Application Form Billing is the way an Application Form turns the family's selections into charges, deposits, financial aid credits, and invoices for each paying household. This article describes the rules; the settings themselves are on Application Form Details and Application Form Widget Properties.
Priced widgets. A charge exists for every priced widget that is visible and selected in the applicant's frozen snapshot, or, for a text field, that holds a value. The charge is the product's price, prorated by the invitation's Proration % when the product is prorated, at the amount frozen when the family started the form. Review Application Form Signing for how the snapshot is created.
Households and shares. A student with more than one paying household has one endorsement per household. Each endorsement carries the household's share percentage, taken from Finance > Splits for the form's Split Billing Category when the invitation was created (review Application Form Invitation). Every charge of the student is divided by these shares, so each household sees, signs, and is invoiced for its own portion. A student with a single paying household has one endorsement at 100 percent. Review Household Billing Split for how splits are recorded.
Financial aid. Awards recorded for the student are shown by the CMS Widget - Financial Aid Awards widget and applied as credits when the form is signed. Aid is credited per billing category and per household share, and is capped at the charges it credits: an award larger than the charges leaves the excess with the household as a credit rather than producing a negative charge. Itemise aid on bill, on Application Form Details, decides whether the bill shows the gross charge with a separate aid credit row or one net charge.
Deposits. When the form holds a CMS Widget - Deposit (Application Form) widget, the deposit is carved out of the balance rather than added to it: the deposit collected at signing reduces what remains on the payment schedule. The deposit is calculated from the deposit settings of each product and is net of financial aid. A deposit that aid reduces below zero is floored at zero.
Convenience fees. A processing fee for card or e-check payments is shown on the Deposit widget when its Card Fee Product or Echeck Fee Product is set, and is charged through the auto-pay configuration chosen on the CMS Widget - Sign and Submit button. Point both at the same fee product so that the fee displayed equals the fee charged. Review Auto-Pay Configuration (Finance).
Payment at signing. When the Sign and Submit button requires payment, the amount due now for the signing household is charged before the signature is recorded, through the credit card, e-check, or stored payment widget on the signing page. The receipt is recorded on the household, and the invoices posted by the signing settle against it. The payment widgets are hidden on a signature that will not finalize the household, so a first parent in a two-signature household is not asked for card details that would not be charged.
Posting. A household's invoices are posted when that household has collected every signature it requires, as decided by Bill on first signature and the Second-signer detection filter. One invoice is created per invoice group and invoice template of the selected products, on the form's ledger, and the payment term of the template spreads the balance into the installments the CMS Widget - Payment Schedule widget displayed. Other households of the same student are posted independently when their own signatures are complete.
Archive and audit. Every signing archives the family's selections with the product, the amount, the share, and the aid applied, and records one audit row per generated split charge with its gross amount, aid offset, net amount, and share. The signed PDF quotes the same frozen figures. These records are what the school reviews when a family questions a charge.
Note: Totals shown to the family before signing, on the Submit Summary, the Deposit widget, and the Household Category Responsibility widget, read the same frozen snapshot that billing uses, so the screen, the PDF, and the invoice agree to the cent.