The bank statement with forty lines
At the start of each month, payments land. Some come through the Tax-Free Childcare scheme with a reference the parent typed. Some come from an employer voucher provider as one lump sum covering several families, with a remittance email listing them. Some are parents' own transfers, referencing 'nursery' or a child's first name. One is from a grandparent with a different surname.
The office works through the bank statement, matching each payment to a family. Most are easy. A dozen are not, and they get left in a suspense column until someone has time to email parents and ask.
Why nursery payments are hard to match
- One invoice is often paid by two or three sources, each covering part of it.
- Voucher providers pay one amount for several families and send the breakdown separately.
- Tax-Free Childcare references depend on what the parent typed, which varies.
- Payments may come from a different person or surname than the one on the account.
- Parents with siblings sometimes pay one amount for both children's invoices.
None of these is difficult on its own. Together, every month, they make payment allocation one of the most time-consuming office jobs in a nursery.
What unmatched payments cost
Families who have paid get chased by mistake, which is embarrassing and damages trust. Families who have not paid are missed, because a payment was allocated to the wrong account. Balances in the nursery system and in the accounts drift apart, and fixing them at year end is slow. Office time goes on a job that follows the same patterns every month.
The matching we build
- Your bank feed is read, for example through Xero or QuickBooks, or directly from your bank's export.
- Remittance emails from voucher providers are read from the inbox and split into per-family amounts.
- Each family has a list of known payers and references: Tax-Free Childcare, voucher provider, their own account, a grandparent. It grows as payments are confirmed.
- Each payment is matched to a family and allocated against their open invoices, oldest first or however your policy says.
- Anything the system is not sure about goes to the office in a short list, with its best suggestion, rather than being guessed.
- Allocations are written back to your accounting package and nursery system, so balances agree in both.
| Payment type | How it is recognised | How it is allocated |
|---|---|---|
| Tax-Free Childcare | Source and parent reference | To that family's invoice |
| Voucher provider lump sum | Remittance email breakdown | Split across listed families |
| Parent's own transfer | Known payer account or reference | To their open invoices |
| Grandparent or other payer | Added as a known payer once confirmed | To the linked family |
| Unrecognised payment | No confident match | Office queue with a suggestion |
We work with the payment information you receive. How the government scheme and voucher providers operate is set by them, and we do not advise on either.
What month start looks like
Payments arrive. By the morning, most are matched and allocated. The office sees a handful of unclear ones, each with a suggestion: 'Payment from M. Hughes, possibly the Patel family, grandparent?' A quick confirmation, and next month that payer is recognised.
Reminders for unpaid fees go only to families whose balance is genuinely outstanding. The balance a parent sees matches the balance in your accounts. At year end, there is no suspense column to explain, because every payment was either matched or confirmed by a person during the year, with a note of who paid it and which invoice it settled.
Is this your month start?
- Payments are matched to families by hand from the bank statement.
- Voucher remittances are split out manually.
- Families are sometimes chased for fees they have paid.
- Your nursery system and accounts show different balances.
- A suspense list of unknown payments carries over month to month.