Anyone heard of nurseries charging parents a separate handling fee for accepting nursery vouchers?

[wheelsonthebus]

My nursery doesn't but my friend's - a montessori - is doing this and she is up in arms about it. any comments welcome.

we have never been charged a handling fee...

My understanding is that the vouchers are just like cash so I dont think the nursery incurr charges either.. but i could be wrong

how much is the handling charge

that's absolutely not on, they should not be doing that - it costs them nothing to accept them. She needs to make a HUGE fuss.

yes we have been charged an admin fee

have you EldonAve? do you mind me asking how much and which vouchers you use...busy bees?

Check the voucher scheme's terms and conditions - Sodexho, for example, has a clause which specifically forbids childcare providers from charging a handling fee.

We have been charged an admin fee too but no handling fee.

I am outraged by this - childcare vouchers are one of the few ways we get help with the huge expense of childcare, and I can't believe there are nurseries making a quick buck off it. It costs them nothing to redeem the vouchers and vouchers schemes are often quicker to pay than parents - most do it by BACS very promptly.

Am on your friend's behalf.

i am shocked

they don't cost anything to process - they can go directly to the childcare provider

how much is she being charged

i use vouchers and never been charged

£20 one off fee
I was not impressed esp as we use electronic vouchers - accor

Eldon we use Accor at my work too, and I have never been charged a fee. I would be very and kick up a massive fuss!

£20??????

no way.. thats daylight robbery... I would deffo be fighting this one

We use electronic nursery vouchers (Busybees)to pay school fees and aren't charged any admin fee even though we are paying fees partly with vouchers and partly with direct debit. How have they justified the fee?

I complained but really they can do whatever they like

They should definately not be charging your friend anything to process the vouchers. I would write to Busy bees.

I don't blame the nurseries for charging the admin fee. Those vouchers are a bloody nightmare. It's a full-time job working out who's paid what. None of them ever come with references, so for every payment you have to phone Accor (they're the worst) to find out who has paid the vouchers in. And then once you've worked it out, you have to check that each parent has paid the difference each month. And you always get the odd few who knock 20 quid off here and there. Those 20 quids add up and before you know it, you're hundreds down and you can't work out why.

Imagine having to deal with this every month in a nursery registered for 80 kids, where there might be 160 part-time on the roll, and where everyone pays with vouchers.

That admin fee probably pays someone's wages.

Umm - so the parents don't tell you when they're paying through vouchers? £20 to chase it down?

Sounds like a con tbh...

But if you charge the parents for using vouchers, then they might as well not have the blinking things - you don't save a vast amount with them as it is....

Sounds like a case for lobbying the voucher companies for better service (they get paid by employers to run the service, after all) rather than penalising the parents, IMHO.

I've used vouchers with a CM and two nurseries and never been charged.

Sometimes the parents don't tell you that they are paying with vouchers. The payment just turns up in your bank account - no name, no reference, nothing. You then have to phone the voucher company to track down the mystery payee and then check that the exact amount owing after the voucher payment (which only comes to about £200 a month) has also been paid.

This might take 20 minutes with one case, but imagine having to deal with 80 every month.

What business in the world would take on that amount of extra work without charging an admin fee?

I can understand that being frustrating, but that's still penalising the parents for the voucher companies' inefficiencies. The voucher companies are paid to administer the service, so should do better, and need pressure from the childcare providers and employers to do better.

The parents are meant to be receiving help with childcare costs, and the admin fee basically wipes that out, making the scheme pointless.

Besides, many childcare providers seem to be able to manage it without charging extra?

We are asked to fill in a slip saying how we've paid every month - for DS we pay two lots of childcare vouchers and one BACS payment from our joint account, and we notify the nursery when each one went out using the slip, and it doesn't seem to cause a problem.

I pay in vouchers online and always give the nursery a copy of the receipt to prove it has been paid, then it can be checked off when in their account.
Never have been charged a fee for paying by vouchers though
that some have

i pay part vouchers and part by direct debit. my little ones nursery welcomes vouchers as parents tend to set them up to go direct to them, and usually they arrive on parent's payday, rather than the first of the month, so they get them a bit early. totally mystified how they can be hard to reconcile. When i set mine up, i put my dd's name as their reference and this shows on their account. not difficult. equally if this does not suit it can not be hard to set up something that makes it easy to reconcile. i think it is outrageous to take a £20 one off payment. collecting money in is part of their business, the costs are already covered in the monthly fee.

I think EldonAve and friend of wheelsonthebus should contact the Family Information Service of their local authority and tell them which nursery has asked for these fees. All nurseries accepting vouchers will have to be approved by the local authority/council. Seems dodgy to me. If the web site of your local authority doesn't direct you to your family information service or you want to be less formal tell someone at one of your local Sure Start Children's centres.

We do the same as risingstar and put our DDs names down as the reference, that way the nursery know who its from, (the manager said she is grateful that we do that, as she says its hard working out whats what with the vouchers).

I would make a huge fuss about this - it does not cost them money to accept them. If they are having admin problems they should raise them with the voucher company or parents responsible, not punish everyone else. Nursery fees are high enough as it is!