Childcare invoice help

[40mumof2]

Please can someone try and help me with this

I've queried this with the nursery and they've said the invoice will always be different every month and I'll ' probably never understand it '

I've now asked for a break down so I can understand

The previous month before the funding came in was £625 a month so I just paid September invoice without querying it as it was cheaper than the £625 I'd been paying for a year

Anyway now Octobers is in its £468 (sep was £424)

I've attached the invoices

Can anyone work it out? Thank you

That's an almost deliberately confusing invoice. Presumably the weekly fees are being multiplied by some number of weeks, to get to different final totals? I'd want to see that multiplication clearly on the invoice so you can understand how they get to the different totals each time.

If it’s anything like how mine used to work then October is usually very slightly more because the school half term in October didn’t get the funding contribution. Every school holiday that will happen.

It can also change depending on whether it’s a four or five week month.

It also changes at different ages due to the different funding levels at different ages.

Is it 2 days your DC is in nursery for?

Looks like you're paying £44 per day for wrap around, plus £18 for consumables per week.

So in September, you paid for 4 weekly consumable fees, and 8 sessions wrap around.

In October, you paid the same in Consumables, but 9 sessions wrap around (£44 more)
Depending on the ways the dates fell in the month it's likely there were 5 of one day (Tues/Weds/Thurs are those days for October)

She attends two days a week and it's always a Wednesday and a Friday if that helps

In which case I'm pretty sure my math is correct.

I'd assume in future you can work out any given month by:

£18 (weekly consumables) x4

£44 (daily wraparound fee) x total number of Wednesday/Fridays in the month

Did you query it because September and October’s final invoice was different? The days fall differently each month so you will be paying for a different amount of days some months compared to others. You need to look at how many of the days you use are in a particular month.

@LittleRedRidingHoody ah ok got it thank you!
Yeah so the difference of £44 wrap around care between sep and Oct/nov involves there was one more session ( 9 sessions) in Oct and nov hence the difference of £44

Thank you 🙏

Yes and also coz I didn't get the way it's broken down but I do now 😊

Not sure if you mean Oct or Nov, but both months have 9 Wednesday and Fridays in them. So it's

9 days of wraparound x £44 = £396
Plus
4 weeks consumables x £18 = £72

But the weekly fee makes no sense. Unless that's just a list of charges if you were full time?

Also, it's in the provider agreement with the LA that their invoices are clear and they will be audited on this. It's not clear.

Yeah it's not clear is it but I understand it now so I'll make sure I tell them so they know

the difference is 44 so presumably there was one more session in the month.

they could easily fix this invoice by showing how many times you are charged each sub-fee. Also listing that it is the wed and Fri session wouldn’t hurt, but isn’t strictly necessary. I don’t know what software they are using, but given the graphic I’m guessing it’s something basic like excel and not specialty software. If so, they could have this fixed for everyone in perpetuity with maybe an hour of work. The answer that you will never understand the invoice is ridiculous.

I was thinking surely it can't have the same figures but have different totals but I understand what im paying now

The weekly fee of 106 is 2 sessions plus the consumables fee. It is kind of meaningless though because a month can end up with a partial week and they clearly aren’t splitting the consumables fee when that happens. Otherwise your larger month should have been 44+9 more.

I’m curious how they deal with that in the next month.

Also this wrap around care seems incorrect

She attends 8-6pm so the wrap around care is 8-9am then 3-6pm as 9-4 is funded so that means I'm paying 8 hrs wrap around a week so that's £5.50 an hour ? I'm sure from memory they said it was £2.50 because they are giving a discount

Obviously I'll need to check with them but does £5.50 an hour sound about right?

£2.5 an hour for wrap around childcare in a nursery would be crazily low imo.

Ok so must have got that wrong

I'm paying £44 a day wraparound for 4 hours so £11 an hour ?

Worked this out so wrong

She does 2x £44 days a week so it's £11 an hour wrap around care I'm paying not £5.50

I'm so confused....😓

So the issue is the the wrap around care at £11 an hour ? I'm happy with some invoices will be higher due to half term and some sessions will be 8 and some 9 - makes sense but this £44 wrap around a day so £88 week

Per hour my nursery is £8 and it’s one of the cheaper in the area.

A reduction of around £200 sounds about right for only 15 hours

Ah ok fair enough then I must have misunderstood
I remember the phone call being confusing when they rang me months ago

She 100% said I'd be getting a discount and I remember some people getting miffed off and even one person left as the fees were high so I'm definitely going to ask
But I'm glad I understand the invoice better now so thank you everyone!

I just don’t see why any nursery would discount you further on the non-funded hours because you were using funded hours the rest of the time. That’s like a lose lose for the childcare provider.

@Completelyjo me neither, but that's exactly the words she used ! She said it's only for some families, not all, hence why some people chose to leave

There is even a notice outside the nursery on it - I've just never paid any attention to it until now so I can't wait to get there and screen shot it later !!