Childcare vouchers !!

[trickiedickie]

I charge one month in advance with one family and one month in arrears with the other.

This is only my second month of being paid by childcare vouchers. Both parents pay part childcare vouchers and part money transferred to my account.

Last month I received an email from the voucher providers stating that the parents had made a payment and would take 4 working days to arrive in my bank account.

I gave parents their invoice on Wednesday 26th March saying I want payment by 31st of the month (put bit about any disputes or questions please contact me).

So far I have not received an email saying I will receive payment from voucher providers. Parents know it takes a few days to reach my account. Monday is the 31st so I don't see all their fee's being in my bank account on Monday.

Am I wrong to be a bit annoyed. I am sure if it took their employer 4 working days after their pay day to get their money in their account they would be a tad annoyed. Is it my fault for not issuing the invoice until the 26th?

If I want paid on the last day of the month what date should I issue the invoice. I just felt giving it to them 10 days or more before my pay day was a bit much.

Any advice greatly welcome. Thanks.

[dawn100]

I issue my invoices at least a week before my fees are due, one of my parents use a voucher company and the money from their employer enters it on the 25th and then it can take up to 4 days to appear in my bank account after parent transfers it across.
If you know it can take 4 days to transfer across you need to allow for that in how early you give them their bill eg one parent pays by bank transfer I give her the bill and she normally transfers it across within 48hrs and it enters my account instantly so from bill to receipt of payment takes less than two days but parent who pays by vouchers even if they transferred it across on the day I give them the bill it would still take four days to reach me.

[bunyip]

You ask:

Am I wrong to be a bit annoyed. I am sure if it took their employer 4 working days after their pay day to get their money in their account they would be a tad annoyed. Is it my fault for not issuing the invoice until the 26th?

No offence, I can understand why you're annoyed, but the client is acting perfectly well within their rights according to the contracted terms to which you both agreed..

You have an agreed payment date on the contract. You have agreed to accept childcare vouchers. Therefore, if the client pays you in childcare vouchers on the agreed payment date, they've fulfilled their side of the contract. How long it takes your bank to process the BACS transfer from the voucher company is not the client's problem (no more than I am not concerned how long the bank takes to clear the cheque I give to a builder, or how long the credit card company takes to transfer funds to any shop I go in.)

It's different with employees and wages. There is a broad legal acceptance that employees are entitled to have their wages in a 'spend-able' form on their contracted pay date. We do need to remember that we are self-employed and it cuts both ways when we're considering that clients don't employ us.

All you can really do is identify those clients who pay by CVs and change their payment date, having issued fair warning in accordance with the contracted notice period. And they won't like it.

I'm not saying it's fair - but it is how it is.

[specks4]

Same here both my parents pay by childcare voucher and they transfer on day agreed but still takes 3 days to get to me which us fine by me. Maybe talk to the parent about changing payment to 4 days before original so you get your money on original pay date set if you don't want to wait the extra days it takes the bank to transfer it to you. Hope you can sort something out.

[clare83]

I have two parents who use vouchers. My payment day is 28th. Parents know from the start funds must be cleared in my account by this date so arrange the transfer in plenty of time. Another parent said she gets paid on 27th so doesn't leave enough time to clear....I advised her to transfer and keep an month in her account so she can pay me in time...HTH xx

[Mouse]

Unfortunately childcare voucher companies seem to take an awfully long time to get money to us. I'm happy as long as my parents make the transfer on or before the 1st of the month (my payment date).

I also find the email notifications a bit hit & miss. Sometimes I haven't had an email, but when I log onto the account I can see that a transfer has been made.

If you want to ensure you receive payment on your set date I would make a note on the invoice of the latest date parents need to make the transfer by.

[AliceK]

I ask all my parents to give me their days req,d by the 20th of the month before and then I issue their invoices a day or 2 after that. On the bottom of every invoice I put the date CLEARED payment is due and there is also a line on there reminding them that vouchers will take 3 working days to hit my account . sometimes I don't get an email from the voucher companies but I always log on to my accounts with them to check that parents have done the transfer and if they haven't I text them a reminder saying something along the lines of In order to avoid late payment fees they need to make the transfer today. You need to make it very clear on the invoices exactly when yoiu require CLEARED payment. Sometimes in this job you need to spell every little thing out to them.
xxxx

[Kittycat]

I have a few voucher paying parents, & issue my invoices a week before fees are due.
But it's the parents who issue the transfer of vouchers & that can sometimes be the day before payment is due,
Tbh as long as I have received the email before my due date saying its on its way then I am ok.

[trickiedickie]

Well after my mood about it I received an email from kiddivouchers saying payment made in full was authorised by them last night and I will receive it by 1st or 2nd of April.

Other payment has made part cash payment by internet banking today so take it I will just have to wait on the rest clearing and getting to my account from Edenred soon.

Next month I will issue my invoice 7 or 8 days before I want payment in my account.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

[bunyip]

TBF, any delay is hardly ever the voucher company's fault. I've had transfers initiated by voucher companies on Boxing Day before now.

The delay is nearly always down to the CM's own bank taking days to credit funds to our accounts. This is largely down to their antiquated systems which include data disks being physically moved around on motorbikes, and computers which (like bank tellers) get weekends and bank holidays off work. Although we have little choice in the matter - all banks are pretty much the same - we cannot hold a client responsible for what our bank does.

By all means tell your client you want 'cleared funds' and the more stoopid clients may comply. But you'd have trouble making such an unconscionable clause stick if the client ever challenged it at law.

Sometimes the problem is that parents haven't built up much voucher credit in their account before they start the contract. So every month they have no CVs to pay with until the CVs get moved into their CV account from their payroll. So there's little point demanding CV payments to be transferred on the 24th of the month if the client doesn't get paid until the 31st. Always best to check this at the start of the contract and persuade the client to make the first month's payment by other means (e.g. cash/BACS) then their CV account will have some value by the time they need to draw on it for month 2, IYSWIM.

[alex__17]

I used to have this problem when paying my sons childminder before I started working as a childminder myself. My husbands company paid him at the end of the month and I'd transfer the vouchers on that day, could be last day of the month and always he's paid on a fri and they obviously wouldn't clear into childminders account until after the weekend and a couple of days later if her bank took its time...
I didn't have a credit balance of vouchers to use, nor did I have mountains of cash ready to pay in advance as we were paid in arrears.
And the voucher company I've just signed up with for a parent actually has in their frequently asked questions about similar, that its not the parents fault if they make payment before 1st of month and it takes days to clear!

[alwaysright]

depends what you have in your contract, i disagree with some of the above posters in that i want the money in my account by due date not a transfer by parent on that date, the parent also knows the money has to go through bacs so can pay it a few days early if thats the date you have specified payment for, i take weekly fees and parents know that money must be in my account by monday morning