sQuid kick starts 2023 with new releases for schools and parents
Last year was a busy year for the sQuid team with the development and introduction of new tools and improved features, designed to make school life easier for administrators and parents; and there are no signs of things slowing down in 2023, with the release of two brand new tools to simplify parent refunds.
Balance Withdrawal for parents and carers
Although the new Balance Withdrawal tool was officially released at the end of 2022, many parents and carers will only have seen this tool when they logged in to their sQuid account at the start of the new year.
Traditionally, sQuid account holders would have needed to email the sQuid Support team to request a withdrawal of funds from any of their sQuid purses and then await a reply from the team once this had been processed.
The new Balance Withdrawal tool is a more convenient way for parents and carers to withdraw available funds on their purse balance without restriction - they can withdraw what they want, when they want - giving them complete control of their sQuid account.
This simplied process has three key benefits:
Parents and carers can submit a request direct from their sQuid account, negating the need to send an email to the sQuid Support team where they will need to remember and include important sQuid account details.
Reduces the number of support requests into the school office - freeing up valuable time and resources.
Streamlines the internal processes between the sQuid Support and Finance teams, resulting in requests being dealt with more promptly.
School approved refunds
Schools who use sQuid to manage payments for trips, offers and bookings now have the ability to approve refund requests from parents and carers who require this.
In an effort to help reduce the number of email and call requests received via the school office for parent refunds, we have introduced a more simplified and efficient way for schools to quickly approve these requests.
Registered sQuid account holders will now send a refund request for a purchased trip, activity or item direct from their sQuid account to the school’s sQuid system, with new requests displayed on the school’s portal enabling them to quickly identify and approve a request. Notifications are sent to the requester to advise when this has been approved or a reason as to why it may have been declined with approved requests showing the transaction history - providing a fully audited trail.
Returned funds will still be refunded back to the user’s Trips & Offers purse, and the registered account holder will have the option to either, leave the funds there until a future trip or item needs to be purchased, transfer the funds to a Catering or sibling’s purse, or they can request a Balance Withdrawal.
The addition of these new features stengthen sQuid's offerings to schools and parents, determining sQuid as one of the best cashless payment systems on the market for schools in the UK, and we look forward to delivering more new tools to help our school communities thrive.