Previously, online payments had to be made through the LOHS webstore, which was difficult to manage and was widely considered to be not user-friendly. Recently, however, on November 1, 2024, Lake Oswego School District switched to a new payment system: SchoolCash Online. With SchoolCash Online, students and parents can pay online by selecting items from a catalog, and they can also pay by check and cash to bookkeeper Susie Munds in person.

The old BlueBear payment system was user-based, which meant that only Munds had access to it. As such, the system was less reliable in the case of an outage. Munds explained, “If this computer went down, the system would go down too because it’s only one license.” Additionally, the help center was located in the Philippines, so whenever Munds needed assistance, she would have to call the Philippines and “be on the phone for eight hours.”

In contrast, SchoolCash Online is cloud-based, meaning that payment information entered on one device can be viewed on another device in a different location. Therefore, Munds is able to directly contact the LOSD central office for help with, for example, processing a deposit. Furthermore, she is capable of refunding people more efficiently when they change their minds about purchases. 

SchoolCash Online contains two main sections —  accounts payable and accounts receivable. The accounts payable part covers what the school pays to other organizations. Accounts receivable includes typical student payments to the school for sports, activities, yearbook ads, and other purchases.

However, although the old system only ever charged a transaction fee for credit card payments, SchoolCash Online charges a 4 percent blanket fee on all payments that have to be processed through the accounts receivable branch. Therefore, if a person pays 150 dollars to a school club, the club does not receive the entire amount. Consequently, some clubs and school organizations are increasing their prices to recoup the processing cost. Many need the money to pay for essential aspects of their activity, so their only option to obtain enough funding is to raise prices for members.

Although most payments are subject to the 4 percent transaction fee, donations and other items that are not listed in the SchoolCash catalog can be entered into the system without the fee. Munds has to manually enter those payments as receipts, which removes the transaction fee from the process. Still, this does not apply to all donations; when donations are selected from the online catalog, the transaction fee is removed, reducing the final amount the school or organization receives.

Nevertheless, Munds believes that SchoolCash Online has greatly streamlined the payment process. As opposed to the old system, which had to switch between two different payment sections on different screens, SchoolCash Online is “just one full system [that can] do everything within it.”