Simple answers for a focused financial system.

1. What problem does Microschool Ledger solve?

It replaces spreadsheets and manual tracking for tuition, payments, scholarships, and family balances so microschools can see where things stand clearly.

2. How is this different from other school management tools?

Most school management systems try to do everything — curriculum tracking, attendance, grade books, and billing all at once. Microschool Ledger focuses on the financial and administrative workflow that microschools actually care about:

• tuition, payments, and Step-Up scholarships
• family balances, invoicing, and payment reminders
• admissions pipeline and family communications
• expense tracking and profit & loss

No attendance modules, no grade books, no lesson planning tools — just the parts your admin actually uses every day, built to be clear and fast for a small team.

3. How do Florida Step-Up payments work?

Florida Step-Up for Students payments can be imported directly from the provider portal export, matched to students by sequence number, and tracked alongside direct family payments — so you see one clear balance instead of managing separate records.

4. Does it handle academic years vs. calendar years?

Microschool Ledger is built around academic years and supports overlap periods — such as deposits for the next school year arriving while the current one is still active.

5. Is there a parent portal?

Yes. The family portal gives parents a self-service account view: their current balance, enrolled programs, payment history, and printable invoices. They can also pay online directly — card, ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay via Stripe — and set up autopay so monthly charges settle automatically. No logins or passwords needed (see question 6). Two-household families are supported too: a family can authorize more than one parent email, and each parent gets their own sign-in to the same account.

6. Do parents need passwords?

No. The family portal uses passwordless sign-in via secure email links — parents click a link sent to their email, and they're in. Each link is single-use and expires, so even if someone else saw the email, they couldn't use an old link to get in. Families can also pay online through the portal (card, ACH, Apple Pay, or Google Pay via Stripe) — each family only ever sees their own account data, enforced at the database layer.

7. How is data secured?

Data is stored in Google Cloud with strict access controls. The system is designed to store only what's needed to run the financial workflow clearly and safely.

8. Who owns the data?

Your school owns its data. You can export it at any time.

9. How does onboarding work?

We do hands-on setup with each school — initial configuration, importing key data, and a guided walkthrough so the system is ready to use from day one.

10. Does it work for enrichment programs and elective providers — not just annual tuition schools?

Yes. Microschool Ledger supports two billing models that can coexist in the same school:

• Flat charges — a $300 Writing Workshop fee, a $50 registration charge, a $150 materials bill. These flow into the family balance automatically and appear on invoices alongside any enrollment-based tuition.
• Short-term / semester courses — programs that run by term (Fall 2026, Spring 2027) with a flat fee per term instead of a full school year payment grid. Includes a roster view showing enrolled vs. paid per term.

Over 54% of Florida's Step-Up providers are enrichment or elective programs. Both models are built specifically for that majority.

11. Can I run semester-based classes — not just year-long programs?

Yes. Programs can be flagged as short-term, which switches them from the annual school year model to a term-based model. Each term (e.g. "Fall 2026") has a label and a flat fee. Students enroll per term, and a class roster view shows enrolled vs. paid count for each term at a glance.

Short-term programs also support adult/family enrollment for parent workshops or community classes — charges flow into the family balance without needing a separate student record.

12. Can I customize what my invoices look like?

Yes. Each school can configure its own invoice title ("Tuition Invoice", "Statement of Account"), a payment instructions block (Venmo handle, check payable-to name, bank info), and a reply-to email address so family replies reach your inbox directly. All set in Setup → School Info — no code changes required.

13. How do automated payment reminders work?

Each night, Microschool Ledger queues overdue families for reminder emails. As the admin, you review the queue first — you see the recipient, their current balance, and the email text before anything sends. Once you approve, the email goes out with your school's reply-to address so families can respond directly to you, not to a no-reply system address. A 28-day cooldown prevents the same family from being reminded too frequently.

14. Is my school's data kept separate from other schools on the platform?

Yes. Data isolation is enforced at the database level, not just the user interface. Each school gets its own isolated data partition. Admin access requires a server-side grant that can't be bypassed through the app. Family portal users get a separate read-only grant scoped only to their own family's records — they can't see other families' data even if they tried.

15. Can families pay online and set up autopay?

Yes. The family portal includes Stripe-powered online payments. Parents can pay by card, ACH bank transfer, Apple Pay, or Google Pay directly from their portal account — no check to mail, no Venmo to remember. Autopay is also available: once a family enables it, monthly charges settle automatically on the due date with no admin follow-up required.

For families who prefer to pay by check or Venmo, manual payment recording by your admin works alongside online payments — both flow into the same family balance.

You can also send a secure payment link for families who would rather not log in. It opens a no-login payment page that always shows the family's current balance, and the same link gets embedded in reminder and invoice emails — so a parent can pay in a couple of taps. The link is validated server-side (it can only ever apply a payment to the right family, up to their balance), so it's safe to share.

16. How is Microschool Ledger priced?

Microschool Ledger is available now on the Pro plan — $199/month, which includes everything: family records, enrollments, manual payments, Step-Up reconciliation, invoicing, the family portal with Stripe online payments and autopay, automated payment reminders, campaigns, the admissions pipeline, QuickBooks Online sync, the Financial Health dashboard, AUP compliance export, and priority support.

Essentials ($49/month) and Standard ($99/month) are lighter-weight tiers coming soon, for schools that only need the core financial workflow or the family-facing layer without full financial reporting.

All plans include hands-on onboarding and your data is always exportable. You can sign up directly at app.microschoolledger.com/?view=signup, or email info@microschoolledger.com to request a demo first.

17. Is there an admissions pipeline for prospective families?

Yes. Prospective families fill out a public interest form (no login required), which creates a Lead record in the system. From there, you can send them an application form, track their progress through Leads and Applicants stages, add internal notes, and convert approved applicants directly into active family accounts — no re-entry of information. The whole flow from first inquiry to enrolled family happens in one place.

18. Can I send emails or communications to families from within the system?

Yes. The Communications feature lets you compose and send emails to custom audience segments — filter by enrollment status, program, outstanding balance, or other criteria. You preview before anything sends, and the system keeps a full send history so you know who received what and when.

Automated payment reminders are a separate system: overdue families are queued nightly, and you review the queue before any reminder goes out — with a 28-day cooldown so no family is over-contacted.

19. Does it track expenses and generate a profit & loss view?

Yes. The Finances tab tracks all school expenses with categories you define. The P&L overview shows revenue (tuition, fees, Step-Up scholarships) vs. expenses by category for any school year, alongside a cash flow view by month.

The Financial Health view goes further: it shows your break-even enrollment count, revenue per student, and year-over-year trend comparisons. This is the data your CPA or board asks for at year-end — available in a few clicks instead of a weekend of spreadsheet work.

20. What is the fee catalog?

The fee catalog is a library of reusable charge items — each with a name, unit price, and category. When you need to add a charge to a family (a materials fee, a field trip cost, a registration charge), you pick from the catalog instead of typing it from scratch. Items can also be marked to auto-apply when a student enrolls in a specific program, so required fees are added automatically without extra steps.

21. Can I manage field trips and track family RSVPs?

Yes. The Field Trips tab lets you create trip records with capacity limits, cost structure, RSVP windows, and logistics details. Families RSVP directly through the family portal — the system automatically waitlists anyone over capacity and can promote waitlisted families when a spot opens. Once RSVPs are confirmed, Microschool Ledger can generate charges for the trip cost and add them to family balances automatically.

22. Does Microschool Ledger connect to QuickBooks Online?

Yes. You connect your QBO account directly in Setup — it's an OAuth connection, so no manual API keys. Once connected, Microschool Ledger pulls your existing QBO customer list and reconciles it with your family and student records. You can also import payment records from QuickBooks and review them before they're written into the ledger. The integration is designed for schools that use QuickBooks as their primary accounting system alongside Microschool Ledger for enrollment and Step-Up management.

23. Does it support private schools and AUP compliance reporting?

Yes. Microschool Ledger supports a hybrid operating model for schools that mix private-school tuition students with homeschool or scholarship students in the same system. Each student has a year-scoped funding profile tracking billing lane, scholarship program (FES-EO, FES-UA, PEP, AAA, etc.), and parent payment responsibility.

For Step-Up providers over the $250,000 AUP threshold, the system generates a pre-formatted AUP allocation report you can hand directly to your CPA for the required agreed-upon procedures audit. QuickBooks class codes from your QBO export are recognized and normalized automatically to populate funding profiles.

24. What data export options are available?

Two formats:

• Excel workbook — 7 sheets covering the full financial picture: family ledger, enrollment detail, manual payments, Step-Up payments, students, families, and expenses. Designed for accountant review or year-end records.
• JSON backup — a complete snapshot of all data including programs, pricing rules, flat charges, and invoices. Can be used to fully restore the system from any point in time.

Nightly automated backups also run to Google Cloud Storage, with one-click restore available in Setup → Data Tools. You own your data and can export it at any time.