Invoicing as a Tutor

Tutoring runs on a steady rhythm: a few sessions a week, the same students month after month, and parents who’d rather not think about the bill. Fee-Lion lets you charge by the hour or by the session, put your regulars on a recurring monthly invoice, and switch parents to auto-pay so the money arrives without a single reminder. You teach; the billing takes care of itself.

Bill a one-off session by the hour

For a single tutoring block, a trial lesson, or a new student you haven’t settled into a routine with yet, send a simple invoice. From the left sidebar, open Invoices and create a new one.

1. Choose the parent or student as the client. If they’re not in your list yet, add them inline as you go.
2. Add a line item. Pick a task to bill hours × rate (great for “Algebra tutoring — 1.5 hrs at $60”), or a fee/unit to bill a flat per-session rate (qty × rate, like “3 sessions at $50”).
3. Let your tax and payment terms defaults fill in automatically — you can set these once at Settings → Preferences so every invoice starts right.
4. Send it. The parent gets a magic link to a no-login portal where they can review the invoice and hit Pay.

Tip: If you already track your lessons with the built-in timer, you don’t have to retype anything. Logged time can be billed straight onto an invoice, so a week of sessions becomes one tidy line.

Set up a recurring monthly invoice for regulars

Most of your roster is the same students, week in and week out. Instead of building a fresh invoice every month, set one to repeat. Open Invoices and create a recurring invoice.

1. Pick the parent and add your standard monthly line — for example “Weekly math tutoring — 4 sessions” as a fee/unit, or your hourly rate × expected hours.
2. Set the cadence to monthly and choose the day it should send (the 1st works well so parents budget for it).
3. Save. Fee-Lion generates and sends each month’s invoice on schedule, so your steady income shows up without you lifting a finger.

This is the heart of a tutoring practice: predictable invoices for predictable students, and your time spent teaching rather than chasing.

Let parents pay on auto-pay

The real magic is auto-pay. Once you’ve connected Stripe, a parent can save a card in the portal and enroll in auto-pay — then every recurring invoice charges automatically on its due date. No reminders, no “did you get my Venmo?”, no awkward end-of-month chase.

• Money lands in your own Stripe account (Fee-Lion uses Stripe Connect and takes only a small platform fee), so you stay in control of your payouts.
• Parents pay by card from any phone — the portal works without an account or password.
• Prefer cash or e-transfer for some families? Record those as offline payments so every student’s balance stays accurate in one place.

Tip: Brand the portal with your name and logo at Settings → Preferences. A polished, professional payment page reassures parents far more than a payment-app username — and it costs you nothing.

What’s next

• Create a recurring invoice
• Turn on auto-pay
• Connect Stripe to get paid
• Bill tracked time to an invoice