Winter 2025 Product Update

Read all about these great new features:

• Apple single sign-on (SSO) for parents has been added and, after some more 'real world' testing will be rolled out to all schools so that it appears on all parent login pages. You can turn this on for your school in the Set Up School > Preferences page if you don't want to wait, though.
• iSAMS single sign-on (SSO) for parents is now available for schools (that use iSAMS) to setup (on the Set Up School > Preferences web page in the Admin Area) and add to their parent login page.
• Finance: A new Finance page is shown to all Admins, at schools that use the Event, Club and/or Wraparound features. This section shows payments received and debtors, as well as a page which manages which parents are allowed to use the Book Now, Pay Later features (see below).
• Book Now, Pay Later: Schools can allow parents to 'book now and pay later', by turning on this feature when creating/editing an event, club and wraparound. Parents who use this will then be able to pay with vouchers or tax credits, where allowed/approved by the school, or can pay off their debt in installments or at their conveneince.
• Pay Later Settings is a new web page in the admin area's Finance section which allows schools to select/limit which parents can use the Book Now, Pay Later feature.
• Debtors: Admins can click on a debtor, to be shown their transactions (a ledger showing their bookings, cancellations, vouchers, credits and payments), and to add a voucher or create a manual credit.
• Debt reminders: Any parents who have a debt balance will be automatically send a gentle reminder on the 1st of every month. This reminder email can also be sent at any time from the Debtors page. When parents were last sent their debt reminder email is logged on the Debtors page for transparency.
• Invoices: All transactions now create invoices (which schools can set up VAT for in their Set Up School > Prerferences web page). Parents and Admins can click on an invoice/credit note number to show and then download or print their invoice or credit note.
• Manage Attendance now has a QR code schools can print (as well as the Shareable Link), to make it even easier for students/staff to be given attendance taking responsibility.
• Auto-Logout has now been extended from 20 minutes to 1 hour for all users' convenience.
• Bug fixes:
  • A bug with the Staggered Breaks feature not showing all the possible 'break' times, for parents' evenings which had 2+ days, has been squashed.
  • If a parents' evening has 2+ dates, we now change the tecaher on all dates when a tecaher is changed on one day, on the Manage Bookings page.
  • A bug that was stopping cancellations being performed, where blocked out times were ticked on Manage Bookings has also been squashed.

What's next?

Every day our software developers are working on new features for Parents Booking. You can expect the below features to appear in future software releases:

• Integration with My School Portal for a parent single sign-on (SSO).
• An iSAMS Staff SSO integration will follow the parent SSO that was added recently (see above).
• Booking Pattern and Two-Phase Booking features for wraparound child care clubs.
• Allow schools that use Xporter to import pre-admission students.
• Council and MAT login portal.
• Button to refund a paid amount directly to the parent from within Parents Booking (rather than having to do this in Stripe, ParentPay or PayPal).
• Integration with the UK Government / HMRC's Tax-Free Child Care API, so that parents can use their balance to pay for wraparound child care.
• 'Extras' can be added to for wraparound child care bookings, such as lunch, snack or a bus.