ParentPay for parents, explained

ParentPay is a cashless payment system schools use so they are not handling cash and cheques. From a parent's side, it is the place you go to pay for the things school charges for: dinner money and school meals, trips, after-school clubs, uniform, music lessons, exam re-sits and the occasional donation.

You normally pay by debit or credit card or by bank transfer, and some families can also pay in cash at PayPoint shops where the school allows it. ParentPay describes the full range on its payments product page.

You cannot sign up to ParentPay on your own. The school issues an activation letter with a one-time username and password. A few things to know about those codes:

• They are case-sensitive, so type them exactly. It is easy to confuse a lower-case L with the number one, or a zero with the letter O.
• They work only once, and stop working after you activate.
• If you have not had the letter, or you have lost it, the school can issue a new one. ParentPay cannot send it to you, the school does.

Once you have the letter, activation takes a couple of minutes:

• Go to parentpay.com.
• Enter the activation username and password from the letter, exactly as printed.
• Confirm your child's date of birth.
• Enter your name, the email address you want to use (this becomes your username), and choose a password.
• Click the link in the verification email to finish setting up.

If you have ever had a ParentPay account before, log into that one and add your child to it rather than creating a second account. ParentPay sets out the full process in its activation guide.

The Parent Account is an optional balance you can hold inside ParentPay so you are not entering card details every time. You add credit to it by card or bank transfer once you are logged in, then pay for meals, trips and clubs straight from that balance. It is handy if your child buys meals daily, because you top up now and again rather than paying item by item.

You do not have to use it, though. You can leave the Parent Account empty and simply pay for each item directly when the school adds it. ParentPay's guide to adding and using Parent Account credit walks through both.

ParentPay is one of the most widely used school payment systems in the UK, and money you hold in your Parent Account balance is kept in a ring-fenced UK bank account, separate from ParentPay's own business money, as set out in its terms and conditions.

Once you are logged in you can see your payment history, which is the easiest way to check whether you have already paid for a trip or how much dinner-money credit is left. If you ever need a record for your own files, that history is the place to look before you contact the school.

ParentPay is common, but it is not universal. It only works where your child's school has chosen to use it, and plenty of schools use a different payment system instead. If you have not received a ParentPay activation letter, that may simply be because your school uses something else.

The quickest way to know is to ask the school office which system they use for payments and how to get set up. There is no point trying to create a ParentPay account if your school is not on it, because the activation codes only come from a school that uses the service.

Once your account is live, you log in at parentpay.com and pay for the items the school has set up for your child. You can pay item by item, or top up a Parent Account balance, which is a wallet inside ParentPay that makes future payments faster. ParentPay's guide to using Parent Account credit covers that in detail.

The bit ParentPay cannot do is tell you a payment exists before you log in. Those reminders arrive as school emails, which is where they get lost. Forward them to Cyril and it reads out the amount and the due date, puts them on one dated plan for your family and reminds you in good time, so the ParentPay payment is handled before it becomes a last-minute scramble.