Late fees, proration, and family rules

Three settings change what families are charged without anyone doing math: a late fee for past-due balances, proration for kids who start or stop mid-month, and per-family rules for discounts and flat tuition.

Only owners and admins can change these settings.

Late fees

When it’s on, Spotter checks every night for families with a balance past due and adds a late fee on its own line.

Open Billing and find Late fee

Set the amount and the grace period

Fill in “Charge $ [amount] when a balance is [days] days past due”. It starts at $15.00 after 10 days. The grace period can be 1 to 120 days.

Click Turn on

To change it later, edit the numbers and click Save. To turn it off, uncheck Late fee.

How it works:

At most one late fee per family per month.
Days count from each charge’s due date. Event charges count from the event’s Payment due date. Other charges count from the day they were charged.
The fee goes on the bill that’s past due, so a late competition fee shows on the team bill. It reads “Late fee · balance past due since Oct 1”.
Late fees don’t trigger more late fees.

Waive a late fee

Open the family, click the × on the late fee’s line, and confirm Waive. The line stays in the history, crossed out, and the family isn’t charged another late fee that month.

Proration

Proration bills a kid who starts or leaves partway through a month for only the classes they’re in. It’s on by default.

Spotter counts the class’s real meetings that month from the schedule. Closed days and cancelled classes don’t count. A kid who joins a Tuesday class on the 12th, with 2 of 4 Tuesdays left, pays half the month. The line on the bill says “2 of 4 classes” and shows the full price crossed out.

To turn it off, open Billing → Post tuition and uncheck Prorate partial months by the class calendar. With it off, every enrolled kid pays the full month.

The tuition preview lists every prorated kid before you post. See Post monthly tuition.

Private lessons aren’t prorated: they’re always billed per session.

Family rules

A family can have a monthly discount, a flat tuition rate, or both. Rules apply the next time you post tuition. Bills already posted don’t change.

Open the family

In the Billing section, click Add a discount or flat rate (or Edit rules if the family has one).

Set a discount

Under Discount on monthly tuition, pick Percent off or Amount off and enter the number. Add a Reason (on the bill), like “Sibling discount”, and an optional Last month.

Or set flat tuition

Under Flat-rate tuition, check Charge one amount a month instead of each class’s tuition. Enter the Monthly amount ($) and an optional Last month. Use this for unlimited plans or a negotiated rate.

Click Save rules

What families see:

A discount shows as its own credit each month, like “Sibling discount · October (10%)”. Without a reason it reads “Family discount”. It applies to group class tuition.
Flat tuition replaces each class’s tuition with one line, like “Flat-rate tuition · October”, for any month the family has a group class. A family discount isn’t added on top of a flat rate.
Private lessons are still billed per session under either rule.
A rule with a last month stops on its own after that month.

The family’s rules show as tags in their Billing section, like “10% off tuition each month” or “Flat tuition $150.00/month through Jun 2027”. To remove one, open Edit rules, set No discount or uncheck flat-rate tuition, and save.