PaySchools Central Reviews

by JenjoanDM

I do not know who wrote PaySchoolsCentral, but they clearly have no technical sense. If our school continues to use them, I’m going to go to the school and hand-deliver my fees, rather than spend the time to try to figure out how to pay them or how to set up your payment, etc. every other month I have a new fee that just pops up?!!! at first I asked a question didn’t even know there was an app. So trying to pay from your phone using their website was impossible! Technical support never helped me one bit. This is the biggest piece of crap to use.

by Fallondyer

This has to be the worst app for payments. First of all, the interface is buggy and impossible to navigate most of the time. Secondly, if you have school fees that you set up incremental payments for, they’ll ignore the amount you put in to pay each increment and just take the full amount of the fee out. Of my remaining $1500 school fees for my child’s school, I scheduled 2 separate payments of $750. Woke up this morning to the full $1500 being taken out without warning.

by Melis107

The new updated version (with the grey logo) is useless. Missing so much info in the Digital ID that the other version provided and just a pain the navigate. And please stop crashing! As of today, I’m forced to use this version and can no longer log into the “blue logo” version. Bring that one back or at least let past users continue to log in. So dumb.

by Jpruitt10

Like most people who wrote a review, this is the worst app I’ve had to download. I wish our school never changed! PaySchoolsCentral is AWFUL! Plus, i have to pay to put money into my kids lunch account! Stupid! Looks like we’ll be packing. Id rather do that than deal with PaySchoolsCentral ! Also, why do they need to email me a copy of my kid’s lunch purchases, I should be able to see it directly on PaySchoolsCentral !!! Again…stupid!

by Society23

This is the least user friendly site I have ever had the unfortunate experience to be forced to use. 1 star since I’m forced to pick something. Should have 0 star option. It has taken me over an hour to get anything to save or delete within my account. Site freezes, doesn’t save. Found receipts within for transactions made by other families for children not my own. Customer service said to “ignore them” even though they had no answer as to why they were there. Now need to continue monitoring to make sure I’m not charged over $500 for people I don’t know. The worst!!!

by Aj Ohio

When I made a payment this year in august, it worked ok.
Now I’m trying to put money on my lunch account, and the whole thing is not working. I tried logging in and it said password wrong. I tried resetting my password and logging in again and still got the same result. I tried deleting and reinstalling PaySchoolsCentral , and it still says password is wrong. I went to support and tried to submit a question, and the submit button remains grey.
So it doesn’t work AND I cannot contact support. My kid needs lunch money and I can’t do a thing to help her.

by Music Lives On

Bring the old app back, please! PaySchoolsCentral is horrible. I can’t delete an old payment method. I can’t add a new payment method. Now they have an auto replenishment and took away the one time payment. They don’t define exactly what auto replenishment means. Does it auto replenish when the balance reaches a certain level or does it auto replenish at the same time every month? PaySchoolsCentral needs tons of reconfiguration. go use the website. Much better experience, better user interface, and everything works.

by LI Mom 14!

There are several items that kids can purchase with the funds. There was a location where you can restrict what the child can purchase. That is now “greyed” out. So if your child decides to buy a round of Snapple or juice, water, chips, cookies, etc for his classmates they can! It’s ridiculous that we are no longer allowed to add purchase restrictions. Ohh best part is, if there are no funds … the kids can still purchase items and you as parent/guardian are on the hook!!! This needs to be addressed.

by Rkg2004

All the problems reported before still ongoing…also can’t run a meal history report.
Balance disappears but I can’t get any info on where the money is going. Make payment and balance is not reflecting. Unbelievable!

So many technical problems! Auto-replenishment doesn’t happen. Does not update transactions for at least 24 hours. And for all this you have to pay 7% “convenience fee”. Have tried calling, they tell me to call the school. The worst!

by MrsHughes2016

If I could give PaySchoolsCentral ZERO stars, I WOULD! I spent 2 HOURS trying to add lunch money to my son’s account today! 2 HOURS?! Who has that kind of time?! I finally read the response to another user’s review and followed the advice to uninstall/re-install PaySchoolsCentral , which finally made it work, but why is that the process to get PaySchoolsCentral to function the way it is meant to?! This can’t be the only option our schools have, there has to be a better way because this is ridiculous and unacceptable!

by Martin Mm5

It's frustrating when an app like Payschool falls short of user expectations. My recent experience with it has been disappointing—I accidentally set a payment as recurrent and found it incredibly difficult to stop. PaySchoolsCentral 's usability issues have left me wondering who thought it was a good idea to create such a cumbersome platform. It's clear that they need to explore alternative apps that can provide a smoother and more user-friendly experience for managing payments and different task.

by Cdszutz

The old app says you need to download the new app so I did and ended up having to register again but I can’t even do that because it won’t let you scroll down to continue to the next page. Tried turning phone sideways and even widening the screen and I can see the box to check but it wont let you check it and move to the next page. Guess I’m not paying my kids school fees this year! More beer money for me!

by Balveni

Once in the cart and you click “continue” to pay for your cart items, you are taken to the “submit” screen where you cannot cancel your transaction or change the payment amount if you change your mind or realize you made a mistake on your entry. For some odd reason, the convenience fee rises to $2.00 from $1.xx(?) when paying for additional items in the same day.

by BellaLove81

If you call customer service and explain what happens when you try to logon they give you the antiquated answer of clear the cachet or even better call the school. Are you guys kidding me? This is your app what does the secretaries in the school or anyone in the school have to do with anything when it comes to this? Every review here is accurate. If I didn’t have to use this to pay for my daughters school lunch I would have one less headache.

by Ftny77

Incredibly ineffective and inefficient. The developers must only have one child or no kids at all. Parents with 2 or more who may not attend the same school require to set up two accounts with two different emails. Then, every time there is an update to PaySchoolsCentral the PW gets deleted. Now you are contending with the crap of app to try to update it. At least ish has a purpose. PaySchoolsCentral can’t even amount to that.

by Foodprep042019

PaySchoolsCentral and website is a joke. I’ve try to look back at my payment history nothing. It removes messages about payments, luckily it will send you a email when it removes money from your account but you get stuck with a service fee even if you get refunded. PaySchoolsCentral nor the website will allow me to remove my card. The schools need to go back pay by check or cash. This is ridiculous.

by MamaZ313

Please look into fixing PaySchoolsCentral! I must use it for my child’s school payments and it is NOT user friendly. It took over fifteen minutes to update payment information because the menu screen would not collapsed allowing me to answer the required questions. Very frustrating when you’ve been trying for several days and your kid’s access to school lunch depends on it.

by Anna109

The fields don’t register that I’m typing in them, the side menu doesn’t clear out of the way when I make a selection, none of the reports work and there’s no other way for me to see a history of payments or meals. Doesn’t allow me to make a one time payment, only auto replenish which charges a $4.50 convenience fee each time, this is ridiculous!!! I can’t believe how bad PaySchoolsCentral is.

by Warren Tr

Not a good app, not user friendly, could not add payment method, so grey, it did not work at all, I deleted PaySchoolsCentral and downloaded it many times, still did not work, I then had to go to the browser and log on to the website to replenish the meal balance, again difficult to navigate, not easy to find shopping cart and spent a long time trying to add balance.

by RoyS1984

I needed to make a payment to the school and using PaySchoolsCentral to make the payment was one of the options. So I decided to use PaySchoolsCentral as I thought it would be convenient and easy. It turned out to be a big mistake. Every time I tried to pay the fee, I got an error stating that the merchant was not available. But I got a receipt every time. I used a couple of different payment methods but got the same result. Because of the clumsy nature of PaySchoolsCentral, I am not sure if any of the payments have gone through or whether, mislead by PaySchoolsCentral , I have been making duplicate payments. I am going to reach out to the school district with strong recommendation for discontinuing the usage of PaySchoolsCentral.

by Hcaoh

This junk App and website is garbage Doesn't work at all !!! We will be bringing this up at the district meetings. I miss Ez pay. Why did you guys buy them out just to screw everything up. We will be getting together with parents to get this system out of our district. Total scam

by Desher101

Very bad app , can’t find where to pay. If you click on student nothing happens, no balance for meal etc.

by Ahappycust

Not user friendly . Takes too long to set up. Doesn’t list correct school districts! Why????

by Nope6200

Why is app still being used

by ElleJay32

Least intuitive app I’ve ever used …

by Payment Info

Cannot get past the dashboard listing my student’s name. I repeatedly am asked to enter my login info because “I have been idle too long” and once I do, I receive the same message again. Even after deleting and reinstalling PaySchoolsCentral , I continue to be stuck in the same repetitive loop. At this point, PaySchoolsCentral is useless.

by Koalaslothcat

PaySchoolsCentral is SO bad. For all the taxes we pay I can’t believe our district uses an inoperable app. You can’t use the website at all it spins and spins and PaySchoolsCentral won’t add my credit card. I should not have to spend so much time and energy just trying to pay my kids schools fees and lunch money. Absolute useless trash!!!

by Hobo-Runner

I would give zero stars if I could.
This is such a difficult app to use, it has multiple glitches, fails regularly. The fact that I have to pay any fee for such awful service absolutely aggravates me. Unfortunately PaySchoolsCentral developer has no incentive to be better, since the school districts choose PaySchoolsCentral and as a parent I’m simply stuck using it. I’ve been asking my district to change for two years now, hopefully next school year will be the year they get rid of this terrible app.

by Not Mobile Compatible

You can not do anything on the mobile app, it’s not even proportionally applicable to the mobile phone, can’t see anything or move around to buttons that needs to work for payment or see the logs etc. horrible!

by Freeze2183

The options are inconsistent. It took me several tries to update my card information.
First I couldn’t take a picture of my card
Second I couldn’t input my card number manually.
Third I couldn’t input my expiration date and I tried that at least 5 times.
Fourth I was logged out.
I’m done counting! If this is the only way to pay for lunch, it should be more user friendly.

by Pebbles330

PaySchools is an app my son’s school has used the past few yrs. This year when trying to add money to his lunch account, PaySchoolsCentral gave an error forcing me to download the “new” PaySchools app. I have yet to be able to get past the “please wait” messages spinning & unable to use PaySchoolsCentral 3rd week into school 🤯😡 How are we forced to “upgrade” to an app that does NOT work. EXTREMELY aggravating.

by Kjs123543

I have registered twice. Reset my password multiple times. I got on to PaySchoolsCentral one time, paid part of the fees. Noticed more fees popped up after I paid, added them to my cart. Got logged out. Try to log back in with the password I just made with no success. Cannot get back into PaySchoolsCentral . Terrible navigation on the iPhone as well. Do not recommend in the slightest.

by Alicia Ann Perkerewicz

PaySchoolsCentral is awful it keeps saying that my session has expired each time even if I haven’t even been in PaySchoolsCentral also the way to fix that is to go to forget password go through the process again where they send you the email or text message and it comes 15 minutes later PaySchoolsCentral has a lot of glitches and needs to be reviewed by a expert!!

by Girlwood

All you can do is reload a balance? None of the features have any usability. I’d would be nice to see what your purchase history is, but none of that works.
So all in all, it’s poorly executed. Nothing but a payment portal. The school could probably save money with an alternative that has some functionality and useful data for parents.

by Ash Amy

I had a hard time trying to register because the state option was glitched and wasn’t showing any states to select from for like 2 hours. Finally got through that and now I have an account. I’ll be back once school starts to reevaluate my review and see if I’m still having technical issues.

by DHB1498

I put $50 into my account to use for my child’s latchkey, 23 weeks and I couldn’t access the money and pay and then when the school stopped using the site/app, I couldn’t get my money back. It’s gone. Absolutely zero communication from anyone from PaySchools. They other reason I gave this 1 star is because zero was not an option.

by FiannaHeather

The login is awkward and doesn’t do facial recognition. The fees for this “service” are absurd. PaySchoolsCentral is not customizable at all. The layout makes no sense. I can’t even select text updates for low lunch balance for my kids instead of email. It gets the account updated quickly once money is deposited, but that is the only positive.

by Lindsay121208

No longer works. Log in button is greyed out, and the fingerprint option is also. It hasn’t worked it weeks. I wish our school district would stop using this company, it’s been nothing but headaches for years. It NEVER works. It always freezes when we all try to add money to our kids accounts.

by Tmmm123456

It takes forever to get it to work. Keep pressing and nothing happens but then says locked out. It is not intuitive and hard to figure out to just add money to a school lunch account. It shouldn’t be this hard! Wouldn’t use if I didn’t need to add lunch money. And to use credit/debit card shouldn’t cost that much extra!

by Nickkol

I’ve tried numerous times to get into my account. Every time it you try to submit the new password PaySchoolsCentral glitches. Same with sending an email to the help desk. Try to confirm and glitch again. Very frustrating as this has been going on for weeks since the mandatory update. I need access to the account!

by GunLilMom

After I enter E-Mail and password, app stays open for a few seconds, then the scrolling Face ID icon appears, then logs me out, giving me a message that I’ve been idle too long.

I recently upgraded from an older iPhone that didn’t have Face ID, had Fingerprint. Had no issues on older phone logging in w Fingerprint.

by CheyJMc1992

I have 2 children, who currently are going to different schools in different school districts. Because of this I have to create a separate account for each child. Yes I can do it, it’s just inconvenient. Maybe a petty reason for this review but I think it’s something that needs to be considered and changed.

by Kartaro

This is absolutely absurd that I have to use a second email address just to manage my twins lunch accounts that are in 2 different school systems due to their educational needs. Very inconvenient & ridiculous. There is enough chaos during the school year with managing other school events. A lunch account shouldn’t be apart of that.

by Shananana518

This is the worst app I’ve ever interacted with. Perhaps my time is better spent lobbying for the school to change vendors as it’s clear the developers don’t care what the parents think because we we are not their client. We have no choice but to use PaySchoolsCentral if we want our kids to be able to pay for lunch!!

by CR Sands

What an awful app and site. IF you can login, it’s difficult to get info you need. And the fees to pay the fees are very high. Once you get over that, you click to pay and most of the time, you get a “technical error” over and over again.

Welcome to suckville people

by FellowHumanPersob

They are stuck on loading each screen. Then you can’t even add any students to your account. Just keeps loading. Left PaySchoolsCentral losing for 30 minutes while on charger and still didn’t even add student after hitting submit.

by Sick Of The App And Website

If I could give it a 0 I would which is what I can add to my Childrens account it will not let you add funds… It only worked once since school started so I have to send cash instead I think the one time it let me add was an accident I couldn’t believe it went through!

by HaileyForeman

PaySchoolsCentral is horrible. You can’t even get to keep you logged in long enough to click on my kids name, let alone actually adding money to her account. All the reviews are saying the same thing. Why not actually fix the problem??

by TuXis

Our school district replace and previous all “great app, by the way, the old app, not the school central app”, this also is annoying, and a pain to work a cell phone, and is not designed for it. also, the fees they charge to add credit to the student account are outrageous!

by Gt2000ism

So I’m assuming PaySchoolsCentral is broken like our school systems… it is confusing super difficult to find anything. It lags tremendously and crashes consistently. Trying to make a payment is worse than dial up. Guys get your stuff together or don’t try at all. Parents these days are single don’t have time for uselessness. We need surviving apps like our lives.

by B.Oza

Don’t try to use this if your kids need money on there lunch within 6 hours. I have been on here for 2 hours trying to add money but the glitches are horrible. My daughter has now missed breakfast. I hate this company has my credit card info because this is the worst app I’ve ever had to use. I wish Lebanon would change this process.

by Nyeel

PaySchoolsCentral works perfectly for me. I’m a senior in high school. I can see all the fees that I owe. I never get a service fee. It’s so easy to save my preferred payment and just add money onto my account. All the bad reviews are the same problems because old people don’t know how to work technology, I love PaySchoolsCentral because I don’t have to stand in line all day to wait and see my balance on my lunch account. I put money in there and I can check it in. It’ll be on my school account in minutes.

by PC Savior

App is unusable since the last 2 updates. It will not allow me to login properly. After entering my credentials, it just sits there on “please wait” I even uninstalled and reinstalled. Same issue. Useless.

by A Moms Review2.0

Everything works and goes quickly on my end as far as PaySchoolsCentral goes. It’s very easy to add lunch money to your child’s account or pay school fees with PaySchoolsCentral. You have to actually read the prompts and people are just lazy.