Compliance Onboarding

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Introduction

To start accepting payments through esenda, your school will need to complete a short compliance process. This is a standard industry requirement known as KYC (Know Your Customer), which helps verify organisations and ensure payments are processed securely.

This onboarding process is required for:

  • Card payments
  • Open banking
  • Local bank transfers
  • International bank transfers

The process usually takes 10–15 minutes to complete, provided you have the required information and documents ready in advance.

Below is a quick overview of what to expect and what you will need to prepare.

What to expect

If you’re new to esenda, once your esenda portal is ready, you will receive an email asking you to log in and complete the compliance form. When you log in, you will see a banner on your dashboard prompting you to begin the process. 

If you’re already an esenda school, once we’ve activated payments you’ll see the same orange banner, asking you to complete your compliance onboarding.

The form is divided into several short sections covering your organisation, authorised representatives, and where payments should be paid out.

Some sections will also ask you to upload supporting documents, so it’s helpful to have these prepared before you begin.

Once all sections are completed and submitted, your information will be verified and payments will be enabled on your account.

What’s needed to complete the form

First, you must identify:

  • Where you want payments to be paid out
  • Which legal entity owns that bank account

The organisation that owns the payout bank account is the organisation that should be onboarded.

For example, some schools operate both:

  • A Charity (with Trustees or Governors)
  • A Limited Company (with Directors)

These are separate legal entities, even if they share a similar name.

If funds will be paid to the Company bank account, you should provide company details and directors for KYC purposes. If funds will be paid to the charity bank account you should provide the charity details and trustees or governors for KYC purposes.

⚠️ All information provided during onboarding must relate to the same legal entity. Mixing information from different entities will result in verification delays and may prevent onboarding from being completed.

1. Organisation details

Basic information about your school or organisation:

  • Legal organisation name
  • Registered address
  • Company registration number (if applicable)
  • VAT registration number (if applicable)

And financial details about your company:

  • Number of employees
  • Operating currency
  • Financial year or reporting dates

2. Authorised representative details

You will need to provide details for at least one authorised representative of the organisation. This should be someone who has authority to act on behalf of the school.

You will be asked for:

  • Full name
  • Job title
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • Confirmation that the person has authority to sign contracts on behalf of the organisation

Upload required: A form of photo ID for the authorised representative (for example a passport or driving licence)

You may also be asked to provide details for directors or owners of the organisation, depending on your organisation type.

3. Customer support contact

This section asks for the contact details parents or payers should use if they have questions about payments.

You will need to provide:

  • Support email address
  • Support phone number 

4. Payout details

This section confirms where your payments should be paid out.

You will need to provide:

  • Bank account name
  • Account number and sort code (or equivalent)

Upload required: A bank document dated within the last 12 months, such as a bank statement or official bank letter showing the account details.

5. Services agreement

Finally, you will be asked to review and sign the services agreement to complete the onboarding process.

Once you’ve submitted the form

After submitting the form, your information will be reviewed and verified. Once verification is complete, payments will be enabled in your esenda account and you will be ready to start accepting payments.

Need a hand?

If you have any questions while completing the form, you can use the “What does this mean?” help buttons within the form for additional guidance, or contact the esenda team at [email protected]

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