Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. What is SmartaPay?

SmartaPay is an integrated solution that provides your School with flexible and convenient ways to have Parents pay you. SmartaPay gives your invoices a new look with 6 payment options clearly displayed and easily recognised by your parents. The outcome is your client community can select options that are convenient to them. Once you have been paid receipting is done by importing a single file each day and with the press of a button your payments are done.

2. What does SmartaPay do?

SmartaPay provides specialist software to integrate with your existing School Administration System and we provide payment channels along with the service that matches payments to you. Our software takes files output from your School Administration System and produces fee statements with our flexible and convenient payment channels displayed. SmartaPay provides the payment options as a single point of contact to the School and ensures all payments made are matched to the School and Parent for receipting. On a daily basis we deposit funds into your account and delivery you a single file for receipting into your School Administration System.

3. Who is SmartaPay and how long have they been going?

SmartaPay is a service delivered by StrataPay. Our payments business has been running for over 8 years and operates under an Australian Financial Services License as governed by ASIC. SmartaPay along with other services offered under the StrataPay business processes over 50,000 transactions per month and services industries from Strata Title, Real Estate, Education (University included), Child Care and across a broad range of general businesses from Jim's Bookkeeping to large distributors.

4. Who uses SmartaPay?

Customers who use us now in the education space include, St Hilas School, The Southport School, Clayfield College, Werribee College, Ipswich Girls Grammar and St Joachim's Catholic School.

5. What School Administration Software supports SmartaPay?

SmartaPay has a commitment to provide integration from 8 of the 10 providers in Australia. Currently we have integration from:

• TASS
• QUAD
• Principal
• SchoolPro
• MAZE

6. What payment options does SmartaPay offer?

SmartaPay offers a number of 24 hours a day seven days a week choices for Parents to pay.

1. VISA, MasterCard, AMEX and Diners via Telephone or Internet
2. BPAY through your banking provider
3. Australia Post cash, EFPOS and cheque over the counter
4. Cheques to Locked Bag for SmartaPay
5. Direct Debit from a debit account or credit card
6. PostBillpay website

7. How does SmartaPay differ from BPAY?

BPAY can offer flexibility and convenience to parents for one payment option only. SmartaPay delivers the same level of convenience across all payment options. If you have experienced the efficiency of processing payments from a BPAY file you will know how beneficial this process is. SmartaPay provides that same efficient processing regardless of the payment option the parent has chosen. Additionally SmartaPay can handle voluntary building fee contributions automatically. We split the payment and deliver the information in your receipting file so there is no double handling of payments and reversals required to get the money where it is supposed to be.

8. How much does SmartaPay cost?

SmartaPay is a solution that saves time and creates an environment that allows choice and convenience for your Parent community. Our solution delivers both tangible savings in time and intangible savings in Parent satisfaction, removal of risk in cash handling, processing errors along with other benefits. The cost to implement SmartaPay is free. Transaction pricing differs from School to School depending on the number of students and frequency of invoicing. If parents wish to pay using credit or charge cards there is a Merchant Service Fee (MSF) which can either be surcharged to the Parent, or absorbed be the School.

9. What are the benefits to using SmartaPay?

You will have a more efficient and productive receipting solution that will allow your staff and you to spend more time on processes that need a human input. Your Parents will find a payment option that suits them and is available when they want to pay their fees. As a result you should see in increase in payments on-time and less arrears. You will reduce the risk to your School and staff in handling cash. The value of this benefit is hard to measure but the risk is very real.

10. How long does it take to setup SmartaPay?

There is an application to complete that takes about 10 minutes to fill in. Then depending on the School Administration System you use the setup time can be from 20 minutes to an hour. The training of your staff will also take about an hour to complete. Our solution is simple to use and easy to understand so the process is a breeze. 

11. Who pays the costs for transactions and merchant service fees?

Transactions fees on the payments is borne by the School. The MSF can either be absorbed and if generally reflected in the School fees OR we can implement a surcharge system where the Parent pays the surcharge at the time they choose to use credit. The implementation is up to the School to decide.

12. How do I receive the payments and receipt the transactions?

You will receive a lump sum payment into your bank account daily with a matching transactions file emailed each day.