Schools can now pause a family's stored payment so PCR Educator stops charging it automatically, and resume it when the family is ready. The nightly automatic payment run, account top-ups and recurring pledge payments all skip a paused stored payment, whichever payment processor the school uses.
Key capabilities
Pause and resume from Campus. A Pause action sits on each stored payment in the customer's Auto-Pay information. The status and the reason appear alongside it, so anyone looking at the account can see why automatic payments stopped and who stopped them.
Optional self-service for families. Schools that want families to manage this themselves can turn on a Pause option in the parent portal. It stays off until the school enables it, because many schools prefer that conversation to go through the office.
Automatic pause after a returned payment. For schools processing through Authorize.net, a returned eCheck pauses the family's stored payment on its own, so an account that has already failed is not charged again.
A pause never blocks a family who wants to pay. Automatic charging stops, while the family can still choose that stored payment and pay whenever they like.
A hold stays until it is lifted. A pause set by a person remains in place even if the family updates their card or bank details, and only an explicit resume restores automatic payments. A pause that followed a returned payment still clears when the family saves new payment information, because that is the fix for it.
Why it matters
A family between jobs, a disputed charge, a payment plan under review: each is a reason to stop charging one account for a while. Pausing holds the arrangement in place, keeps the reason on the record, and leaves the family's enrollment and stored payment intact for when they are ready to resume. The automatic payment run also reports who was skipped and why, so a paused family is explained rather than a quiet gap in the run.
A few ways to talk about it
- Pause one family's automatic payments without deleting their stored payment or their enrollment.
- Honored wherever PCR Educator charges automatically, whatever the payment processor.
- Families can manage it themselves when the school turns that option on.
Available now to all PCR Educator schools. Your account team can walk you through the settings whenever you're ready.