How long should I allow payments problems to continue?

[prodis1234]

I am a childminder and have been having a problem with a parent for sometime now. Payments being late and Childcare dates changing all the time. The problem appears to be their college bursary department that pays the fees. This is however leaving me short at times. And whilst its not the parents fault. I am not sure what I should do to address it with them. The college are blaming the student for not handing in cards to prove attendance. Whilst the student is blaming the college for losing them. It's a mess with me stuck in the middle. Help!!!

Is your agreement with the college or the parent?

Whilst you can be supportive, ultimately you run a business and require payment. Could the parent get a bank overdraft based on the bursery paying that off quickly.

Are they paying any money? If they paid half now, half later would that make it possible for you to continue providing care for a while?

The contract is with the parent, and not the college. It's just becoming a pain to try and chase up late fees all the time. And now it looks like this payment might be really late. Or not paid at all.

Introduce a late payment fee, its the parents responsibility to make sure payments reach you on time. Childcare bills should be like any other bill. I have had similar problems, to the point my mortgage payments bounced so I had to become stricter.

If the contract is with the parent it is really irrelevant where they are getting the money from. They should go out of their way to ensure you get paid and sort out the college as a separate issue

I would see if the bursary can be paid to the parent thereby relieving you or any contact with the college, but regardless, contract is with the parent & it's up to them to pay you in full & on time or incur late fees / risk you ending the contract.

Have managed to sort things out. Unfortunately that has meant stopping the child coming. Still though the parent has arranged to clear off the arrears to me. Just has made me wary about taking on students from this college again.

I think you did the right thing. I was really embarassed when my childcare voucher system didn't pay my childminder on time (bizarre system and not very organised). When she let me know I paid her in cash, which she then refunded when she got the money into her bank - I saw no reason she should be out of pocket - I would be hopping mad if I wasn't paid by my employer on time! Unfortunately I couldn't monitor it myself so I was reliant on her to tell me and sometimes she didn't check her account so didn't find out the payment was late until after (obviously in those cases she wasn't waiting for it) - the payments did always arrive.