Collect payments from learners

Decide on your pricing strategy and payment collection method as early as possible. It can take several weeks to set up, so start the process well before you need to advertise your course.

How to collect payments

The 2 methods you should use to collect payments from learners for a UCL short course or CPD are:

UCL Extend (for online or blended courses offered through UCL Extend)
the UCL Online Store (for face-to-face courses)

Both systems are free to use for course designers. That means you get all the income from your course fees (minus any VAT). The income is transferred to your department's account.

Learners pay for courses by debit or credit card (Visa or Mastercard). Payments are handled securely by WPM and comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

You can set up pricing and payment options to allow learners to:

make multiple-person bookings
use discount vouchers
get bulk-purchase discounts

Both systems will tell your department by email whenever a learner signs up, and keep track of how many places are left on the course.

How you'll be paid

Before you list your course on either UCL Extend or the Online Store, you'll need to give it the correct PTAE codes (project, task, award and expenditure type).

PTAE codes are used for internal accounts. They'll determine how you department will be paid so it's vital you get these right.

PTAE codes are made up of:

project number (6 digits)
task (always 100)
award (6 digits)
expenditure (5 digits, must start with a 1)
VAT status (see below)

Get your VAT status right

Make sure you set the correct VAT status for your course. The options are:

exempt
standard
zero-rated

Typically, educational activities that involve direct interaction with UCL staff are exempt.

Self-paced online courses do need to charge VAT.

Get advice on VAT from UCL Finance and Business Affairs, Taxation & Commercial Accounting.

Collecting payments through UCL Extend

If you offer your online or blended course through UCL Extend, learners can also sign up and pay for the course through UCL Extend.

Please allow a minimum of two weeks to create a course product as part of your course launch, but note that this can be done earlier in your development process to enable a longer marketing period.

You can set up the option for learners to ask to pay by invoice. However, only offer to send invoices as a last resort (see 'Sending invoices' below).

Multiple-person bookings

After a learner adds your course to their basket, they can change the quantity in the checkout screen.

Once they've paid, the learner can allocate each place on the course using the 'Manage Licences' feature.

Course administrators can also ask the UCL Extend team to give them multiple licences for a course. This would be to give access to the course to a known group of people.

The UCL Extend team adds the licences to the administrators' UCL Extend account.

Discount vouchers

Discounts can encourage learners to sign up for a paid course. They can include:

'early bird' discounts for learners who sign up by a specific date
a percentage or fixed amount off the original price for UCL staff and students

Bulk-purchase discounts

You might want to offer a discount for learners who book a certain number of places on your course – for example, six places or more.

This can be set up so the discount applies automatically at checkout.

Collecting payments through the UCL Online Store

It can take three to four weeks to get your course listed on the Online Store.

1. Contact the Online Store team

Contact the Online Store team at departmentalonlinestore@ucl.ac.uk.

Usually, you'll arrange a meeting where the team will guide you through the application process, including things like setting up discounts and multiple-person bookings.

2. Complete the form they give you

The team will ask you to complete a form for either:

events/conferences (one-off events)
short courses (running weekly/monthly)

The options for setting up payments for both types is very similar.

However, one difference is that you can set validation codes for one-off events/conferences. If you choose this option, participants must go through an approval or application process before they can book.

Either type of form will ask you for:

your department or faculty
course title: make sure this is descriptive and searchable in Google and the same as in all your marketing
a brief summary of your course (see section below)
course or event date(s)
location(s)
prices and any discounts (such as 'early bird' discounts)
maximum number of learners
main administration contacts (2 email addresses)
any questionnaire you want learners to complete before starting the course (maximum 20 questions)
details to go in the sale notification email that learners will get then book a place
personalised email content to learners about your course, after they book
PTAE codes

The Online Store team will help you complete some of the questions during your initial meeting or call.

Complete the form and send it back to the team.

Your course description

If you're listing your course on the UCL Short Courses website or your departmental website, do not include your full course description again in the Online Store.

Just briefly describe your course and link to where the full information is.

3. After your course is on the Online Store

When learners sign up

When someone signs up for your course in the Online Store, they'll get:

confirmation on screen and a full VAT receipt they can print (learners can also view and print again through their Online Store account)
a standard email thanking them for their transaction
another email confirming they've booked on to the course with more information (if you've asked for this in your application form)

You're responsible for any further communication with your learners and for providing them with joining instructions.

Finding out who's signed up

Every time someone books on the course, the Online Store will send an email to the two addresses you provide in the form.

UCL Finance do a daily export from WPM for purchases – this is validated and uploaded to MyFinance.

Departments can run finance reports for their PTAE codes. The reports show the income for courses in the Online Store, plus limited information about the people who've signed up.

If you want to see detailed delegate booking summaries and information such as questionnaire results, email departmentalonlinestore@ucl.ac.uk and ask for delegates and/or questionnaire reports.

In your email, include:

your office phone number
course name
how many times a year the course will run

Taking payments from overseas learners

The Online Store lists the course price in GBP (sterling) only.

However, the Online Store also offers dynamic currency conversion (DCC).

Once the cardholder submits their payment, the system recognises the country of issue of the card. It then lets the cardholder choose whether to pay the value:

in sterling
in their own currency (the DCC value)

If they opt for the DCC value, this amount will be debited to their card.

If they opt for the sterling value, they won't know the actual cost in their own currency until they get their statement.

Either way, you get the listed amount for your course.

Sending invoices

Some learners may ask you to send an invoice (for example, if a business or organisation is paying for the course).

Only raise an invoice as a last resort. Try to get the person or business to pay by debit or credit card through the Online Store or UCL Extend.

If you really need to raise an invoice, do this through MyFinance. Talk to your departmental administrator for help.

You'll also need to let the Online Learning or Online Store team know, so that they can reduce the number of available places on your course.

Don't accept any other payment methods

You should not accept any other methods of payment (such as cash, cheques, PayPal, through Eventbrite, or bank transfers).