Backpack is a payments platform for higher education that digitizes 529 plan, scholarship, and third-party payments for university bursar offices. The platform automatically attaches student data to each transaction, connects payments to the correct student records via a dedicated bank account, and provides real-time payment tracking for families. It also offers a native integration with TouchNet Payment Center, making it TouchNet's official 529 payments provider.
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Product
Problem
University bursar and financial aid offices still rely on paper checks and manual data entry for 529 plan, scholarship, and third-party payments hearth. This leads to lost student IDs, misapplied transactions, and endless calls from families asking "Did you get my check?", consuming staff time and driving up operational costs.
Solution
Backpack provides a modern, education-specific payment platform that consolidates 529 plans, outside scholarships, and third-party payments into one digital workflow. Each payment automatically carries complete student data, eliminating the need for staff to decipher handwriting or chase down missing identifiers. A dedicated bank account connects every transaction to the correct student record automatically, enabling reconciliation to happen overnight without manual matching. Families receive real-time payment tracking, reducing inbound inquiries to the bursar's office. Backpack is also the official 529 payments provider for TouchNet, with a native integration that lets universities offer zero-fee online 529 payments across all plans.
Target Audience
Primary customers are university bursar and financial aid offices, along with scholarship providers and third-party organizations that make payments to universities on behalf of enrolled students.
Features
- Aggregation of every electronic 529 payment option into a single payment experience for 100% 529 plan coverage
- Scholarship Payment Portal with customized university branding that standardizes and automates ingestion and payment from small one-time payers to large multi-national providers
- Dedicated bank account for automated reconciliation of payments to student records
- Digital payments with embedded student data to eliminate manual entry and missing ID issues
- Real-time payment tracking for families to reduce phone calls and walk-ins
- Native integration with TouchNet Payment Center as the official 529 payments provider
- One-click refunds and compliance support for bursar teams