Is it 'normal' for childminders to accept childcare vouchers?

[dontrunwithscissors]

I've been searching around for a local childminder to take my DD for a couple of days per week, but none of them accept childcare vouchers. I realise that it's probably more of a hassle for a CM than a nursery, but is this typical of childminders in general?

do you mean the salary sacrafice vouchers or the gov vouchers for 3 year olds.

Only acreditted CM's can take the latter ones, which might be why.

If it is the former, I take them they are easier.

I'd say it is fairly usual for childminders to take vouchers. Though recently there have been some issues with one voucher provider - what voucher company are you getting vouchers from?

It can be a little tricky with regard to pay dates. You need to Save Up a voucher in advance.

So if you are in a job currently and starting with a childminder in Janaury:

1. Childminder gives you invoice in mid-December for Janaury's Childcare (January Invoice).
2. You pay January Invoice in Full such that BACS/Cheque has cleared bank accounts by 31 Dec.
3. You keep December's Childcare Voucher.
4. Childminder gives you invoice in mid-January for February's Childcare (February Invoice)
5. You give December voucher and BACS/Cheque such that payments have cleared by end of February (I suggest giving voucher at least 10 working days prior).
6. You keep Janaury's Voucher

Then it repeats around that cycle.
If the childminder is not already registered with the voucher company, then that can add in some delays, so you may find the first few months you have to keep vouchers and pay childminder in full via BACS/Cheque. However once childminder has got their Provider Number from that voucher company, then you can give them all the previous vouchers to pay most of the next invoice. Hope that makes sense.

I presumed that you meant the vouchers provided by your Employer - the salary sacrifice vouchers.
Early Years Education Funding is different and as Shoshe says, few childminders will take those.

Yes, I meant the salary sacrifice scheme. My employer is with Imagine (and I work for the biggest employer in the city so I can't be the only one wanting to use them.) So far every childminder has either not known anything about the scheme, or has said they don't want the hassle of accepting them. I've spoken to 6 childmiders so far. Given that both myself and DH use salary sacrifice, we really can't afford to go with a childcare provider who won't take them. I'm wondering if it may be worth looking at childminders outside of my suburb, in case this is some weird phenomenon particular to my area (which wouldn't surprise me as I seem to live in a very strange area, childcare-wise.)

Maybe they have never heard of Imagine.
Is that they don't accept ANY vouchers, or is it that they haven't heard of Imagine so don't want the hassle of registering with another voucher company?

My CM who I'm about to start with doesn't, but I'm going to try to persuade her as it's worth so much to us. I may even offer to pass on some of the benefit to her by suggesting she charges us a slightly higher hourly rate.

I'm also sure that lots of the other parents who's children go to her will have salary sacrifice schemes as most are public sector workers.

Nannynick, it's that they don't want to accept any vouchers.

I've not heard of Imagine....but i accept vouchers. I find they are time consuming but worth it for parents. I once had a parent (yrs ago now) who gave me her whole 6 mth entitlement of vouchers in one go, i just worked my way through them giving out monthly invoices as we went, until they ran out- and then she just paid me herself until the next lot were issued. I'm not sure its supposed to be done that way but it was so much easier for me to get my money on time- which can be an issue with vouchers.

My CM registered when I my employer started offering these vouchers so if you find a CM you like you could ask them to do the same.

My cm takes them. However, when we first starting sending dd2 to her, we made sure that we would still be able to pay her in advance (we pay a month in advance). We got organised and "registered" her with the voucher company and there have never been any problems. I always pay her around the 25th for the following month, just in case there are any hitches but there never have been.

My CM registered and DH ( his vouchers go for ds1 in CM and my vouchers go to ds2 in nursery) arranged it through his company scheme. I think that, aslong as you are OFSTED registered, its fairly easy to set up.

I think you may need to do a bit of the legwork - like getting a leaflet or printout from the voucher company, and saying "look, these are the people we'd like to do the payment through, this is exactly what you need to do etc."

My childminder registered and most of our monthly payment goes direct into her bank account, in advance, which she loves!

I think we also did the "month in hand" thing that Nannynick mentions at the beginning.

If a Cmer is saying this is would worry me that they weren't ofsted registered?

I accept them from 3 different companies! It makes no odds to me, it's all money at the end of the day.

Where do you live? Maybe CMers in the area don't know about it for some odd reason?

I asked CM to fill in the forms and did the rest of the legwork myself. Money goes straight to her bank account. It wasn't a big hassle.

i have 3 different voucher shemes and they are so easy you dont have to do anything the wage goes out of the parents wage into your bank
saves me the hassel of going to the bank

i do know some cm that only want cash for some reason no cheques etc all cm are different me i like it with the vouchers or dd into my bank

My CM takes accor vouchers and I am not sure what you mean, Nick, about the invoices?

There are no invoices involved with our scheme - it's all online, you just type in the childminder's number and the amount you want to pay her, and as long as you've got that amount in your account then it goes through.

It's no different to doing a bank transfer in that respect.

I live in London and all the childminders around here take them - but accor and busy bees seem to be the most common schemes, I have never heard mention of Imagine so perhaps they are less common?

If a childminder won't accept vouchers, more fool them as they are so easy, the money arrives in my account every 2 weeks.
If a childminder can't accept them I would presume that they were not registered.
I also wonder why you are asking before you sign as money is money, it never occured to me to ask how a parent was going to pay when first meeting.
I always get paid in advance so the parent either has to save up the vouchers or pay a bit of cash when first sterting.
It may be that they are getting confused with the early years vouchers.

"I also wonder why you are asking before you sign as money is money, it never occured to me to ask how a parent was going to pay when first meeting."

Dan, do you mean you would just sign and then say "accept the vouchers or get nothing"? Surely if the CM refused to register for vouchers and you (the parent) refused to pay cash then it would be the parent in breach of contract - no? Or is that wrong?

Thanks for all your responses. I've been asking CM'ers about this (along with other questions) as it was a problem when I originally planned to send DD to a childminder 2 years ago. That particular childminder refused to take them because she wanted all her money coming in one form each month (ie didn't want part coming in cash, and part in vouchers.) I tried very hard to convince her to change her mind, but she was very much opposed to it. A similar response has come from the couple of childminders who I've spoken to recently when I asked what the problem was. I gave up asking what their objections were after the first few (getting a bit fed up, to be honest). They're all definitely registered (with the Care Commission as I'm in Scotland.) It can't be Imagine that they have a problem with as they didn't ask which company I get my vouchers from. I'm going to try ringing a couple of childminders that are based around my work tomorrow and see if I get the same response.

I've used 3 cms and paid them all from two voucher schemes. We've never had any rtouble at all. I wouldn't use a CM who wouldn't use the scheme.

TBH I wouldn't be impressed by any business that say that they can't be bothered to fill in a couple of forms to save their customers huge amounts of money.

I agree with muddleduck - it does seem bizarre and somewhat mean to refuse to accept them - and will surely result in more parents going to nurseries if the nurseries accept them?

Scissors, if you find that your preferred cm doesn't take them, could you sweeten the pill a bit by offering to pay an "admin" fee to compensate for the extra paperwork? After all, it would still work out cheaper in the longrun to pay a bit extra if you get to use the vouchers, and then the CM shares in the benefit.

I wonder if it's just the keeping track of how much a family owes and pays is made more difficult by it coming from vouchers and cheques. Maybe if someone isn't very financially minded it just seems like too much hassle.

My cm doesn't invoice. I have a spreadsheet with a row for each week, a column for childcare vouchers to her bank account on pay day and then how much I have to pay by cheque to make it all up each week. Some people pay monthly I think but we vary a little sometimes so I find it easier to do it weekly and cm has never complained!

She asked to see the spreadsheet once so she could see the pattern of how the money would be coming to her.

I also keep track of the money that we pay the CM as it can get complicated. I just have a table at the back of the normal diary with the weekly total of what we owe her and confirmation of how we have paid it. I see it as my job to make it as easy for her as possible.

My mindees parents usually pay me in advance. From January they want to use Accor vouchers. I've filled in some forms, but now I'm worried wether or not I'll get paid in January