Tuition and Billing

Tuition lives on the program, so every family in it is priced the same way, and two screens read the result: Families & tuition for one program, Tuition owed for the whole organization.

When you’d use this

You are pricing a new term and need the figure families are quoted to match the figure they are charged.
A family has three children and you want the sibling discount applied once, correctly.
A family pays by check at the office and you need the balance to clear.
It is Monday and you need the list of who owes you money.

Set the tuition

Program console, Settings tab, Tuition plan section.

The first question is “How does this program charge?” and you pick one of two answers. Do not mix them.

Mode	What it means	Example
A recurring rate, until the program ends	A rate per period, charged on your billing day for as long as the term runs	$75 a month
A total, split into a set number of payments	A committed figure that does not depend on the term’s length. At least 2 installments	$715 across 8 payments

Pick the one that matches what you published to families. A school that entered its yearly total and a monthly rate once billed families ten times what it had advertised, so the combination is now refused outright.

Billing cadence for the rate mode is Monthly, Per Semester, Quarterly or Annually.

You can also set:

a registration fee and a late fee
a billing day of month
a grace period, so a family enrolling right at the start of a period is not charged twice
which payment frequencies a family may choose for themselves: pay the whole term up front, monthly, quarterly, twice a year, or yearly
a sibling discount percentage
whether scholarships are available for this program

Changing tuition later applies to new enrollments only

Families already enrolled keep the terms they signed up with. Changing the billing day, the installment dates, the payment frequency or the sibling discount does not move them. To move current families onto a changed amount from their next payment, use Change future charges. The other fields cannot be applied retroactively.

Discounts, scholarships and aid

These are three different things, and the difference matters.

	What it is	Where it lives
Sibling discount	A program-wide percentage off every child after the first in the same family	The program’s tuition plan
A family discount	A fixed dollar amount off one family’s price, with a reason	Set what this family pays on Families & tuition
A scholarship	Awarded aid, not a price rule	The Aid application decision

The sibling discount is flat, not stepped: with 20% the second, third and fourth child each get 20%. The fourth does not get a deeper cut. It applies the same way in both pricing modes, off the period rate or off the committed total before that total is split into installments. One place in Muin works this out, so the figure a family is quoted, the figure they are charged and the figure your reports show cannot drift apart.

A family discount’s reason is one of Sibling, Early bird, Staff family or Other, and Other requires a note. If you pick Sibling by hand on a child who already has the program’s automatic sibling discount, you take it off twice: the modal warns you, and the right answer is almost always to leave the automatic one to do its job.

Aid decisions sit on their own console tab, answering “which families are waiting on a financial-aid decision before their tuition can start”. The decision buttons are Approve and apply discount or Decline.

There is no coupon or promo-code system, and no automatic early-bird pricing. Early bird is a reason label on a discount you enter.

How a family actually pays

Decide which rails the program offers under “How do families pay?”:

Online only (card), the default.
Online or by check or cash at the office, and the family chooses. Choosing the office enrolls the child immediately, marked as awaiting payment, with no card taken.
Office only, with no card option at all.

Tuition does not raise an invoice. There are four real ways money arrives:

A recurring schedule charges a card on file on the installment dates.
Ask them to pay mints a one-off pay link you send.
Charge card on file takes a single payment now.
Record a payment books cash, check, money order or Zelle that arrived at the office.

One check covers the whole household, and Muin splits it across siblings for you.

What the family receives for an office payment

The same acknowledgement a card payment gets: a payment receipt with a receipt number, emailed to the payer and to every guardian on file with an email address. It names the amount, how it was paid, the check number if there was one, what the family still owes and, on an installment plan, how many installments are paid.

Tuition is never a tax receipt. A tuition payment shows Not required (tuition) under tax receipt, and the family gets a payment receipt instead.

Families & tuition: one program

Reached from the program’s own links. It answers “where does each family in this program stand”: what they have paid, what they still owe, and who is paid for but not yet placed. This is the screen to open with a parent on the phone.

Per row you can Record a payment, open Payment history and download a statement for the family, Set what this family pays, and see Sent to this family for what has been emailed.

Tuition owed: the whole organization

Sidebar, Nonprofit, Education, Tuition Owed. Every enrollment that still owes tuition, across every program, biggest balance first.

Tiles across the top: Total outstanding, Waiting on a check with how many are collected by the office, and four aging buckets you can click to filter by.

Columns include Student, Program, Paid, Still owed, Paid so far, Age with its bucket badge, Collected by (Office, Card on file, or Card declined with a retry link), and Enrolled on.

Filters: a search box, Every program, Any age, and Everyone who owes against Only what the office must chase. The filter state lives in the URL, so a filtered view is a link you can send. Export with CSV or Excel; the export follows your filters but not the search box.

Per row: View Enrollment, See their payments, and Record payment when the balance is offline and still positive.

Reminders are automatic, not a button

The screen has no send button. A Tuition Balance Reminder goes out from a background job a week after enrollment and then every two weeks until the family’s balance reaches zero. It names the amount owed and how to pay, and it stops on its own when the balance settles.

It is on by default only for programs that collect at the office; card-only programs never send it. To turn it off for your whole organization, go to Settings, Communication & AI, Customer Emails, Education, Tuition Balance Reminder. While it is off, Tuition owed shows a banner reading “Reminders withheld by email policy for N families”, so an unpaid balance is never silent.

What it affects

The tuition plan is what the registration form quotes and what the family is charged.
The collection mode decides whether the registration form offers a card, the office, or both.
A scholarship or exempt status changes a family’s status on both tuition screens.
Enrollment reads incomplete until the handbook is signed and an emergency contact is on file, independently of tuition.

When it goes wrong

What you see	Why	What to do
The tuition plan will not save with both a total and a rate	The two pricing modes are mutually exclusive	Pick one: a rate per period, or a total split into installments
“A discount plus scholarship cannot exceed the tuition amount”	The family’s price would go below zero	Reduce the discount, or use the exempt status instead
“A non-zero discount requires a reason”	A discount was entered with no reason	Pick a reason, and add a note if you chose Other
“This family’s tuition is settled; there is nothing to bill”	The balance is already zero	Nothing to do
A family was charged twice for siblings	A manual Sibling discount was added on top of the program’s automatic one	Remove the manual discount and let the program’s percentage apply
A balance never clears after a check arrived	The payment was not recorded	Use Record a payment on Families & tuition, or Record payment on Tuition owed
Card declined keeps showing	The saved card failed	Use the row’s retry link, or ask the family for a new card

Next step

See who is enrolled but not yet placed: Enrollment and families.