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, communication, and billing all at once. Microschool Ledger focuses only on financial clarity:

• tuition
• payments
• scholarships
• balances

That makes it simpler, easier to use, and better aligned to what many microschools actually need.

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. Parents can see their balance, review what each student is enrolled in, view payment history, and access invoices — all on their own, without emailing your admin.

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. And the portal is read-only: it shows balance and payment history, not payment methods or anything a family couldn't see on a paper statement.

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.