Families

A family groups contacts together. Grouping by last name isn't reliable — not all family members share a name — so TeachHero uses families to keep parents and students together for billing and enrollment. You manage families from each contact's profile. Family IDs must be unique within your school.

Note: Families aren't used for college and adult schools, so these fields may not appear on your contacts.

Add a contact to a family

1. Open the contact and click Edit contact.
2. On the Details tab, find the Family information section.
3. Search for and select a Family. To start a new one, click the + button, enter a unique Family ID (families' last names work well, e.g. "Doe Family"), optionally add the family's address, and click Create.
4. Select their Relationship to the students (e.g. Mother, Father).
5. Click Save changes.

Repeat for each family member. To take someone out of a family, clear the Family field and save. This doesn't delete the contact.

See who's in a family

Open any contact in the family, select the Contact tab, then the Family tab inside it. It lists the family's members. Click a member to open their profile.

What a family owes

On the same Family tab, the line under the family's name — for example "$120.00 outstanding across the family" — shows what the school is still collecting from everyone in the family, added up across their bills.

It counts every bill that has been issued, isn't archived or voided, and isn't settled yet. A held bill the family has never seen, a bill written off as uncollectable, and a checkout still in progress are all left out — none of them is money you are owed. The bills themselves live on each student's page; see What a Student Owes.

Share the family address

Family members usually live at the same address. Instead of typing it on each contact, they can all use the family's address:

1. Open the contact and click Edit contact.
2. On the Contact tab, turn on Use family address. The family's address fills in.
3. Update the address if it has changed.
4. Click Save changes.

While Use family address is on, address changes save to the family, not to the contact. Every member using the family address sees the update. Turn it off to give the contact their own address.

Parents can do the same from the parent portal. When they edit their profile or another family member's with Use family address turned on, their changes update the family address.