Billing Access in the Hub
By default, billing communications (invoices, receipts) go to the payment responsible parent. If a student is old enough to manage their own finances, you can enable billing access for them directly — invoices and receip
Who Receives Billing Emails
When an invoice or receipt is sent, Octavia uses a simple routing rule to determine who the email goes to:
- If the student has billing access enabled and has a registered email address → the email goes to the student
- Otherwise → the email goes to the payment-responsible parent for that student
- If no payment-responsible parent is set → the email goes to the first linked parent
This rule applies to invoice and receipt emails, including Stripe payment links sent with invoices. Autopay confirmations, advance charge notices and other payer messages go separately to the login email of the person who authorised Autopay.
Enabling Billing Access for a Student
Billing access for a student is controlled by a setting on their student record. When enabled, the student receives invoices and receipts directly and can view them in the Hub under their own login.
This is appropriate for adult students or older students who manage their own lesson fees. For younger students, leave billing access disabled and billing communications will go to the parent as normal.
What Families See in the Hub
When an invoice is sent, a notification appears in the recipient's Hub feed. From there they can view the invoice detail — the line items, the total due, any payment history, and the current balance.
If your school has Stripe connected and online payments are enabled, the invoice view will also include a Pay now link. Clicking it opens Stripe's hosted checkout page where the family can pay by card directly. Once payment is made, the invoice balance updates automatically and a receipt is sent (unless you have turned automatic receipt emails off). See Online Payments for more detail on this.
Once an invoice is fully paid, the family can open its receipt from the invoice in the Hub. This works whether or not receipt emails are sent automatically, so a school that has turned automatic receipt emails off (see Sending Invoices and Receipts) is not hiding receipts from families — they just aren't emailed unless you send them.
When Autopay is available, the payer can set it up or manage it for each student from My Billing. The invoice view explains when an invoice will be charged automatically. While an automatic payment is processing or needs review, Pay now is temporarily unavailable; the family should check with the school before paying another way. See Using Autopay for setup, notices, cancellation and payment problems.
Payment-Responsible Parent
When a student has multiple linked parents, you can designate one as payment-responsible. This parent is the default recipient for billing emails when student billing access is not enabled. If no parent is marked payment-responsible, the first linked parent is used as a fallback.
You set or change the payment-responsible parent from the student's detail page.
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