Feedback on childcare voucher companies

[MILFintraining]

Hi,
I posted before Christmas about my husband's firm being reluctant to subscribe to a childcare voucher scheme. We let it drop for a while for a few reasons. However, I'm back to work shortly and we need to get our asses in gear.

It appears the company are now more willing to facilitate us, but I am doing some research myself on the various childcare vouchers schemes. My company are with COmputershare, but I am not going with that, as I understand from talking to a number of people that they're not the best for small companies, and the quality of service has diminished since they were taken over.
I've emailed Accor, Fidelity, Abacus, and a few others, and they all seem quite similiar. My childcare provider has no problem taking vouchers from any registered company. Just wondering if anyone has any feedback on childcare voucher companies?
Many thanks

Hi I am CM, I am registered with computershare, 4care, co-op midcounties (immagine), Accor and, childcare plus and Busy Bees.

Accor seem to be the best, it was relativly simple to set up, and payments are sent and received promptly.
Childcare plus was the quickest and fastest setup and easiest to use, but only received one payment from them so cant really comment - but could be a winner.
Busy Bees, 4care and co-op were the most difficult to set up with, and take the longest to deliver payment after processing.

Hope this helps!

My husband's firm uses Sodexo (I am self-employed so not entitled) and they are very good. It was easy to set up, they always transfer funds promptly and they are very helpful and friendly when asked questions. Hope this helps.

From my own experience and have been registered with 4, found Accor and care-4 to be the best.

My co use Care4 - I've never had any problems, and my CM hasn't ever complained. They also have a really simple online payment system. one thing to watch for... we have overpaid a little into our Care4 a/c, and currently have an excess balance to use when DD2 starts going to the CM. This is fine with Care4 as there is no time limit on using excess funds. DH co uses Busybees vouchers, and I understand you must use them within 12 months or lose them. HTH

Thanks very much all. I've been sent the necessary documentation from a few companies. I'll compile it and give it DH to bring to work. Fingers crossed his company will play ball, it's so annoying to think we could be down £1k a year because someone can't be arsed spendin a short time to press a few buttons.

I have had some problems with Accor, but have found Sodehexo brilliant, never late and easy to use

As a parent I found Accor to be really easy to use, I had an online account and could control how much I paid and when, never had any problems and the once or twice I spoke to them on the phone they were very helpful.

my company uses sodexho, which has been very reliable. My DH's company uses Busy Bees and has found them to be a bit unreliable - on speaking to the nursery they seemed to have the same experience. HTH

busy bees/computershare - not good. But if you save up a month's worth of vouchers in advance and pay that way so you're always a month ahead iyswim, then it works quite well

dh's company use sodexho, always been good IMO.

FYI, if your dh's company are a small firm they maybe able to do it themselves, take a look at HMRC's guideance. My employer weren't keen on having to pay one of these big companies as they would have only been offering them to me(unless anyone else had children in years to come) but I discovered that small companies can operate there own thing, if approved by HMRC. It was a while ago now and we didn't end up bothering as dh got enough through his work, but it's worth looking into if the cost of getting a large company to provide the vouchers is stopping your dh's firm doing it.

I hope that made sense!!

Thanks Eddas. The main sticking point was the work involved, not how much the management fee was, hence, I think the firm are better off outsourcing it. Of course there will be a saving to the employer, but as DH is the only one interested at the moment they were reluctant to move it forward.
Course, things can change, but given the profile of DH's company, I reckon he'll be the only one for a while.
Anyway, I've gotten details from quite a few firms. I'm going to get DH to talk to the payroll administrator (who by all accounts is lovely), and see if she's happy for us to pick the provider, or if she would prefer to get the documentation and make the choice herself.
Fingers crossed. I've a good feeling now, but it'll really kill me if we're down £1k a year because someone won't spend a few minutes filling out forms.

Mine get paid into Care-4, DH's into Accor. I manage both accounts and they both seem fine - of the two I would say Accor seems slightly easier to use. I would imagine the deal for employers is much the same everywhere.

Oh and both let you leave excess in there (why wouldn't they - it's an interest free loan to them) which works well for us ATM as the term-time bill (with Early Years grant) is less than the sum of our two lots of vouchers, but the holiday time bill (full price for DD + holiday clubs for DS) is more, so we use the surplus up then.