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When you change tuition

The Rate changed badge, the Sync button, and exactly when a family starts paying the new amount.

Raising your rates, adding a promotion, or a new sibling joining all change what the app expects a family to owe. None of them change what a family who is already on monthly billing is actually charged. That gap is deliberate, it is visible on screen, and closing it takes one click per enrollment.

Why a running subscription keeps its old rate

A subscription is standing authority to take a specific amount from a specific card every month. Quietly raising that amount because a program's price changed would mean charging a family more than they agreed to, without telling them — which is a customer-service problem, and in several places a legal one.

So the rule is: existing subscriptions keep their rate until a human decides otherwise. New subscriptions get the new rate automatically.

The app's job is to make sure the human finds out there is a decision to make.

The Rate changed badge

When a live subscription is collecting something other than what the enrollment now works out to, the Billing column on Students then Enrollments shows an amber Rate changed badge next to it, with both figures in the hover tooltip, and a Sync to current rate button beside it.

It appears next to every live state — Active, Past due and Paused — because the money is wrong in all three.

It appears only when there is genuinely something to do:

  • there has to be a live subscription (a rate change on an unbilled enrollment is just the rate);
  • the new rate has to resolve to more than $0.00, because a $0 subscription cannot exist — for that case, stop the billing instead.

A badge that is always there is a badge staff stop reading, which is why it isn't always there.

Sync to current rate

The button opens a confirmation, and the confirmation states three facts:

  1. what is being collected now;
  2. what will be collected — "Their tuition now works out to $105.00 a month — more than they are paying";
  3. when the change lands.

Nothing is charged today

"The new amount starts on 3 September, their next renewal. Nothing is charged now, and the month they have already paid for is not adjusted."

This is the sentence that prevents the support call. The change is not backdated, not prorated, and does not take a top-up payment today. The family simply pays the new amount from their next renewal onwards.

If the app doesn't know the exact date it says "at their next renewal" rather than inventing one.

The confirm button names the new figure: Charge $105.00 a month.

Afterwards the badge disappears, the amount in the cell updates, and the toast confirms "… will be charged $105.00 a month from their next renewal." If the subscription turned out to be up to date already, it says that instead and nothing changes.

There is no bulk sync

If you raise prices across the board, you press Sync on each affected enrollment. There is no "apply to all subscribers" action.

That is a real limitation, and the practical way through it is:

  1. Change the price

    Edit the program's Monthly Rate, or the promotion, or the sibling policy. Every unbilled enrollment picks it up instantly, and so does every future subscription.

  2. Tell the families first

    Send an announcement or an email before you sync anybody. The families affected are the ones with a Rate changed badge, and they are on a standing authority they agreed to at the old price.

  3. Filter the enrollments list

    Filter by program on Students then Enrollments to bring the affected rows together, then work down them.

  4. Sync each one

    One click plus one confirmation each. The new amount applies from each family's own next renewal, so they change over on their own billing dates rather than all at once.

What if you don't sync?

Nothing breaks. The family keeps paying the old amount indefinitely, the badge stays visible, and your tuition report — which counts the expected rate — will read higher than what you actually collect.

That divergence is worth knowing about if you compare the tuition report against your Stripe balance. An unsynced subscription is one of the two main reasons those two numbers disagree.

Lowering a price

Exactly the same flow, and the dialog reads "less than they are paying". Two things to keep in mind:

  • The reduction starts at the next renewal, so the current month is not refunded. If you have promised a family the lower rate starting immediately, sync it and issue a partial refund for the difference.
  • A promotion that reduces a rate to $0.00 cannot be synced onto a live subscription. Stop the billing instead.

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