Just need some advice on tax free childcare

[Rach1603]

My son will be starting nursery soon and we are eligible for tax free childcare.

Just need some advice on how it works? Do I just pay his monthly amount into my tax free childcare account? And then the government pay in whatever else?

Also how do you know how much they will help you?

Tia x

Evening, govt will top up by 20%. The way I do if is work out monthly invoice for nursery, deduct 20% & then pay that into the account every month, I have the account set up as someone I can pay on my online banking. Then I log into tax free childcare account and pay the nursery. You can set it up as a regular payment so you dont have to log in every month.
Let me know if you have any other questions, its very straight forward once its set up 🙂

We do the same as the above. We work it out each month as ours varies monthly. Once you've done it a couple of times it's very easy

I take the total invoice amount and times it by .80. Then pay in that amount. HMRC will add the other 20% once it goes into the account. Then the full amount that shows in your online account will be the full invoice amount. Then you pay that to your childcare provider. Our invoice is different every month so it's impossible to plan ahead, but it's always 20% every month unless you hit your max for each quarter (which if 500 quid top up).

Thanks for the reply's everyone!

I worked it out and added the money I'd be paying into my childcare account. Ive just gone onto my account and it says I'm entitled to £0 this month!

I'm guessing I won't be getting any help from them? Or does it take a while for them to top it up?