Understanding the different payment methods

Understanding the different payment methods

When you set up your eypay payment account, you have a choice of what methods parents can use to pay their nursery fees. In this guide, we'll go through how each one works and how to set them up.

Credit/Debit Cards 

How does it work?

Parents can make card payments through the eyparent app by tapping the Pay Now button on the Invoices/Payments screen, and filling in their card details. We accept all major card providers, including Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. Funds should be made available within 3 business days following the transaction.

Why use card payments?

  1. Card payments provide real-time authorisation, virtually eliminating the risk of failed payments.
  2. Parents can make payments as soon as the account is verified by Unipaas, which usually takes between 24 and 48 hours.
  3. This payment method is familiar to most parents.
  4. Card payments are automatically reconciled on eymanage.

Setting up card payments

  1. Create a payment account in eypay.
  2. Select Cards from the list of payment methods.
  3. Complete the onboarding.
  4. Finish the payment account setup.
See Managing payments using eypay for more information.

Direct Debit

How does it work?

Direct Debit allows nurseries to collect payments directly from parents' bank accounts. Parents will need to accept a direct debit mandate, which gives you authorisation to collect fees from their account. This can be done manually, or by setting up automatic collection. Funds are settled 3 days after collection.

Why use Direct Debit?

  1. Direct debit is very flexible, allowing for both one-time payments and automatic recurring collections.
  2. Recurring collections reduces the chance of missed payments and makes payments more predictable so you can plan ahead with confidence.

Setting up Direct Debit payments

  1. Create a payment account on eypay. 
  2. Select Direct Debit from the list of payment methods.
  3. Complete the onboarding.
  4. Finish the payment account setup.
Using direct debit requires you to send out mandates. Parents who receive these mandates will need to complete a short form to authorise direct debit to collect payments from their accounts. This payment method will need to be verified by the parent's bank before they can pay, a process that usually takes 3-5 days.

Pay by Bank (Open Banking)

How does it work?

eypay uses Instant Bank Transfer, which allows parents to pay directly from their bank without needing a card, and without the usual waiting times for other payment methods. When Pay by Bank is selected during payment, parents will be redirected to their banking app where they can confirm the payment. 

Why use bank transfer?

  1. Payments are instant, and are processed within the same day they are transferred (typically in less than 1 hour).
  2. Payments are made securely through the parent's banking app, without the need for a card.
  3. Parents can make payments immediately after you complete the set-up process.
  4. Payments are almost instantly settled.

Setting up bank payments

  1. Create a payment account on eypay. 
  2. Select Pay by Bank from the list of payment methods.
  3. Complete the onboarding.
  4. Finish the payment account setup.

Tax-Free Childcare (TFC)

How does it work?

Tax-Free Childcare is a government scheme designed to help make childcare costs more affordable. Parents who qualify for the scheme will receive a £2 top-up for every £8 deposited into their TFC account, up to a limit of £2,000 per year, or £4,000 if the child is disabled.

Parents can link their Tax-Free Childcare account to eyparent once it has been enabled on eypay. This allows them to view their TFC balance on the eyparent app, and use the money in the account to pay nursery fees on the Invoices/Payments screen.

In-app payments made from a parent's childcare account should be settled within 3 business days after transfer.

Why use Tax-Free Childcare payments?

  1. TFC payments offer a financial benefit to parents who use it.
  2. TFC payments are usually paid out faster than other payment methods.

Setting up Tax-Free Childcare payments

  1. Create a payment account on eypay. 
  2. Select Tax-Free Childcare from the list of payment methods.
  3. Enter your Postcode and Nursery URN and enable TFC for your nursery.
  4. Finish the payment account setup.
Once TFC has been enabled for your nursery, parents will need to authorise the eyparent app with HMRC and link their child's TFC account before they can use it to make payments.

See Paying invoices through the eyparent app for more information on how this works for parents. 

Payment reconciliation

When a payment is made to your setting outside of eypay, or via TFC, you'll need to reconcile them with the invoices that are stored on that system, which have been sent out to parents. By using Bank Feeds, this process is easy. Once a bank account is linked to eypay, any payments credited to this bank account will be automatically synced with eymanage overnight (and on demand), adding them to the Reconcile screen without the need for you to upload a bank statement.

You can find out more about Bank Feeds in this article. 

    • Related Articles

    • Managing in-app payments using eypay

      Introduction With eypay, we've partnered with Unipaas to make it easier to manage payments. Unipaas are a leading payment provider that specialise in powering payment solutions for software platforms. Rather than relying on multiple external payment ...

    • Using bank feeds on eypay

      This feature is only available for companies using UK banks. With Bank Feeds, eypay enables you to securely connect to your bank account to automatically feed credit transactions into eymanage for reconciliation. We are able to do this through our ...

    • Transitioning from other payment gateways to eypay

      From 31 August 2026, our old payment gateways—Stripe, Opayo, Worldpay, and GoCardless—will be retired from eymanage. In its place, we've introduced eypay: a way to receive payments, manage transactions, and do reconciliation all from within eymanage. ...

    • What is eypay?

      What is eypay? We’ve introduced eypay to provide a comprehensive In-app payments and reconciliation platform for our customers. It is comprised of two core elements: In-app payments: We have partnered with Unipaas to provide a payment platform that ...

    • Using auto-reconciliation

      For eypay customers, we provide an additional option for reconciling payments. Once you get Bank Feeds set up, you'll be able to turn on Auto-Reconcile, which automatically reconciles any Tax-Free Childcare payments made through the eyparent app. Go ...