Billing in LessonLoop follows your teaching, not the other way round. You don’t build invoices by hand — lessons flow into them. This is the shape of the whole cycle, with links to the how-to guide for each step.
The lifecycle, start to finish
- Lessons happen. You schedule lessons on the Calendar, each one carrying a rate (more on that below).
- Attendance confirms them. When you take the register, each lesson is marked attended, absent or cancelled. Only confirmed, billable lessons become charges — so an unconfirmed lesson never lands on an invoice by accident.
- A billing run turns lessons into invoices. When you’re ready to bill, you start a billing run. It gathers every confirmed lesson for the period, groups them by family, and produces one invoice per family. (For a single ad-hoc charge you can also raise a New invoice by hand — same Invoices page.) See create and send invoices.
- The family pays. If you’ve connected card payments, each invoice gets a Pay button and the money lands in your bank — see set up card payments. Paid by cash or bank transfer instead? You record that payment by hand against the invoice, and LessonLoop marks it paid.
Where each step lives
| Step | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| Schedule lessons | Calendar |
| Confirm attendance | The register, opened from the Calendar’s “Take attendance” button |
| Create invoices (bulk) | Billing & Finance → Billing runs |
| Raise a one-off invoice | Billing & Finance → Invoices → New invoice |
| View invoices & balances | Billing & Finance → Invoices and Family Accounts |
Most invoices come from a billing run, which links each charge to a confirmed lesson so nothing is billed twice or missed. For anything outside your regular run — a one-off charge, a single family — use New invoice to build one by hand. See create and send invoices.
Why each lesson carries its own rate
Every lesson stores its own rate, captured at the moment the lesson was created. That snapshot is what the billing run uses.
Good to know Because the rate is snapshotted onto the lesson, changing a rate card partway through a term does not rewrite invoices you've already generated, and it won't retroactively change lessons that were scheduled at the old price. New lessons created after the change pick up the new rate; everything already on the calendar keeps the rate it was booked at. That's what keeps your past invoices accurate and your families' bills predictable.
If you do need to adjust a single lesson’s price, you can change it on that lesson before the billing run picks it up.
In short
Teach, confirm, run, get paid. Attendance is the gate that decides what’s billable, the billing run is the moment lessons become money owed, and the per-lesson rate snapshot means your history stays exactly as it was charged.
Was this out of date or unclear? Tell us — we keep these guides matched to the live app.