Paying Your Co-op Bills

From any page in HomeschoolGo, open the left sidebar and click Payments. You’ll land on a summary card at the top of the page showing your total charges, anything you’ve already paid or had credited, and the balance left to pay.

If your balance is zero, you’ll see a green “All clear” indicator and no further action is needed. If you owe something, the balance shows in red, and a Pay now button appears next to the pending charges below the summary (assuming your co-op accepts online payments — see the cash/check section if not).

The page is organized in five stacked sections:

If your co-op has online payments turned on, paying takes about thirty seconds:

Flexible billing: charges added to your account

Some co-ops use a flexible billing model, especially for class enrollment. Instead of paying immediately at checkout, the class fee is added to your account as a pending charge, and you pay it later. If your co-op uses this setup, you’ll see class fees appear on your Payments page without having gone through Stripe at enrollment time. You can pay those pending charges by clicking Pay now whenever you’re ready — or your co-op may accept cash or check instead.

Some co-ops also accept payment directly from a bank account (an ACH debit). If yours does, the checkout screen shows two buttons instead of one: Pay from bank account and Pay by card. Pick the bank option and Stripe walks you through connecting your bank — usually a quick login with your online-banking credentials.

The main difference from a card: bank payments aren’t instant. The debit takes about four business days to clear. In the meantime your Payments page shows a Bank payment processing note next to the payment, and your balance already reflects it — you won’t be asked to pay the same charge twice while it settles.

The same goes for a paid event. If you pay for an event signup from your bank, the event page shows your spot as bank payment processing until the debit clears. Your spot is already held, and there is nothing more you need to do.

If the debit doesn’t clear (for example, insufficient funds), you’ll get an email letting you know, the charge returns to your balance, and you can pay again — by card if you want it settled right away. If the payment was for a class enrollment, the seat is released back to the catalog when a debit fails, so re-enroll promptly.

Some co-ops prefer to collect tuition by cash, check, or bank transfer (often called “external” payments). If that’s how your co-op runs, you won’t see a Pay now button on your Payments page. Instead:

• Hand your check or cash to the admin or treasurer your co-op designates — usually at the next meeting day.
• The admin records the payment in HomeschoolGo on their end. Once they do, the payment will appear in your account summary and your balance will drop accordingly.
• External payments don’t count toward your “owed” balance for sign-up purposes — in other words, if your co-op is collecting by check and hasn’t recorded yours yet, you won’t be blocked from enrolling.

Some co-ops let you spread a term’s balance across several dates instead of paying it in one go. If yours does, and you owe $50 or more, a Pay over time card appears on your Payments page listing the plans on offer with their real dates and amounts.

Choosing one takes a single confirmation. After that the card shows each payment as paid, due, past due, or still to come, and you get an email before each date. Nothing is ever charged automatically, and you can always pay more than the amount due to get ahead.

The Payment plans guide covers this in full, including what happens if you miss a date.

If you have an unpaid balance on a card-based co-op, HomeschoolGo blocks new class enrollments and event sign-ups until you’re caught up. You’ll see a message with the amount due and a link straight to the Payments page.

It’s not a penalty; it just means your treasurer isn’t chasing balances at the end of the term. Pay your balance, and the block lifts automatically the moment payment clears.

A payment plan is the exception. If you’re on one and keeping up with it, you can carry on enrolling even though the term isn’t paid off. Only a payment that has gone past its date blocks you, and the message names that amount rather than your whole balance.

When a class is full, you can still add a student to the waitlist at no cost — no card charge, no fee, no surprise bill. If a seat opens up and the co-op admin promotes your student from the waitlist into the class, that’s when the class fee gets added to your account.

You’ll be notified by email any time you’re moved from the waitlist to enrolled, so you’ll never be surprised by a charge you weren’t expecting.

If your co-op issues you a credit (for a cancelled class, a scholarship, a board discount, or any other reason), it shows up in your Payment History on its own line, in green, labeled with the reason your admin entered, and reduces your balance the same way a payment does.

Refunds for online card payments are issued back to the original card, usually by your co-op admin from your ledger, the class roster, or their own Stripe dashboard. Either way, HomeschoolGo picks up the refund automatically and reflects it on your Payments page, so you don’t need to ask your admin to record it separately. The money itself usually posts to your card within a few business days, depending on your bank.

Sometimes a refund comes with a credit in the same step. For example, if your co-op refunds a payment but wants you to keep your spot, they can cover the reopened balance with a scholarship or other credit right away. If that happens, you’ll see both the refund and the credit on your Payments page, and your balance nets out to what it was before.

One case refunds itself: if a student was promoted from a waitlist into a paid class and then needs to move back to the waitlist, that class fee is refunded automatically, with no request needed.

Using a credit to register for classes

Some co-ops let your credit pay for class registration directly. If yours does, and you have credit on your account when you go to enroll, you won’t be asked for a card. The cart tells you so before you commit: it names the credit you hold, says whether a payment is coming, and shows one Complete registration button in place of the pay buttons.

If your credit covers the whole registration, your students are enrolled straight away and nothing is owed. If it covers part of it, the rest is added to your balance and you pay it from your Payments page like any other charge. Either way the class fees are the normal amount, with any sibling discount or reduced rate already applied.

Not every co-op turns this on. If yours hasn’t, you’ll still see the usual payment buttons at checkout, and your credit keeps working the way it always has, by reducing what you owe on the Payments page.