June 2006

ONLINE PAYMENT @ BRIGHTON
& HOVE MUSIC & PEROFRMING ARTS

Brighton & Hove Music Service are now offering an online payment option to parents. All of their tuition is charged to parents, so they are constantly receiving cheques and posting these to a ledger within EnsembleXP.Net.

New invoice templates have been printed, and a newsletter was sent out with the last invoice run informing parents that online payment is now available. ‘There were 2300 invoices’ says Gill Holmes, admin team leader at & Hove Music Service, ‘and we’ve received around 150 online payments so far’.

Final reminder letters have just been posted, and it is expected that the older the debt, the more likely people are to pay online. A daily report is sent to the Music Service showing all payments that have been received.

These payments can then be logged against invoices in the same way as cheques and cash are posted. EnsembleXP.Net has been enhanced to support this. It is necessary to log online payments because reminder letters are sent automatically when payment is not received.

Online payments also need to be treated differently when it comes to banking. Other forms of payment are allocated paying-in slips, and banking lists are produced accordingly. Direct debits and online payments need not appear on these lists.

National statistics show that 86% of adults in the UK now have internet access at home. If online payment is welcomed by parents, it must be the way forward for Music Services.