Transaction Fees for International Payments

Melissa R.Leave a comment

Credit Cards payments always incur a transaction fee. In most cases, the transaction fee is absorbed by the merchant. So for example, if you went to an online store and purchased some shoes for $100, a portion of that transaction is kept by the payment provider as a transaction fee, typically in the realm of 3% – 5% of the total. The merchant would then only receive between $95 and $97.

When allowing parents and students to pay online in Quickschools, schools actually have the option of adding a Convenience Fee to offset the transaction fees incurred by the payment gateway. 

Configure the Online Payments module where the parent or student pays the transaction fee

So from our original example above, if you were buying shoes for $100, the system would calculate a Convenience Fee, such that the merchant would receive the original $100 that was charged. So you’d end up paying something like $104, where $4 would go to the payment gateway, and the merchant would receive the original $100 charged.

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Google Classroom Integration Improvements

Azroy Kandan6 Comments

With the increasing demand for Online Learning features, so has our support for integration to Learning Management Systems like Google Classroom improved. It is our philosophy to make incremental but frequent improvements to the QuickSchools offering. Here we discuss some of the recent improvements to the Google Classroom Integration App. These include:

  • Time-Out for Manual Sync (Aug 17 Release)
  • Viewing / Excluding Archived Courses (Sept 7 Release)
  • Handling Unmarked Assignments (Sept 7 Release)

Time-Out for Manual Sync

Previously, when manually synchronizing the Gradebooks, you would get real-time feedback on the status of the run:

Manual Sync for the Google Classroom Integration App
Manual Sync for the Google Classroom Integration App

However, this process was limited by the browser time-out of 5 min. What we opted to do in the August 17 Release was to extend the timeout to 30-min. This was done by changing the function to run in the background (no more pop-up on completion of synchronization):

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Online Forms: Electronic Signature

Tamiya Eliah M. Runas1 Comment

As most of you know, our Online Forms App allows you to add Fillable PDF Forms to your online form packet. To further allow your forms to go paperless, the online forms also allows users to add their electronic signature into the pdf form. This is useful for situations where you need a contract signed by the students as well as by the school.

Setting up Online Forms Signature

If you have not yet installed the Online Forms App in your QuickSchools account, you can do so via our App Store — search for Online Forms and click on Install

Once the app has been installed and configured, we would need to enable SVG for the online forms. This will allow Cross-Browser Compatibility and allow you to add digital signatures to the form. This is currently a hidden feature. To have this enabled please send us an email at support@quickschools.com. 

After SVG has been enabled for your account, we can now start setting up our Online Form Packet. Please note that when configuring the Online Form Packet, enable the One Form per Child option. This will allow parents to send a form per child, and allows any mapped information to be automatically filled (i.e. Student Data):

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Style Your Embedded Admissions Form for Your School Website

Candice Manganar2 Comments

The QuickSchools embedded admissions form can be customized to match your school website’s style. You can change the fonts, colors, input field or size. You just need to modify the embed code after you add it to your site. Some knowledge of HTML and CSS is required.

Customizing your embedded forms will leave a good impression and sense of security to your visitors, with inquiries and application forms that look just like the rest of your website.

You can style your embedded form in two ways:

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New Release – Sept 7, 2020

Azroy Kandan1 Comment

We have quite a few improvements this time around, in addition to our continued focus on Online Learning. Here are the latest improvements in QuickSchools:

LMS: New Assignments module (Beta)

  • List all students for an Assignments, regardless of whether student has started the assignment
  • Hide Unpublished Assignments from Student Portal
  • Introduce Date / Time to Publish an Assignment
  • Highlight Assignments submitted after Due Date as “Past Due”
  • Improve behaviour for “On Paper” and “No Submission” assignments
  • General Bug Fixes to the Assignments listing

LMS: Live Streaming App Improvements (Beta)

  • Support multiple Zoom Accounts for concurrent meetings (one account per teacher)
  • Auto-update meeting list when meeting is about to start
  • Display warning if Zoom Account is not yet set up
The Live Stream App now support Zoom Accounts for every teacher
The Live Stream App now support Zoom Accounts for every teacher

LMS: General Online Learning Improvements

  • New Student Message Board
  • New Calendar View for Assignments and Live Stream Meetings
  • Improve visibility of “View Complete Record” on Student and Parent Portals
  • Ability to Edit a posted Class Discussion
  • Fix Email Notification for Class Discussions

Google Classroom Integration Improvements

  • Option to skip ungraded assignments
  • Option to exclude archived courses
  • Archived courses are clearly indicated when mapping subjects
  • Fix assignments that are synchronized from OUTSIDE the academic semester date range (Partial Fix)

Report Creator

  • Support Read-Only Access to Report Creator
  • Fix Report Creator filter for Outstanding Amount from Fee Tracking
  • Support reporting for Published/Hidden Gradebook Columns

Other Bug Fixes / Improvement

  • SSO support for SAML (Private Beta)
  • Scheduled Standard Charges (Private Beta)
  • Upgrade Real-Time Sync Framework (Firebase)
  • New option in Simplified Scheduler to Allow Conflicts (without pinning)
  • Improve security for Password Reset
  • Support download Schedule PDF by Grade and by Teacher
  • Support relabel “Principal”
  • Option to delete Bank Account if Credit Card is provided
  • Option to Sort Gradebook by NickName
  • Automatically trim Parent first and last names during Import
  • Tooltip in Online Forms module to explain Fees
  • Bug fix auto-generated Advanced Embedded Form for Admissions Application
  • Bug fix for email history attachments
  • Bug fix when auto-allocating Payments in bulk
  • Bug fix when auto-allocating transaction fees for Online Payments
  • Bug fix when allocating transaction fee when refunding Online Payments
  • Bug fix when selecting semester in Attendance Calendar
  • Bug fix when updating Semester Start Date when taking attendance during trial

Scheduling Standard Charges

This is a new feature in Private Beta. With this feature enabled, you will see a new button called “View/Edit Scheduled Standard Charges” next to the “Add Standard Charge” button:

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Fee Tracking Features

Azroy Kandan15 Comments

QuickSchools has come a long way since our Early Days. So here’s an updated summary of what our Fee Tracking module can do:

The Basics

You can easily add charges and payments for each student. You can also generate invoices, which is simply a collection of charges:

QuickSchools Fee Tracking Module features

We modelled our Fee Tracking module after Credit Card statements. You can designate a statement period (i.e. a start and end date), and the system will (1) calculate an opening balance, (2) calculate a closing / outstanding balance, and (3) display all transactions within the specified period. You can also print out invoices and receipts.

For the Power User

Be sure to turn on any additional features that you need from the “Settings” > “Turn Features On / Off” page:

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Attendance Not Yet Taken

Azroy Kandan1 Comment

We wanted to briefly discuss how the Attendance module works in QuickSchools, and what happens when a teacher does NOT take (or has not taken) attendance on a designated school day. In these cases, the system will grey out the student record for the period, and reports will indicate that it has not yet been taken for that day/period.

Attendance Calendar on the Student record with attendance "Not Yet Taken"
Calendar on the Student record with “Not Yet Taken”

Taking attendance for the first time

The calendar adds school days in real-time when it is first taken on any particular day. For instance, you can establish holidays and school days in the Calendar (found under “New Semester Setup”), but the system will not designate a date as a school day until attendance is taken on that day.

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