How do you work out monthly payments?

[miSaltireandwine]

Do you do a 4 week invoice, or do you do to teh actual end of the month. For example, I am getting ym mindees from 9th Jan (when they go back tos chool) so would /do you charge from 9th Jan till 31st Jan - whole month, or from 9th Jan till 27th Jan ( 3 weeks would usually be 4 though)

Actually I'm not sure I am being clear

I think most people find it easier to see it weekly:

Childminding for week commencing:
9 Jan £250
16 Jan £250
23 Jan £250
30 Jan £250
Total: £1,000

• and if you do it for 'week commencing' rather than 'week ending' you can easily slip in an extra week and it doesn't look unreasonable. Bear in mind that because there are 13 weeks in 3 months not 12, some months you will be charging for 4 weeks and some for 5. But this is still easier to understand than:

January - 17 days at £50 per day: £850

ok, your a childminder if I 'read' it right !!
Im prehaps diffrent frm a lot of CM's becoz I only charge for, basically the hours tbe children use.
I dont, now, do retainers, deposits etc now, because I dont want to.....
Im actually trying to wind my Childminding practice down..
All my mindees are Term Time, after School only, this what parents pay for.
However if they need 'holiday dates' because they're annual leave doesnt cover all school holiday dates and if Im available, I still charge my hourly rate, however Im thinking off putting my holiday dates and Ad-Hoc dates up.

For those who pay me as per that month, I do like MrA showed (week by week, this is for the entire month so some weeks may show less days than usual if that makes sense). For most of mine, they pay a fixed monthly fee (worked out based on the year's care less my closures) and that only changes if they add an overnight stay/extra hours or I have to refund due to illness etc.

I charge on the first of the month, for the month.

So charging from 9th Jan - 31st Jan due on 1st Jan.

I have some parents who prefer a standing order, so I calculate 48 weeks at their normal rate and divide it by 12 (to take my holiday into account). I give them a statement each month, showing how much they are over, or under.

If anyone does any extra hours in a month, or I take a day off sick (never happens), then I adjust the following month's invoice.

I ask all my parents to pay by standing order. They all pay a daily rate and I find it far easier to do it this way, so its a set amount and there's no question of payment being quibbled or not paid as they didn't know what to pay or anything.

So I do daily fee x no of days contracted per week x 52 /12. Payment is in advance for the month.

If anyone has an extra day (rare as I'm usually full) they pay the extra day's fee direct into my bank. If I was off ill (not happened yet) I'd refund the same way.

I do say on the contract that because they pay an averaged amount that this may mean at the end of the contract, when I balance how many days they've used versus how many they've paid for, that they may owe a few extra days (to be taken from the deposit) or I may owe them, (which I'd repay with the deposit). In practise its only if someone leaves within 6 months where there've been lots of 5 week months, which happened once, that its an issue - for 1 year or more it balances out. :)

leeloo I think that's a really good system. Do you charge for holidays/bank holidays or do you adjust for them when working out the total number of days for the year? Do you give them all a statement each month that says how many days they have paid for and used over the course of the year or do you just work it out if there is a problem or when they leave?

Not sure about Leeloo but for mine that pay a fixed amount by standing order, I provide an invoice every month (purely for records plus has a notes bit at the bottom i.e. reminders of hols coming up, term dates etc). They'll have received a detailed breakdown of my workings (i.e. full annual cost less bank hols and my hols divided by 12, or if start part way through the year, divided by number of months left in that year) and I send something similar when they leave showing what care they actually had to that point and what that should have cost to date compared with what they've actually paid so far and then show who owes who what (never much difference though).

MrAnchovy thats nice to hear, certainly it makes life easy for me. One of my CM friends charges weekly and different rates for different hours and every time has to do different invoices for everyone and it just sounds like such a nightmare - I know I'd make mistakes! Plus her parents then have to check the invoice and then arrange for the money to be paid to her and they're often late, which annoys her more - whereas once a standing order is set up it just gets paid like clockwork.

I do charge for all their/my holidays (if I didn't I guess I could use the same system but multiply by 48/50 weeks?). And no, no monthly invoice I'm afraid, I just work it out in one go when anyone leaves (I've never had anyone have a problem, but I guess I would work it out ad-hoc if need be)- I don't have a high turnover luckily, so again its not much work to do.

My DC's nursery bills like you leeloo1 and I pay by standing order, very easy for me. The childcare vouchers go straight to the nursery first and are deducted from each monthly invoice.

I send out an invoice during the preceding month, payable by the first of the month it's for, for the actual days of that month - so in December I've sent out invoices for however many days in January my mindee is coming x daily rate. Payable by 1st Jan. I also charge extra if they want to send mindee to me on a bank holiday.