PayPal has become one of my hardest workers. Signing up and using PayPal is free and painless. Using PayPal with MTH is even better.
When a student pays by credit/debit card through PayPal, you get an immediate email from PayPal as well as MTH advising you of a student payment. That’s not all! MTH immediately updates the Accounts Receivables and credits the payment to the student’s account. What do you need to do? Nothing. The fee you are charged for a student making a credit card payment is $2.62. However, if you want have the funds transferred from PayPal to your bank account, there is no charge.
Occasionally I have a student, who has set up reoccurring payments through PayPal, wanting to stop the reoccurring payment and is unsure of the procedure. Below are instructions I received from PayPal to terminate reoccurring payments. I just copy and paste the information shown below in an email to the inquiring student. Try it. You will like it.
Cancelling a Subscription and Recurring Payment
cancels all future scheduled payments for that
subscription. You can only cancel a subscription
that is 'Active' and recurring. If your original
subscription creation is 'completed' no future
payments will be deducted and no cancellation
is necessary.
To cancel an 'Active' Subscription: 1. Log in to your account at https://www.paypal.com
2. Click the 'History' subtab.
3. Choose the 'Subscriptions' field from the 'Show'
drop-down menu.
4. Check the 'From' box and change date back
to the year the subscription was created.
5. Click 'Search'.
6. To view the details of a specific 'Subscription
Creation', click 'Details' in the Details column.
7. At the bottom of this page, click
'Cancel Subscription'.
8. On the confirmation page click
'Cancel Subscription' again.
If your subscription is a non-recurring subscription,
you will see your 'Subscription Completion' already
posted and no future payments will be
deducted from your PayPal account.
If you need a refund from your subscription,
please contact the seller of the subscription.
Please note: · When viewing your subscription
details, make sure you are clicking on the
transaction that is titled 'Subscription Creation'
and not a payment transaction. The scheduled
payment will need to be canceled at least one
day prior to the scheduled date of the next payment.
Canceling a Subscription on the day of a scheduled
payment will not guarantee the payment will
not be sent.
Can that fee (that is charged when a student makes a payment via Paypal) be considered a business expense? Will Paypal send you a month’s work of transactions and fees for proper documentation?
Yes, the expense is a deductible business expense. You can set perimeters in paypal to pull up these charges between certain dates (ie: jan 1 2007 – dec 31, 2007) and print the report. I do this every year, as well as input the fee into MTH so I can print out expenses as well as income.
Also, I should clarify that Paypal doesn’t take a flat $2.62 fee, but takes a percentage of the transaction, based on you volume. Normally it’s around 2.9% + a $0.30/transaction fee. A lot of teachers charge their students an extra amount on their invoice to make up for this fee, or simply raise their rates. For me, I think it’s worth it regardless because it saves me from having to run to the bank, deposit checks, remind parents over and over again to bring them, etc. Online payments are definitely the way to go.