Meal expenses

[migimoo]

I am going to stop charging parents for meals and include them in my fees from the new year.

Will I be able to just tot up the amount of meals eaten per week (eg,-10 lunches and 4 dinners) and put down an average price per meal-£1.50 so £21 total for the week?

So if it works out that i've spent £84 in January on mindees food I can list that on my expenses for January?

I know I have to keep receipts for a few weeks for food safety purposes but will the taxman accept this expense with no other proof?

[cathtee]

thats exactly what I do, charge a set fee for the meal but this also includes all snacks and drinks during the day, not sure if its right but
someone will put us right if it isn't:thumbsup:

[hectors house]

I am going to stop charging parents for meals and include them in my fees from the new year.

Will I be able to just tot up the amount of meals eaten per week (eg,-10 lunches and 4 dinners) and put down an average price per meal-£1.50 so £21 total for the week?

So if it works out that i've spent £84 in January on mindees food I can list that on my expenses for January?

I know I have to keep receipts for a few weeks for food safety purposes but will the taxman accept this expense with no other proof?

If you were supplying meals up til now and charging the parents for each meal - say £1.50 x 5 days x 2 meals = £15 and they paid you X amount for childminding plus £15 for meals - you should have been putting the total amount paid in your accounts books as income and then putting through the cost of the meals eg: £15 as an expense per child per week anyway. It doesn't matter if the parent was paying for the meal - if you have declared it as income you should have offset the cost of buying the food against it. If you haven't been doing this you will have been missing out and paying extra tax on your income.

So yes you can list it on your expenses and yes you should keep the receipts - I charge the parents £1.50 each meal but put £2 through the accounts as this includes drinks and snacks which I don't charge the parents for.

Hope someone else will come along and explain it better than I have!

[VeggieSausage]

Yes I charge parents £2 per day for food and snacks and drinks but I provide organic food and it can cost more than this. I put through my accounts the actual amount of the food, I calculate an average amount per meal and snack and any extras, at the beginning of each tax year to put through my accounts and stick to this for the year (may change to 6 monthly as food costs have risen so much). So it may be the actual costs for a days meals, snacks, drinks if £3 so I put this through per day, per child.

Food receipts should be kept for longer than a few weeks I think in case there is an issue ever.....

[bunyip]

HMRC have a simple recommended way of calculating meal expenses. It's included in their annual guidance document: Childminders - Information about tax and National Insurance. There are copies of this from previous years in the Free Resources/Downloads section of this website. I was sent a printed copy by the HMRC Business Education & Support Team (tel 0114 29 69 431). It's worth having the guidance document for other things too.
:)

[Chatterbox Childcare]

The guidance I have had from the HMRC is to claim "a reasonable amount". how you work that out is up to you. Some people claim using a "per meal" system and others use their food receipts and calculate a "per head" cost per week. I use my receipt so it is factual rather than estimated because food prices fluctuate so much during the year