mps09 Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 Can anyone please help!! My head is spinning and I don't really know why this all seems so difficult suddenly! Can anyone explain how you calculate your fees? We have had several parents dispute the amount of their invoices this term, after we've changed the way we set them out and work out the extra hours over the entitlement... One parent whose child comes 18 hours per week has said 'I pay for wednesdays', there are 6 Wednesdays this term so that's what she wants to pay. - now I know this can't be right - parents can't really decide which days they want free and which they want to pay for can they? what if they all want to do it differenlty! Our term started on 6th January and runs until 18 Feb, so that 6 full week 15 hours free per week and then for this parent an extra 3 hours per week chargeable - this is simple! But what about the Thursday and Friday, child attends 9 hours over this week, but if these are free because they are less than 15, what happens at the beginning of the next term when we also have a part week and she comes for 9 hours - these can't be free as well! Am I missing something here? (other than the will to live....), is there an easy way to do this? Please please help - I've confused myself through thinking about it too much! going quietly mad......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 You've got my head spinning a bit there too! What I do is chat with parents about what sessions they want for their child and we allocate entitlement sessions to these. Any sessions over are charged. The form we fill in for County shows which are entitlement, so it's not up for negotiation once the form has gone. So, for example, if Johnny comes all day, every day and has Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday as his entitlement 15 hours, Mum knows she pays for Monday and Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 My County asked if I wanted to calculate in hours, rather than sessions etc. and this is soooo easy. I know how many hours the LA are paying each term and parents pay for hours attended over and above that figure at my hourly rate. Your parents should be looking at the whole term, not week by week, and really should be forgetting about the 15 hours which are free and concentrating only on the hours their child attends over and above their entitlement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gezabel Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 We do all our calcualtions in hours and it is so much easier. A child who attends all day every day gets 15 hours free and parents pay for the rest - there is no discussion about which days are free and which are paid for Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 We have to tell our County now - previously it was just taken as 'any' 15 hours, now we have to specify. So if Johnny is absent on his 'free' days but came in on his other days, he'd still have to pay for those! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted January 12, 2011 Author Share Posted January 12, 2011 So what do you 'do' with part weeks? Our term started on Thursday 6th ... so what about those two days? in the example above, the child comes :- 6 hours on Tuesday 3 hours on Wednesday 6 hours on Thursday 3 hours on Friday With your calculations, how many hours would you charge for this term? If they were free because they are less then 15, then in July when we finish on Wednesday, those hours should be free too! but between them they make up a weeks funding and therefore 3 hours extra to pay..... Funding is paid for 38 weeks which we are open for but they are not whole weeks, they just all add up to 190 days (royal wedding not withstanding!) Do I need a holiday??? :wacko: :unsure: :rolleyes: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 So do you have so many hours per week or specified days? That would change your answer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 This child would be doing 225 hours in total they are entitled to 189 hours free and would need to pay for 36 hours at my hourly rate. Looking at my LA stuff, they add part weeks together to make a whole, or we can add/takeaway days ourselves, well that's how I read it!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Panders Posted January 12, 2011 Share Posted January 12, 2011 (edited) It's always the same when you over analyze something - I think your best bet is to telephone your Management & Info section at LA and get them to talk you through it. Would it help if you knew how much they are going to be paying you for 6th and 7th Jan. they do not know of course, which days your child is doing to make up his 15 hours, but as its impossible to do 15 hours over 2 days, it has to be 3 days doesn't it - my way you really need to know how many hours the LA are paying for the term and how many whole weeks I am open and I don't have all that info that to hand right now. I think Cait's County have probably got it right to have to state which days are entitlement days, maybe ours will go over to that system too, at the present time, ours is any 15 hours during the week. Edited January 13, 2011 by Panders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted January 13, 2011 Author Share Posted January 13, 2011 It's always the same when you over analyze something - I think your best bet is to telephone your Management & Info section at LA and get them to talk you through it. Would it help if you knew how much they are going to be paying you for 6th and 7th Jan. they do not know of course, which days your child is doing to make up his 15 hours, but as its impossible to do 15 hours over 2 days, it has to be 3 days doesn't it - my way you really need to know how many hours the LA are paying for the term and how many whole weeks I am open and I don't have all that info that to hand right now. I think Cait's County have probably got it right to have to state which days are entitlement days, maybe ours will go over to that system too, at the present time, ours is any 15 hours during the week. I think you might be right... didn't get much sleep last night thinking about this (sad- I know!) If I know how many weeks the LA split the funding for, then I'll just charge for sessions attended less so many weeks funded at 15 hours per week. I agree that if we state which are entitlement days then it would be much much easier - although there is still a bit in my logical brain that says this wouldn't work out over the year.... maybe it's just swings and roundabouts.... Thank you for your help everyone! All because a parent claims we've overcharged her by £4 Oh the joys! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jenpercy Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 You must have it written into your parent contracts - when you have sorted it out - that whether a child is absent on free day or paid for days, they must still pay the same. If a child only comes for free hours, they don't get offerd a free day if they are sick do they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Just to confuse the issue further, my LEA is insisting that this term is a 12 week term, but we are actually open 13 weeks! They insist that we will end up receiving the correct funding over the year as a whole, but I'm not convinced. This funding stuff does my head in, I'm soooo glad I have a maths graduate as treasurer this time round! Could you be a bit sneaky and just amend invoices for any parents who query them? Our parents don't seem to look at them that closely, we've not had anyone questioning them (apart from my other half when my daughter attended, as he's an accountant!!). If you're voluntary run, you could see it as a 'charitable donation' for those who've paid slightly more. I'm not sure there actually is a 'right' way to do this, the way the entitlement works makes it very tricky. I certainly don't think it is worth losing sleep over. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Just to confuse the issue further, my LEA is insisting that this term is a 12 week term, but we are actually open 13 weeks! They insist that we will end up receiving the correct funding over the year as a whole, but I'm not convinced. because of the date of Easter could teh extra week be included in the next lot of funding.. I often found that the financial year of the LEA ended on 31st March, and so did the funding for the year... any from 1st April was included in the next terms funding.. not falling in with the Easter holidays/break at all............ now that in itself caused confusion as some children became eligible on 1st April to claim the funding.. absolute nightmare.. we had children starting for 3 days and then having a break for Easter... and fees changing from that date.. chaos. That said we too had to declare the actual sessions the child attended, and were paid for those, so we could charge for the others, made bills etc easier as it was done by the days booked.. wanting to pay for just the one day could end up in your favour if a term starts on a Weds or ends on one... and as she has said this is how she wants to pay... we had a fees agreement which said in plain language which sessions were funded, which to be paid for and how much it would cost each week/month seems we had to have an agreement for everything signed by parents... made it all clear and made my life easier in the end. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inge Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 in this case I would add up the total number of hours for the term the child has had booked then deduct the total number of hours paid for by the funding for the term and charge for the rest you could show the parent the calculations and perhaps ask if there was any reason she should not pay for all the hours actually attended... make it simple, break it down and make a clear case for the hours to be paid for, show exactly how you came to your calculations. if she want to set a specific day to pay for then allow her that but state that this will be even when part weeks are attended as it is how she wants to pay.. that you will willingly ensure she gets her full entitlement but not if there is any loss to the setting..so in July she would have to pay for the Wednesday.. why should she get free childcare when others have to pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
laura Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 We deliberately didn't start back until this week so we have a straight 12 week term. We are always paid 14 weeks in the autumn, 12 in the Spring and 12 in the summer by our LEA. Parents of funded children just do not want to pay for those extra days so it was easier to wait. When we have bank holidays next term for those that come extra I add up the total hours over the term and take off the funded hours and bill them for the remainding hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyMaz Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Gosh mps09 I thought mine was complicated. We offer the 15 hours 'free' entitlement in 5 chunks of three hours. So a parent will receive an invoice for their 'voluntary donation' to make up for the shortfall in funding for every 'free' session they attend, and then for any lunch clubs and afternoon sessions they take. If a child is only claiming six hours of the 'free' entitlement but actually attends 11 because of lunch clubs etc then they get charged for the extra five hours. Technically if the child doesn't attend one of their funded sessions and asks to come in on another day I could charge for this, but I've always allowed parents to swap their days around if necessary. Hard to justify any other course of action when we have so many spaces at each session! Since my accounts package stopped working I've started using an excel spreadsheet and I have to say it is much more straightforward. Hope you get it all sorted soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted January 13, 2011 Author Share Posted January 13, 2011 well not sure how much further I've got! but can confirm that the 190 days worth of funding we receive cover the days that we are open..... but 5 days (one week's funding) covers thursday, friday one week and then wednesday, thursday, friday of a week during the next term. and a child who comes 6 hours on Wednesday 6 hours on Thursday 4 hours on Friday attends 16 hours per week and should pay for just 1 hour per week. But actually over those two weeks they are going to attend for 26 hours and we're still only going to receive 15 hours of funding. This just doesn't seem right - especially trying to show it all correctly on the invoice in 'weeks', entitlement and chargeable! Thanks for your replies. I don't like fees....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 Perhaps your best 'bet' then, is to say that this term each child will be entitled to 189 hours of funding - that's for 63 days @ 3hrs per day (according to my County sheet) Put this on the top of your invoice to parents and break down the weeks to show how you have taken 15 hours for each of the full weeks, what is left, 9 hours, is for that first part week. (If my maths is ok at this time of night/week) Anything taken above that is therefore chargeable Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mps09 Posted January 13, 2011 Author Share Posted January 13, 2011 aslthough no-one ever checks! I'm not sure this would be OK, we've just received a rather large 'grant' for offering flexibility by not offering 3 hours per day.... Nice suggetsion though -it would be much easier! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cait Posted January 13, 2011 Share Posted January 13, 2011 We do 2.5 hour sessions so our 15 hours is 6 sessions a week. Do your sums accordingly - If your term is the same length as ours, you should have 9 hours for your part week Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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