Part of the Aeries Financials system is the ability to create student payment portals on the LivingTree (Formerly Edbacker) fundraising platform. This enables students and/or parents to schedule automatic payments to be credited to their balance. Students can also raise funds by accepting donations from family members, friends, and others using LivingTree's crowd-funding platform. Any funds raised through LivingTree will reduce the amount of the student's required monthly payment to the school.
This article applies only to customers who have set up Livingtree integration in their District Options.
The student's LivingTree payment portal can be created and viewed from the Financial Transactions page. The Financial Transactions page is explained in a separate article.
Initialize Payment Portal
Livingtree payment portal information displays under the Payment Portal heading. If the student does not yet have a payment portal, the following will display. Click Initialize Payment Portal.
The following window will display.
Check the following information:
| First Name | The student's first name. The LivingTree payment portal title will default to the student's first and last name. |
| Last Name | The student's last name. The LivingTree payment portal title will default to the student's first and last name. |
| Email Address | The student's email address. |
| Total | The total dollar goal to be raised. |
Click the Initialize button to create the student's payment portal in Livingtree.
Note: The first time a fee is added to a student's transaction summary, a LivingTree payment portal will automatically be created if it has not already been created manually using the steps above.
Payment Portal Information
After the payment portal has been created, the following will display in the Payment Portal section.
Click Open Payment Portal to open the Livingtree payment portal in a separate browser tab.
Click View Transactions to see a list of all transactions that have occurred in the student's payment portal. The information is read-only.
Note: Once a student has an LivingTree payment portal, Aeries will automatically update LivingTree with data entered on the Financial Transactions page. Payment transactions will be reported to LivingTree in order to reduce the remaining fundraising needed in LivingTree . Fee transactions will automatically update the fundraising total goal in LivingTree .
Auto Pay
If the student has established a payment method by accessing their payment gateway, then additional options will appear in the Payment Portal section. Select the check box next to Auto Pay to turn on automatic payments for this student. De-select the check box to turn off automatic payments for the student.
Students with Auto Pay turned on will have their monthly payment amount automatically debited on the scheduled date(s) as long as the scheduled process is configured.
Note: Auto Pay will not work unless the student has set up a payment method (e.g., credit card or PayPal) via their LivingTree payment gateway.
When an automatic payment has been processed, the student will receive a confirmation email. Below is a sample of the Payment Submitted email.
Submit Payment
If the student has set up a payment method via the LivingTree Billing Gate, then the Submit Payment button will be available.
Click Submit Payment to initiate a payment using the payment method the student has stored in LivingTree . The following window will display.
Enter the Amount of the payment and click the Submit Payment button. The payment will be processed by Livingtree in real time, and a transaction will be created in Aeries.