Gov childcare account

[Toesoncarpet]

I set up a government tax free childcare account, but am struggling to actually pay into it. I have the account number, sort code etc, but when I try to transfer money from my bank account it wants a name for the account and I don’t know what to put.

does anyone know what name I should put there? It’s going to a government account so I assume it’s not the nurseries name. Thank you.

Could you screenshot the blank form?

I just name mine 'tax free childcare'. You can also deposit using a debit card I think?

My DH has exactly the same problem

I put my own name as I sort of thought it was my account (if that makes sense) and it works. I’m with first direct.

I called mine NS&I TFC CUSTOMER and it went through ok. I'm with Halifax.

I just use childcare account. I get a warning that the account details don't match but I just ignore this and it goes through fine

Tax free childcare account is what Lloyds accept

Same problem here - I can't find the verified account name, so I can't set them up as a payee on my current account. I guess it depends on your bank and how strict they are about you knowing the exact right account name.

Instead I use the pay by debit card option on the HMRC tax free childcare webpage to load money into my account (a slightly longer process you have to allow 1 business day to allow the transaction to be processed before you can pay your childcare provider).

The HMRC tax free childcare webpage is badly designed - reams of text to read and confusingly named hyperlinks that make it difficult to find what you need. It is almost like they don't want anyone to actually get tax free childcare at all😂

Thanks everyone, really appreciate everyone’s suggestions. Glad to know there are ways to get it done. I’ll see if my bank will accept it and then otherwise do the longer debit card option. It’s as if the government don’t actually want people to claim the money!

Mine is childcare services and goes through each month.

Just put Tax Free Childcare.

Your banks Confirmation of Payee check will tell you its wrong and what the actual name is if there's a problem.

On your secure messages you will have a message with what the account name is 😊

The first time I set up the payee with Natwest I put the name as “Tax Free Childcare” and got a warning saying the account I was trying to pay into was actually in the name “NS | TFC Customer”. So I amended the payee name to that and all payments have gone through fine since.

Just to open this tax free childcare conversation again, does anyone know if you need to pay the full amount in one go, or can you pay it in 2 separate lumps, for example, you and a partner pay half each into the HMRC account. I'm not sure if the government will automatically do the 20% top-up if they see two separate transactions. Presumably it will only top up 20% to the first amount it detects and not the total? (OH and I do everything separately so was planning on us each putting our share in on the same day but maybe not!)

(PS, for anyone using First Direct bank, you have to use the payee name TAX FREE CHILDCARE because NS&I TFC doesn't work on First Direct)

You can make multiple deposits into the account. It will top up according to the deposit made (up to the maximum amount).

It tops up all payments that go in (presumably providing they don’t go over the maximum monthly amount)

Thanks @Althenameshavegone and @BadgerFace I appreciate it! Next month we'll do that

Following on from a separate thread. If you pay considerably more than £2k into the bank account for NS&I TRC will the payment be declined? In error a large amount has been sent to NS&I TRC bank account details.

There is no account set up for the person mentioned. The reference number on the CHAPS Payment is for another NS&I saver account.

Bank sent it via CHAPS and strongly believes it will be declined as there is no childcare account and the payment made is huge and the limit is £2k per child. I have worked with government depts before and it wouldn’t surprise me if they did accept payment or put it in some holding account.

Sorry, I think I might be derailing the thread but if anyone knows that would be great.

Not derailing @Tracker1234 as I think it's worthwhile if there are knowledge gaps. I had my payment sent back to me yesterday too, no note. My bank says it wasn't them, it was NS&I who pushed the payment back even though the account n, sort code and reference were correct. I now have to wait until Monday to phone them. So you may find that the payment bounces back to you anyway?

Yes you can call it whatever you want, it just won't be able to the payee checks so make sure you haven't made any mistakes with the account number.

My tip is to include your child's name within the name. If like us, you add another child later they'll get different transfer details so you'll want an easy way to tell the two payees apart.

Tax Free Childcare works on Barclays

Sellotape. It’s a very very large amount btw. It should have gone into NS&I Direct Saver but in error (don’t ask!) went to NS&I TRC customer receipts. I now know that is a childcare account for tax free childcare with no childcare account associated with it for the person mentioned.

The reference on the payment is a unique number for that persons NS&I Direct Saver account.

I have found NS&I overall (nothing to do with this issue) a complete disgrace with duff info being given out by untrained people and overall NS&I is a very complex set up. Just had a glance at Trust Pilot…. They are being slaughtered over there

Hi @sellotape12 - How quick is money bounced back?
We realised that we sent money into our account, but didn't add the payment reference. The way our letter reads is that these bank details are unique to our son so just used account & sort code - and now we're wondering if those details are all the same and it's the reference number that is unique to us.

We've only sent a test amount (£8) before making the full deposit.

We can't find any information that actually fully explains how to make payment - we might just pay online instead of BACS going forward!