Please note: This article contains Frequently Asked Questions about billing. The answers to these questions will vary depending on the terms of your current contract. Most contracts follow the same general structure, but reach out to accounts-receivable@clever.com with any questions.
This article contains the following:
1. How often am I billed?
2. Where can I check the number of schools I'm being billed for?
3. What if a district shares too much data?
4. What counts as a billable school and when do I start getting billed for school?
5. Why is there missing data or any discrepancies with what I see in Clever?
How often am I billed?
Partners are billed annually upfront for the contracted annual platform fee. For partners that exceed the amount included in the agreement (overage), these will be billed arrears on a monthly basis.
Where can I check the number of schools I’m being billed for?
You can view the number of schools you’ll be billed for any given month on the ‘Billing’ tab of your Clever dashboard. Within the billing tab, you can view “Billable schools as of today (updated nightly).” This number represents the total number of shared schools in launched district connections. The number excludes any schools you’ve filtered out from within your Clever dashboard. Schools shared due to dually enrolled users are not counted for billing purposes.
Please see the screenshot and description below for additional features of the "Billing" tab:
1. You can change the billing period so that you can see what you were billed for in previous months.
2. You can also download a csv for all of the schools you are currently being billed for, to keep for your records.
How do I know if a district is sharing too much data (schools, users, etc.)?
We have a few tools that help surface when a district is sharing too much data with your application. The first, is the licensing feature. This feature allows you to set the number of school or student licenses a district has purchased for your application. If a district exceeds the numbers of licenses, both you and the district will be notified in the Clever dashboard. For more information on the licensing feature please see this article.
What happens if a district shares too much data (schools, users, etc.)?
You can also use the billing tab to check the number of schools each connected district is sharing with your application via Clever. We recommend looking at the tab monthly to get in front of any over sharing issues before your monthly invoice.
If a district shares too much data there are two different ways you can remedy this.
- Reach out to the district to request that they adjust their sharing settings, so that the appropriate amount of data is shared with your application. If the district needs assistance they can submit a ticket to our Support Team via the Help Center form.
- You can also use the application-side filtering tool to remove excess data from the API. Any schools filtered out using this tool will also be removed from all future invoices. For more information on how to filter excess data please see the article “Filter district data”.
Finally, you can use our License feature in order to flag those districts that are oversharing so that you can check this in a programmatic way through your Clever dashboard. For more information on how to set up licenses for a district in your dashboard please see the article “Set Up License Usage Limits”.
What counts as a billable school?
We only charge for schools that are explicitly shared and launched.
Explicitly shared: This excludes any schools that are shared via dually enrolled users. For Example: Student X is enrolled in classes at both Clever Middle School and Clever High School. Clever Middle School is shared with your application, but Clever High School is not. We will provide access to both school objects via the API, but will only bill for Clever Middle School.
Launched: We only bill for launched connections, giving you as much time as you need to test and get setup! You can read more about setting launch dates here.
When do I start getting billed for a school?
You are billed for any schools shared through launched district connections on the last day of the month that have not been filtered out from within your Clever dashboard. If a school is connected midway through the month, you will still be changed full price for that schools for the month.
I see schools shared with apparently no teachers, students, or sections. Why might this be happening?
We provide access to schools that are not explicitly shared with your application for users that are associated with multiple schools in Clever. As a result, you might see a school with very limited teacher, section, and student data. You are not billed for schools that are not explicitly shared with your application via Clever.
What if there are discrepancies between school data in Clever and MDR data?
You're invoiced based on the number of unique schools shared with your application via Clever. ‘Shared schools’ is defined by the total number of unique Clever IDs available to your application via the API, not by the total number of unique MDR numbers. This data doesn't always align perfectly with MDR data, depending on how the district has structured their schools in their SIS.