions. Bloomily turns them into invoices and payments.

Before you start: connect Stripe

Online payments (card, bank transfer, and autopay) require a connected Stripe account. Go to Settings > Organization > Payments connection and follow the offered connection action. The full setup is covered in Payments, refunds, and payout setup (Stripe).

The building blocks

Bloomily separates what care costs from who is paying for it. You define pricing once, then assign it to each family through a contract.

Open Money > Setup & reports > Billing setup for School years, Tuition templates, and Billing plans when the organization uses these foundations.

School years

School years are the academic periods your tuition billing is organized around (for example, "2026-2027"). Create them on the School years setup group and mark one as the current year. Tuition templates, contracts, and discounts can all be tied to a specific year, which keeps each year's pricing separate when your rates change.

Tuition templates

A tuition template describes what a seat costs for a school year. You will create one template per rate you offer (for example, "Full-Time Preschool 2026-2027"). Each template includes:

• Name, school year, and program it applies to, plus an optional description.

• Pricing: the annual tuition, an optional registration fee (and whether it is refundable), and an optional materials fee.

• Payment options: a default payment frequency, whether the family may choose their own frequency, and optional percentage discounts for paying annually or by semester up front.

Billing plans

For simpler recurring charges that are not tied to a school-year contract, use Billing plans in Billing setup. A billing plan is a name, an amount, a frequency (monthly, quarterly, annually or one-time), and an optional one-time registration fee. Weekly billing is switched on by Bloomily. Message us and we will set it up. Infant care usually costs more than preschool because of ratio requirements, so most centers end up with a few plans or templates for different age groups.

Program schedules

Confirm the child’s enrolled days and contracted hours in the supported contract and program/session controls. A pricing template is not proof of an attendance or room placement.

Invoice late fees and late pickup fees

Overdue invoice fees and late pickup fees are different policies. A per-minute pickup rate is not an overdue-invoice rate.

For overdue invoices, review Money → Setup & reports → Billing setup → Overdue invoices → Late fees and any applicable billing-plan settings. The effective policy can depend on whether late fees are enabled, a grace period, the fee amount, and a flat or percentage calculation. A billing plan may inherit the organization’s defaults or have its own settings.

Bloomily does not impose a universal $25 fee, an invoice due date of the 10th, or a late-fee date of the 11th. Use the invoice’s due date and the school’s applicable saved policy. If you are a family, ask your school to confirm the fee applied to your invoice.

For late pickup, check the school’s separate Late pickup policy in Billing setup and the specific attendance event. Any grace period, per-minute rate, after-hours rate, minimum or maximum is the school’s configuration, not a rule for all Bloomily centers. Feature availability and posting behavior also depend on the center’s setup.

Review or change an overdue-invoice fee policy

1. Open Money → Setup & reports → Billing setup.

2. Under Overdue invoices, choose Late fees, or Set up late fees if no policy exists yet.

3. Check whether Charge a late fee on overdue invoices should be enabled for your school. Review the charge type, amount or percentage, grace period, caps, whether fees repeat, and any late-notice settings offered.

4. Choose Save late fee policy. Read the saved result, then choose Done to close it.

Saving the policy does not itself change an existing invoice or send a notice. Turning late fees off does not remove fees already charged. Review the actual invoice and payment records for a family’s balance.

This demo illustrates enabling a flat fee for one example school. Enabling fees, the example amount and its timing are not Bloomily requirements; use your school’s approved policy.

Open the late-fee walkthrough in a new window

Contracts: putting a child on a payment schedule

An enrollment contract ties together the child, the school year, the tuition template, any discounts, and the payment schedule. Review its generated schedule and resulting invoices after creation; a contract is not proof of collection.

There are two kinds, and they both appear under Money > Contracts & plans:

• Childcare contracts are created manually for school-year tuition, using the steps below.

• Program contracts are based on eligible program enrollments. Check whether the contract already exists. When the Program contracts generation tool is offered under Money → Setup & reports → Reports, review its preview before confirming generation. Do not assume that every confirmed enrollment already has a contract.

To create a childcare contract, click New contract and work through the wizard:

1. Select child and school year.

2. Select the tuition template that applies to this child.

3. Review tuition and add discounts. This is where sibling or scholarship discounts are applied to this specific contract.

4. Set the payment schedule: confirm the child's enrolled days and choose the payment frequency.

5. Review and create. A financial summary shows exactly what the family will be billed before you commit.

Before creating a school-year contract, check that the child, school year and tuition template are configured.

Discounts

There are three places a discount can live, depending on how reusable it needs to be:

• Money > Discounts & adjustments and the discount section of Money > Setup & reports > Billing setup contain reusable rules, either a percentage or a fixed amount, optionally scoped to a school year. Set up things like a sibling discount once and apply it wherever it is earned.

• Contract discounts are applied to one child's contract, either during the contract wizard's review step or later with Add discount on an active contract's page.

• Invoice line items handle a one-off reduction on a single invoice, using a Discount line.

For the full walkthrough of promo codes and automatic sibling discounts, see Setting up discounts (promo codes and sibling discounts).

Autopay

Autopay is how contracts collect themselves. A few key facts:

• Families opt in themselves, under Billing in their parent portal. They save a card or bank account and turn autopay on. Saving a payment method alone does not enable autopay; it is a separate step.

• With autopay enabled and an eligible payment method, Bloomily can attempt automatic collection according to the applicable invoice and payment schedule. Turning autopay on does not guarantee a successful charge. Check payment records for successful, pending or failed attempts; a bank payment may still be processing.

• To see whether autopay is working for a family, check their payments and invoices. A payment that autopay collected shows Charged by: Autopay on its payment page, and an invoice that autopay could not collect says why.

For the full picture of how autopay, reminders, overdue status, and ACH timing behave, see How billing, autopay, and payment plans work.

Frequently asked questions

Q: How do I set up billing for a family? Go to Money > Contracts & plans and create a new contract for the family. Select the school year, tuition template, and payment schedule. Check the resulting schedule and invoice records after creation.

Q: Do I need all of the building blocks before I can bill anyone? For school-year tuition contracts you need at least one school year and one tuition template; review those foundations in Billing setup. Program contracts use the eligible enrollment information. Review the available generation preview and resulting contract rather than assuming confirmation created one.

Q: Can a family choose how often they pay? Yes, if the tuition template allows it. Turn on "Let families choose a different payment frequency" on the template, and set any up-front payment discounts you want to offer for annual or semester payment.

Related guides

• Payments, refunds, and payout setup (Stripe), connecting Stripe, payment methods, and refunds.

• Billing and invoicing (for centers), the everyday tasks: recording offline payments, receipts, voiding stale invoices.

• How billing, autopay, and payment plans work, a plain explainer of charge timing and reminders.