Busy Bees Nursery Vouchers - any info please?

[chocolateshoes]

A friend suggested these could save a fair bit from nursery fees and I've had a look online but was just wondering if there are any positive or negative comments please.

I've found them ok actually. I have the paper vouchers, and they arrive when they're supposed to. Setting them up was quite easy - I called, they emailed a form, I faxed it back, vouchers were issued next pay date.

DH is still trying to set up his vouchers with Sodexho 6 months later

We use busy bees they have been generally ok for us, don't use paper vouchers all done electronically/email etc.It was very quick to set up. Our nursery did comment to DH that recently they've been having problems with busy bees over other schemes...but not sure why.

thanks for that. Was it easy to set up with your employer? Is Is Sodexho your DH's employer Pekin? Why is it taking so long? Am new to using nursery but can't understand why everyone doesn't use BusyBees and if I'm missing something.

I don't know about how easy they are to deal with at the top corporate-to-corporate level - you hear all sorts, to be honest, about all voucher "providers", which is the middle-man thing BusyBees do. [Other main player is Accor - I'll put further details of what they actually do in this process in a separate post in case of boringness.]

But my employer uses them, and my employer is notoriously not unsharp. So they can't be bad. They certainly have a big segment of the market, so (relatively) know what they're doing.

Next - user-friendliness as regards the individual nanny-employer (or nursery-user): this is basically fine, if a bit plodding - you need to ensure that your childcare provider is specifically registered with them (as opposed to Accor or Vouchaz2U or whatever); and then you have to work within the parameters of quite limited payment systems to make the payments you want.

So, for instance, I would love to be able to set up a standing order from my saved-up stash with BusyBees so's I could pay my nanny a standard amount for the next x weeks - but can I? No. I have to go into the system every Monday, manually authorise a payment to go out that week, & pray it gets to her by Friday. If it doesn't, then I pay her separately & the late payment has to go to cover the following week.

It seems to me it should be shamingly easy nowadays to set up systems that can handle repeating payments (calendars can do it with appointments, and I do think BusyBees can handle monthly regular payments), and the BusyBees system is not a shining example of modernity, flexibility & speed. However, they haven't made mistakes, and other than the clunkiness of system & uncertainty of receipt my nanny is entirely happy.

Thanks for all that info Bink. I hope it'll be relatively easy tos et up as I'ma teacher & DP a lecturer. I didn't even know that there were any others in the business eg Accor - (further details wd be great!). Agree re the weekly payments being a bit of a chore and like you am surprised there isn't a more practical set-up

have just started these where i work so was first in the queue to get into the scheme. first payment via this system yesterday, i do appear to have saved quite a bit of money

I get them (I'm a childminder) a few days late every month

So try and organise it so that your voucher for January is used to pay February's bill (iyswim)

What the process is & BusyBees' role in it:

• your employer decides to participate in the childcare voucher system - no obligation to do this NB, just independent corporate decision. Presumably some employers will refuse because too much like effort; but it's becoming the norm;

• you sign a "salary sacrifice" agreement with your employer. This means that part of what would be your salary becomes "non-payable" (to you) and instead goes straight to a middle-man "voucher provider" (BusyBees, Accor, etc. etc.). Mine goes monthly, which I expect is usual. The effect of the salary sacrifice is that the money sent off to the voucher provider does not count as salary and you therefore do not pay tax or NI on it - that's where the savings are;

• voucher provider puts cash received from your salary into an account in its system in your name. This can start from whenever you like, even if you don't have a nursery or nanny to pay - so prob a good idea to start when you're pregnant, even. If you don't have anyone to pay it languishes in that account (non-interest bearing, I suppose that might matter in economic circs other than current) & builds to a nice fat stash;

• when you have a nanny or nursery you want to pay (& is registered with the provider, as mentioned below) then you just tell the voucher provider that's who you're using & then use their online or paper system to authorise payments from your stash.

Now teachers - I do believe there was an issue about certain public sector employers not offering the voucher system. But I also think that was reviewed & changed ... I would have a word (before anything else) with your human resources person/union rep. (I am assuming you are a state school teacher - if independent, then it's the normal corporate process I described below.)

I'm in local govt and it is just as you describe, bink.

Wow Bink, you are an expert on all this! According to the website teachers are fine. Hopefully DP will be too. Has it affected your pensions at all?

Hello, I'm thinking of starting dd in a nursey 1 day/week. One is more expensive but would accept BusyBees vouchers, the other is cheaper but doesn't. How can I work out how much I would save? £180/month for the more expensive one without voucher.

Dh has busybee vouchers, my company use the childcare account. I have no idea how user-friendly these two are on a corporate level but on my level the Childcare Account is much better. I had to get the nursery to fill in one form, sign for my salary sacrifice and that's it, the money just goes automatically every month and I get an e-mail to notify me. With busybees, as Bink says, you actually have to go to the website and manually do the transfer every month. And their website is very slow and extremely annoying. So for that reason if I was choosing I would go with someone else.

Oh we hate Busy Bees!
I was using the electronic vouchers and dh the paper, but now we've changed mine over to paper because we kept finding we couldn't get into the website or it kept crashing.
Except they made a mistake and thought I'd ordered electronic again . They're always very helpful when you get through to them with a problem but it's not always easy to get through and they don't always do what they say they will to sort things out.
If I had a choice I'm not sure I'd use them....

From a nursery angle-Busy Bees like all others take a bit of a while to set up(depends a lot on how efficient your payroll dept is) but we have several teachers/lecturers who use them at nursery & they have been fine.Must say I prefer electronic transfer though, it gets into my account quicker!

Dh uses them and it's been okay. childminder says that takes about 5 working days to clear with the paper ones and a bit to set up at first (my ones are much faster). never had any problems though.