What is a payment order?
Payment orders (PO) are used in TutorCruncher to facilitate tutor payment. They provide the company and individual tutors a breakdown of finished work and earnings. They also track payments to affiliates who earn money off commission. POs are generated once the invoice associated with lessons on the payment order has been paid unless specified otherwise.
How to generate Payment Orders
You have two options when generating payment orders, either you generate payment orders just for the invoices that have been paid already, or you can generate payment orders for all completed lessons. The difference is whether you only pay your tutors if you have been paid by the client or regardless of that factor.
Step by step process
Generating payment orders is done similarly to generating invoices. Go to Accounting > Draft Payment Orders > Regenerate and enter your Cutoff Dates.
If you want to generate payment orders for unpaid but completed lessons, you need to tick the box for ‘Generate Payment Orders including items not associated with a paid Invoice’.
You can see a breakdown of the payment order charges and PDF previews by clicking on the recipient.
If the payment order is ready to send, click the ‘Stage Payment Order’ button or confirm a payment order by clicking the arrow or using the checkboxes.
The final step is to send the payment order to the tutors by clicking the ‘Send Confirmed Payment Orders' button.
The tutor now receives an email telling them how much they will receive with the Payment Order attached.
Like all TutorCruncher emails, this email is customisable in 'Email Definitions'.
More information
Click here for more information on Payment Orders.
Click here for more information on Email Definitions.
How do I review payment orders?
Navigate to Accounting > Draft Payment Orders to review your new payment orders. Clicking on a payment order will allow you to see which lessons and ad hoc charges are on the PO. By clicking on a charge you will reveal the flow of money for that particular charge including the payer, payee of the commission and of the tutor's fee. From here you can remove any items you don't want on the PO and view the PDF that will be sent to your tutor.
Click on orders and charges to see more details.
How do I send payment orders?
To send payment orders to tutors, navigate to Accounting > Draft Payment Orders. Stage the POs using the right arrow buttons and checkboxes, or by going to a PO and clicking the the 'Stage payment order' button. Then send all your staged POs by clicking the 'Send Confirmed Payment Orders' button. Note that any invoiced items cannot be changed or edited. (Items can still be deleted, but remember to use this feature responsibly to avoid mismanaging your accounts) If your tutor has a valid email address, the PO will be emailed to them, or it will be available in their 'Payment Orders' tab.
How do I pay a payment order?
Simply go to a Payment Order's page and click 'Mark as Paid'. You'll be able to record how and when you paid them.
You can also bulk pay your tutors using TutorCruncher's Pay Runs.
NB. Marking a payment made will not deduct anything from your bank account, and it will not pay the tutor automatically. This is a service used to track whether or not someone has been paid by other means (eg. cash, a payroll system separate to TutorCruncher, etc.).
How do I void a payment order?
To void a payment order, click on the 'Mark Void' button at the top of the PO's page. Fill out a description and the type of voided PO, then click Submit. The accounting on any item on a voided PO will be marked as incomplete, and charges must be regenerated to put the items on a new PO.
Occasionally you need to change an invoice or payment order after it’s sent or paid because of mistakes made by the client, tutor or even admin.
Step by step process
For example, with this invoice, one of the lessons has been logged for 1.5 hours when it is supposed to be one hour. This has led to the client being charged wrongly.
To void an invoice, go to the invoice, click the ‘Issue Credit Note’ button, enter the necessary information and click 'Submit'.
The lessons on this invoice are now editable again, so you can change them to what they should be.
A new invoice now needs to be generated, so go to Accounting > Draft Invoices > Generate and regenerate the invoice you need using the appropriate cutoff dates.
You can see that the new invoice has the correct lesson times on it, so it can be sent off.
You can go through the same process with a payment order.
If an already paid invoice is voided, then credit will be added to a client’s account without actually refunding this credit. If a refund is necessary, this needs to be done outside of the system and the client's balance needs to be adjusted manually to reflect that a refund has taken place.