How the system finds out the student has paid

For whom:
Whoever runs the school
Time:
4 min

The short answer

The one that gives notice is the payment service, not the student and not the school. As soon as a payment is confirmed, it sends a notice to an address that belongs exclusively to your school, and EduPay settles the installment on its own.

Nobody has to click anything. That is why an installment can turn to Paid at three in the morning on a Sunday.

What happens in sequence

A single notice triggers all of this, in order:

  1. The installment turns to Paid, with the amount and the date the money arrived.
  2. The student receives the receipt by email.
  3. Whoever administers the school receives the payment-received notice.
  4. If the enrollment is linked to the class environment and access had been suspended over arrears, access comes back.

If the paid installment was the last one open, the enrollment leaves the arrears list on its own.

Why there is a password involved

The notice arrives over the internet, and without proof of origin anyone could send a fake one and mark installments as paid.

That is why the receiving screen has the Webhook Secret field: it is the password the payment service signs every notice with, and EduPay checks it before settling. A notice without a valid signature is discarded.

Setting up that field is not optional for anyone who wants automatic settlement. Without it — or with the wrong address registered on the other side — notices never arrive, and the only clue is that nothing ever turns to Paid on its own.

The three kinds of notice that matter

What happened What the system does
Payment confirmed Settles it, notifies student and manager, restores access
Payment refused Records the failure; the installment stays open
Payment refunded Undoes the settlement and returns the installment to open

The refund is the one that startles people most: an installment that was Paid goes back to open with nobody having touched it. That is the correct behaviour — the money went back to the student.

When the notice does not arrive

Three situations, all with the same symptom: the student swears they paid and the installment is still open.

1. It is still early. PIX and card are almost immediate; boleto usually takes until the next business day. Before that, waiting is the right move.

2. The payment did not go through the system. A transfer, cash at the front desk or the school's own card machine generate no notice at all — there is nothing to notify. That payment has to be recorded by hand.

3. The notice link is misconfigured. Wrong address or wrong password registered on the payment service's side. The tell-tale symptom: no installment has ever turned to paid on its own, on any enrollment.

If something goes wrong

A student paid and it is still open. Walk the three cases above in that order. While you sort it out, record the payment by hand — the enrollment carries on normally and the student gets their receipt all the same.

A paid installment went back to open. There was a refund or a chargeback. The receiving account's statement shows the reason.

No installment has ever turned to paid on its own. That is case 3. Check the notice address and password on the receiving screen — and read the article about adjusting the connection.

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