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School-level feature — managed within your school portal at yourschool.deandesk.com.
Use invoicing for charges that fall outside a recurring product plan — registration fees, supply costs, late fees, or any custom amount. You can invoice one student or dozens at once with the same line items, choose whether each invoice is emailed for payment or charged to a saved payment method, set it up as a recurring invoice, and optionally apply each recipient’s scholarship and financial aid rates. Open Finance → Invoicing in the admin sidebar.

Create invoices

1

Select recipients

Use the student search dropdown to find and select the students who should receive the invoice. You can select multiple students — each one receives their own individual invoice with the same line items.
2

Add line items

Add a line item for each charge. Each line item has:
  • Description — what the charge is for (e.g., tuition, books, or a fee)
  • Amount (USD) — the amount in dollars (e.g., 75.00)
Add as many line items as needed. The total is calculated automatically. You can also add a Memo (optional) that appears on the invoice.
3

Apply credits with negative amounts

To issue a credit or refund, add a line item with a negative amount (e.g., -50.00 for a $50 credit). This reduces the invoice total.
Negative line items are useful for adjustments like partial refunds, billing corrections, or merit-based credits. The student sees the credit as a line item on their invoice.
4

Choose how payment is collected

Use the Payment collection dropdown:
  • Email invoice for payment — each recipient gets an email with a link to view and pay the invoice. Set Due in days to control the payment window.
  • Charge saved default method — each recipient’s saved default payment method is charged automatically. See Charge a saved payment method for how fallbacks work.
Under Timing, choose Save as draft or Finalize now.
5

Review and submit

Review the line items and total, then submit — the button reads Create & send, Create & charge, or Save drafts depending on your collection and timing choices. DeanDesk creates one invoice per selected student.

Charge a saved payment method

When you pick Charge saved default method, DeanDesk charges each recipient’s saved default payment method as soon as the invoice is finalized. Each saved default payment method is charged separately, and for a child recipient, the child’s own saved method is checked before the parent’s. After submitting, the results tell you what happened to each invoice:
  • Paid — the charge succeeded
  • Awaiting customer authentication — the payer’s bank requires extra verification (such as 3-D Secure); the payer is emailed a secure payment link to complete it
  • Routed to email — the recipient had no saved default payment method, so the invoice was emailed with a payment link instead (e.g., “3 routed to email because no default payment method was available”)
If a charge fails, the payer is emailed a secure payment link so they can still pay — a failed charge never silently drops the invoice.

Recurring invoices

To bill the same charge on a schedule, open Advanced options and turn on Create a recurring invoice. Then set:
  • Repeat every — a count plus an interval of Day(s), Week(s), Month(s), or Year(s). The count is capped per interval: up to 1095 days, 156 weeks, 36 months, or 3 years between invoices.
  • EndsNever — until canceled, After a number of invoices (1–500), or On a specific date (must be in the future).
Recurring invoices honor the same payment-collection choice and rate settings as one-off invoices and support up to 20 line items.
Recurring billing starts immediately when you create the schedule — recurring invoices cannot be saved as drafts. The ongoing schedule is managed in Stripe.

Apply scholarship and financial aid rates

Turn on the Apply scholarship and financial aid rates toggle to reduce each recipient’s invoice by their stored rates. Rates are per-user waived percentages managed on the Scholarship & Financial Aid Rates page — for example, a student with a 50% total waiver invoiced for 200receivesa200 receives a 100 invoice. Each recipient’s invoice reflects their own rates, so you never calculate discounted amounts manually.
The toggle uses each recipient’s current stored rates at the moment the invoice is created. For recurring invoices, the adjusted amount is fixed when the schedule is created — later rate changes do not update an existing schedule.

What happens when an invoice is sent

When you create invoices with Email invoice for payment:
  1. Invoice created — one invoice is saved per recipient with a unique batch ID linking them together
  2. Email sent — each student receives an email notification with a link to view and pay the invoice
  3. Balance updated — the invoice amount appears as an outstanding balance on the student’s Billing History page
Students can view their invoices and pay their outstanding balance directly from their Billing History page. The invoice total is included in their account balance calculation.

Invoice statuses

Viewing invoices

Students see their invoices on their Billing History page, which shows:
  • Each invoice with its line items and amounts
  • The creation date
  • The total amount
  • Their overall account balance (total owed minus total paid)
Admins can view any student’s invoices by navigating to the student’s profile and clicking the Billing tab.

Best practices

  • Use descriptive line item names. Students should be able to understand what each charge is for without contacting your office.
  • Batch related charges into one invoice. If a student owes a registration fee and materials fee, include both as line items on a single invoice rather than sending two separate invoices.
  • Issue credits as negative line items rather than deleting invoices. This creates a clear audit trail.
  • Use rates instead of manual math. If recipients have scholarship or financial aid rates, turn on Apply scholarship and financial aid rates — each invoice is reduced by that recipient’s own rates automatically. Manage the rates themselves on the Scholarship & Financial Aid Rates page.