Chase unpaid class fees in three steps that match your own published fee deadline and late-payment surcharge

Late payment is a term-by-term job in a dance school. The Dance Company in Isleworth told parents in its own April 2023 letter that fees not paid by the deadline would have 10% added to the invoice. In a ClassForKids case study, the owner of Dance Republic in Scotland says that before software, taking payments needed an extra person and parents would carry payments over several weeks, which made cash flow a nightmare. A three-step sequence (a friendly reminder before the deadline, a clear note the day after, and a final note that quotes your own published terms word for word) means every family gets the same wording and you stop rewriting it at night. The AI drafts the three messages from blanks. It never sees a family’s name or an amount, and it does no arithmetic. You decide whether a surcharge applies to a particular family, whoever keeps your accounts checks every figure, and the wording never goes beyond what your published terms already say.

An AI chat tool you already use

Steps

1. Open your published terms and conditions and copy, into your own document, the exact lines about the fee deadline, any late-payment surcharge and how parents pay. If your terms do not mention a surcharge, do not add one in a reminder.
2. Decide the dates for each step this term: a reminder before the deadline, a note the day after it, and a final note. Write them in your diary.
3. Run the prompt below with its brackets left as they are. Do not type a child’s or parent’s name, an amount or a bank detail into the AI tool. You get back three short messages and a one-line private note about money worries.
4. Paste your terms wording and dates into the blanks in your own document, then compare each message line by line with your published terms.
5. Send each message from your booking system or school email, one family at a time, with no other family able to see it. Note in your own records which step each family has had.
6. Before you send the final step, decide yourself, with whoever keeps your accounts, whether to apply the surcharge, offer a plan or stop the place, and keep that decision out of the AI tool.

The exact prompt

Write three short messages from the principal of [SCHOOL NAME], a UK dance school, to a parent whose class fees for [TERM] are unpaid.
1. A friendly reminder sent before the deadline: fees for [TERM] are due by [DEADLINE] by [PAYMENT METHOD]. Under 60 words.
2. A clear note sent on [DATE AFTER DEADLINE]: the deadline has passed, please pay by [NEW DATE], and the school’s terms say: “[EXACT WORDING FROM THE PUBLISHED TERMS]”. Under 80 words.
3. A final note sent on [DATE]: payment is still outstanding, quoting the same terms wording, saying what happens next in the principal’s words ([WHAT HAPPENS NEXT, AS DECIDED BY THE PRINCIPAL]), and giving [CONTACT ROLE] for questions. Under 100 words.
Add one separate sentence the principal can add to any message: anyone finding fees hard to manage can speak privately to [CONTACT ROLE]. Keep the tone warm and plain, never threatening. Do not mention any amount, any child, or any rule that is not in the bracketed terms wording.
RULES FOR THIS CHAT: I will give you only my own school wording, headings and dates that I have typed in. I will not give you, and you must not ask for, any child’s or parent’s name, date of birth, photo, email address, phone number or address, any medical, access, behaviour or safeguarding detail, any bank or payment detail, or any amount owed by a named family. Use the blanks in square brackets exactly as I give them. Do not invent dates, prices, fees, surcharges, notice periods, terms or facts about any person, hall or council, and do not say what is standard, usual, fair, owed or legal. Do not give legal, consumer-law, safeguarding, child-licensing, data protection, tax or accounting advice, and do not do any arithmetic: copy every figure exactly as I typed it or leave the cell empty. Where something is missing write [FOR THE PRINCIPAL TO COMPLETE]. Everything you write is a draft that a named person will check before anything is sent.