vouchers, salary sacrifices and ad-hoc childcare

[mummypig]

I'm just wondering if anyone has actually made this childcare voucher/salary sacrifice scheme work for them with irregular childcare. My dp's company has an arrangement with Busy Bees but we have had huge problems with getting it all set up for ds's pre-school (partly because the owner was unhappy about giving her bank details to Busy Bees).

The problem is that ds will not be in the pre-school for the summer and our childcare arrangements tend to be here-and-there, with a variety of different care situations, e.g. childminders, creches, summer playschemes. The Busy Bees blurb says you can use it flexibly, even if you only use a childcarer a few times, as long as they are registered, but I'm now dubious about using it in this way if it takes each setting ages to register. Does it depend on which voucher company is used, and on the way my partner's company has chosen to set it up? Because I thought perhaps he could choose to have the money accumulate in an account and then we could ask for vouchers as and when we needed them.

I would love to hear from someone who has made it work!

We get the vouchers sent through each month and just save them up when we don't use them. That way you can save them over the summer and use them at pre-school again from September.

I am not sure why your pre-school won't give bank details out - isn't it a business account?

I think she was just being old-fashioned about it - she has said more than once to me that she would prefer to have a cheque in her hand. Myself, I prefer to have the money in my account ! (I always take ages to pay in cheques because I hardly ever go to the bank.) Also, the pre-school is quite small so perhaps she is just using her personal account.

I hope we can save them up, but dp's work would have to be a bit more flexible in that case, because at the moment they say they won't set it up unless we can give them the registration number for a specific childcare provider.

The way DH's works is that his employer pays a set amount into the voucher account each month. I then pay preschool fees as necessary. As far as I know the funds can stay in the account for up to five years. The blurb does mention using it for holiday playschemes etc, and suggest that you can save up through the year to pay for these. Could you check with any potential childcare provider that they are happy to take vouchers before you use them?

we're like zubb
we had to opt into it for 1 financial year - but most of that year I was (am) on maternity leave, so although the money goes into the 'accor account' ( is like busy bees, just different provider) it isn't spent, so we have quite a surplus saved up for when I'm back to work in Sept.

as long as your childcare provider accepts the vouchers, it isn't a problem to use as and when you wish, it's your money sitting there. We've used a few times since I've been on maternity leave for half term play schemes for our 5 year old,and also for a childminder.

hth

yes I will definitely do that next time, CM!

and thanks for that hubb, good to hear your playschemes accept the vouchers

sorry, used a made-up name combining hana and zubb then!!

mummypig - they can still set it up if you are going to save them for the summer and pay the same pre-school as you won't be changing the details of the setting.
The pre-school really should be offering this as a way to pay as there are lots of people who can take advantage of them.