Flight School Billing Software

Sky Schedule is flight school billing software with payments built in. Students pay by card, the office charges a saved card or bank account in a couple of clicks, and prepaid balances, packages, and memberships are tracked against the flights people actually fly. When an invoice is paid, it syncs to QuickBooks Online, so nobody retypes receipts at the end of the month.

What you get

Built-in payments

Turn on payments from inside Sky Schedule and start taking cards. Students pay by credit or debit card, including Apple Pay on supported devices.

Cards and bank accounts on file

Save a primary card, a backup card, and a bank account, then charge any of them from an invoice without waiting on the student.

Prepaid balances

Students add funds online, the office records cash and check deposits, and invoices can be paid straight from the balance.

Packages and memberships

Sell blocks of aircraft or instruction hours that draw down automatically, or recurring memberships with discounted rates.

Gift cards and payment links

Sell gift cards, product pages, and payment links for items in your catalog. Each purchase is recorded in Sky Schedule.

QuickBooks Online sync

Paid invoices sync to QuickBooks Online as a customer, an invoice, and a payment, in the background.

How payments work

Setup starts in the Billing tab with Get started with payments. You verify your school once (business details, bank account, tax information) and set the statement descriptor students will see on their card statements. There's no separate merchant account or gateway to wire up.

Once payments are on, money comes in a few ways:

Pay Now links. Every invoice email includes a link to a secure checkout page, where the student pays by card.
Saved payment methods. Students can pay an invoice with a card they've already saved, and staff can charge a saved card or bank account directly from the invoice.
Cash, check, and Zelle. Record payments that happen outside Sky Schedule so every invoice and balance stays accurate.

Sales tax is built in, with a primary rate, an optional secondary rate for specific activity types, and a taxable flag on each catalog item.

Cards and bank accounts on file

Chasing a student for a card number after every lesson wastes everyone's time. Sky Schedule keeps payment methods on the student's profile:

Request a card. Send a card-on-file request and the student gets an email that takes them to their dashboard to add a card.
Add one for them. Office staff can add a card to a student's profile directly.
Primary and backup. Each student can have a primary card and a secondary card, plus a bank account for ACH payments.
Collect it at enrollment. Add a card-on-file step to your onboarding form so new students save a card before their first flight. See student enrollment and onboarding.

Prepaid balances that work like a ledger

Many schools ask students to pay ahead. Sky Schedule tracks it as a running balance with a full ledger behind it.

Students add funds by card from their own billing page, when you turn on customer top-ups.
Staff add credit for cash, checks, wires, or adjustments, and every change is written to the ledger.
Invoices are paid from the balance. If the balance doesn't cover the whole invoice, Sky Schedule creates a remainder invoice for the difference.
Negative balances get handled. From the student's balance activity, charge the student's saved card for the amount owed, or send them a reminder.

Packages, memberships, and the rest of your catalog

The catalog holds everything you sell besides a single flight.

Packages are prepaid hour buckets for aircraft rental, flight instruction, or ground instruction. A package can apply to any aircraft, one tail, or one make and model. When a flight is completed and its invoice is drafted, the hours come off the package automatically, and voiding that invoice puts them back. Every draw is recorded as usage on the package.

Memberships are recurring subscriptions billed automatically. Each membership can discount aircraft rental, flight instruction, and ground instruction, by a percentage or a dollar amount per hour, across the whole fleet or only certain aircraft and instructors. Enroll a student by charging their card on file or by emailing them an invoice. You can also set a membership to end after a set number of billing periods, or make it complimentary with discounts and no dues.

Gift cards and product pages sell from public pages you can share, and product pages can also be embedded on your website. Each purchase is recorded in Sky Schedule and shows up as a lead in your flight school CRM.

Payment links turn any catalog item into a payment link you can text, email, or post.

Cancellation fees follow your policy: a fixed fee after a set number of free cancellations, with exempt reasons and a minimum notice period. A qualifying cancellation creates an unpaid invoice for the office to review instead of charging a card on its own.

Flight school billing software that keeps the books straight

Good flight school billing software should end with clean books, not a second round of data entry.

QuickBooks Online. Connect QuickBooks from billing settings. When an invoice is paid, Sky Schedule finds the customer in QuickBooks by email (or creates one), adds the invoice with its line items, and records the payment. It runs in the background, and each payment shows whether it was sent.

Payouts. The Payouts panel shows what's pending, what's ready for the next payout, and what's on the way to your bank, along with your payout account and schedule. Payouts go straight to your bank account. Bank and tax details live in a secure payouts dashboard, linked from the same panel.

Invoices. The day-to-day work of drafting, reviewing, sending, and collecting invoices has its own page: flight school invoicing.

Questions, answered

What payment methods can students use?

Students pay by credit or debit card, including Apple Pay on supported devices. Staff can also charge a saved bank account by ACH. Cash, check, and Zelle payments can be recorded by hand so balances stay correct.

Do we need our own merchant account?

No. Payments are built into Sky Schedule, and payouts go to your bank account. You verify your business once, starting from the Billing tab.

How fast do payouts reach our bank?

Payouts arrive on a regular schedule rather than instantly. The Payouts panel shows pending funds, the next payout, and money already on its way to your bank.

Can students prepay for flight time?

Yes, two ways. They can add money to a prepaid balance that invoices draw from, or buy a package of aircraft or instruction hours that's used up as they fly.

Does Sky Schedule work with QuickBooks Online?

Yes. Paid invoices sync to QuickBooks Online automatically as a customer, an invoice with line items, and a payment. Unpaid invoices aren't sent until they're paid.