School Payments and Donations Go Mobile with New App from Community Brands

March 4, 2019 — SAN DIEGO — Community Brands, the leading provider of cloud-based software for schools, associations, nonprofits, and faith-based organizations, today unveiled a new application that makes mobile payments and donations accessible to student families and school administrators. The new app, MySchoolWallet, is available on both iOS and Android and conveniently enables payments to schools from mobile devices.

MySchoolWallet offers a simple way for families, alumni and students to make school payments anywhere at any time through an easy-to-use, secure interface. Once downloaded, payers go through a one-time process to set up funding and can then manage payments for multiple student profiles. App users can also view previous transactions and payment history.

With the new app, schools can collect tuition payments, fees for band activities or money from donors. The app allows schools to interact with individuals using E-commerce and mobile functionality already familiar to those who pay bills, shop for products and buy merchandise on their phones. The result is a better, more engaging experience for student families and alumni in the school’s payment network.

“We are seeing an increase in communication frequency between families and schools which can only be achieved through mobile,” shared Bethany Little, EVP K-12 Solutions at Community Brands. “As schools increase the number of services and programs to families, the real-time communication and payment process becomes a critical component to the digital school experience. We continue to deliver modern solutions for families and school staff, and MySchoolWallet brings new advancements to the school-to-parent payment and donation process.”

Families of students attending private school make, on average, two payments per month, in addition to regular tuition payments. These additional payments might be for lunch money, fundraising drives, supplemental childcare, field trip expenses, events, or other extracurricular activities. These transactions are moving to mobile and online channels. A research study involving hundreds of schools recently conducted by Community Brands, found that 56% of K-12 private schools are now receiving payments digitally, with steady growth rates expected throughout the next five years. The MySchoolWallet app enables a school to go digital with all of these payments.

For business officers and other school staff, today’s announced application dramatically reduces the amount of time needed to collect and allocate payments. Multiple custom fields allow more information to be captured, better connecting a transaction with the appropriate student. Information such as invoice number, student name, grade, and payment purpose can all be linked as a part of the payment. Funds are usually available to the school in as few as 48 hours. The app offers busy families a convenient alternative to paper checks.

The MySchoolWalllet app joins other payment capabilities from Community Brands and is integrated with Diamond Mind, a comprehensive payment solution for schools. Diamond Mind is used by schools to support a variety of payment needs from tuition, summer school, giving and extracurricular programs. The backbone of the K-12 software suite, Diamond Mind allows schools to reap the benefits of integrated payment reporting, whether a transaction occurred through a mobile or online software channel.

This week, MySchoolWallet – together with the recently announced K-12 software suite powered by the company’s SchoolCommunity platform – will be showcased at the National Business Officers Association (NBOA) Annual Meeting taking place in San Diego, California, March 3 – 6, 2019 (Booths #216, #218, #220, and #222).

Learn more about Community Brands and its Association Solutions, Nonprofit Solutions, K-12 Solutions and Faith-based Solutions.