Answer the four questions parents actually ask
What does my child owe? What have I paid? How is my child doing? What did the school announce? A portal earns its place if it answers those four without a phone call to the office.
Show one child at a time
Families with several children need to switch between them without mixing records. Each screen should make the active child obvious, and totals must never quietly combine siblings.
Protect one family from another
A parent should only ever see their own children. Check how the vendor enforces that: it should be an access rule in the system, not a filter on the page.
Make balances and receipts self-service
Every payment a parent makes should produce a numbered receipt they can retrieve later. Balances should distinguish what is due now from what is due later in the term.
Say when something is not ready
Results that are unpublished, an admission decision still pending, a fee plan not yet assigned: the portal should say so plainly instead of showing a blank or a wrong zero.