Implementing online PTA payment solutions can help increase your efficiency and community involvement, save time for volunteers, make payments more secure, and eliminate complicated reporting — just to name a few. Bonus: You can collect payments and create forms online, both under the same account, for free. Need more convincing? Here, we detail 15 benefits to your PTO or PTA going digital.
PTA Payment Solutions Save Time
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1. Track all payments automatically.
You read that right — no more data entry! The paper trail is always there, online, stored in the same safe, secure dashboard as your payments. If you choose to accept cash and checks in addition to online payments, you will have to enter that information, but we count it!
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2. Deposit directly into your PTA’s bank account.
Eliminate extra trips to the bank: It’s free to transfer funds directly to your organization’s bank account. Need funds to go to different places? Add multiple bank accounts, no problem.
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3. See how much you’ve collected for each event at one glance.
We’re thinking of you, room parents, the chief financial officers of all classroom special events and gifts. Cheddar Up not only makes it easy to collect for each separately (vs. Venmo, which doesn’t categorize payments), you can also text a custom URL so parents have immediate access to pay.
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4. Eliminate the constant follow-up reminders for payments and forms.
Or at least eliminate the time it takes for your organizers to send them. You can schedule reminders straight from the dashboard — and with a simple click (not the excessive double-checking), send only to those who haven’t paid.
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5. Automate after-school enrichment registration.
Turn enrichment coordinators’ files of paper forms, check payments, class rosters and spreadsheets into one online dashboard. You can set up your registration page to include detailed class descriptions, recurring payments, and class sizes. Cheddar Up can even automate your monthly payment reminders!
“[For] after-school enrichment, we’ve always had a ‘first-come, first serve’ policy in terms of sign up. When we used paper, that was really hard to implement accurately. When we moved to Cheddar Up, that policy really shined.”
Andrea Fraser, After-school enrichment coordinator
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6. Streamline field trip planning.
Who finds the traditional field-trip-permission-slip-and-money-sent-back-to-school-in-an-envelope process more annoying — parents or organizers? It’s a toss-up. Cheddar Up is a no-brainer solution: Accept both online payments and e-signatures in one spot. Just share the link and voila — all signed permission slips fit in your pocket, with the help of our mobile app.
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7. Offer online back-to-school registration and fee payments.
Parents will love this one-stop simplicity. Plus, as part of the registration page, you can create additional items for PTA membership, class donations, spirit wear — sky is the limit. No more sorting checks and lamenting unlabeled fee payments: Cheddar Up sends them to the correct “pile” without any help.
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8. Manage events efficiently.
A happy byproduct of our payments + forms power duo is easy event planning. Cheddar Up rocks any program’s 3Ms — marketing, money, and management. Promote all relevant information early and often (no paper limitations), and choose whether to post all scheduled events at once or create separate collections. Easily solicit donations and sell tickets online and in-person, with every sale automatically recorded. Recruit volunteers and have all your party details, including available budget, in one spot.
“Cheddar Up’s ease and flexibility is just what our chapter needed. We use it for all types of collecting — from member dues to major events with hundreds of participants. The platform’s design is simple and intuitive, which is important to me.”
Zengsha Guo, Chapter Administrator, YPO Miami
Make more money with PTA payment solutions
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9. Make paying ridiculously easy for parents = more money, faster!
That’s Cheddar Up’s No. 1 goal — a simple click and pay. The online payment option makes it easy to pay right away, but we add an extra layer of convenience: Anyone can pay on Cheddar Up without creating an account. When parents click your collection links, they’ll end up on the payment page immediately, no signup pop-ups in between.
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10. Accept in-person credit-card payments.
And you may see an increase in both profit and participation. Cheddar Up’s mobile apps plus Bluetooth card readers offer full point-of-sale functionality — which sets us apart from other PTA payment solutions. You can seamlessly transition between taking advance online payments and accepting day-of, in-person payments, and they’ll all be sorted and recorded in the same spot, no additional effort from you.
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11. Collect more fundraiser donations.
Whatever your favorite fundraiser, Cheddar Up’s PTA payment solutions can help — yes, because of the convenience of donating online, but also because of our features. Cheddar Up fundraising pages are clean, easy-to-read, and visual: You can add photos for intrigue (like this beautiful plant sale) as well as a fundraising goal, which shows your page visitors how much more you need.
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12. Create a customized web page and one-stop shop for your PTA.
We call it a Group Page. At a minimal cost, you can have one consistent URL that lists all your active collections — instead of having to share a separate URL for every collection you create. This is an exclusive feature you won’t find on other PTA payment solutions.
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13. Rack up the spirit wear sales.
Boost profit by significantly reducing the overhead time of setting up the store, “staffing” it, organizing all (all!) the sizes, tracking inventory, and a ton more tiny tasks, as you know. With a Cheddar Up storefront, you can display all items — by categories! — and track available quantities (with an option to display them on the site), even down to each size and color. The automatic “Sold Out” notification is a true game-changer for everyone, but especially you. And have we raved enough about our reporting? Here, you get dynamic charts of how many shirts in each size you sold.
Increase PTA membership and retention
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14. Boost PTA or PTO membership with online payments.
It’s the sheer convenience, friends. No paper forms lost in transit, no forgetting to find the checkbook in the bottom of … which drawer? An online PTA payment solution encourages prompt, easy payments. You can still use the same form you’ve used for years — simply recreate it online with the Cheddar Up form builder. Plus, online you can make form questions required, no more blank lines! (We’re not recommending cornering volunteers, but a “Which event would you like to help with?” is tough to bypass.)
“Cheddar Up has saved us SO MUCH work! No more collecting (or worse, losing) checks and cash for our fundraisers, no more managing paper forms. Cheddar Up makes setting up a polished professional-looking collection so easy — new parents to our school think we’ve been using it for years, instead of less than one.”
Jennifer Strahl, Navy Hale Keiki School PTO
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15. Get your new PTA board “on board” quickly.
You may love a 3-inch, 3-ring binder, but what if — what if? — that binder was digital and updated instantaneously? Hi, we’re Cheddar Up. We log a full history of past collections, trends, and PTA payments. In just seconds, you can duplicate and update your collections to use year after year. Handoff is an absolute cinch, too: Your account remains as-is, but you can add an unlimited number of managers and set specific permissions for each.
Online, Everyone Wins
Cheddar Up’s PTA payment solution makes it easier for parents to pay, and for you to manage the payments.
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