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Billing

10 replies

babybouncer · 15/12/2013 20:12

Apologies if this turns into a rant! Our local nursery is great, DD is in the toddler room and they do drop off and pick up for DS who is in reception. However, their billing is driving me mad. They send separate invoices for each child every 4 weeks and although they detail the hours we're paying for, they don't outline what payment they have received, only how much from the previous bill is owing. DH and I both have childcare vouchers from work and we top it up with a direct debit, but the amount we pay each time varies from term time to holidays with DS.

A few months ago we worked out that something was going wrong because they were claiming we hadn't paid in full, but we didn't know what they had received from us, so DH stopped his top up and vouchers for one month and we discovered that they weren't crediting us with my childcare vouchers.

I've checked with the company that supplies the vouchers and printed off a statement for the nursery. They said they would go through the books and sort it out, but then simply sent me an email saying the amount we owe (with no reference to whether they found my voucher payments) and despite me asking for clarification they still haven't given me a breakdown. The new invoices have arrived and I think that we owe them about £1500, but they've invoiced for nearly £3000.

What should my next step be? I don't want to withhold money I owe, but I don't want to confuse everything by paying without getting the vouchers sorted. Moving nursery is not an option.

OP posts:
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tinyturtletim · 15/12/2013 20:42

You don't need to move nursery.

You all need to be a lot more organised,

You... find out the exact amount of vouchers you & dh pay in each month and write it down and also write down how much you put in 'cash'

Surely from bank statement and voucher statements you can figure out what you've paid the nursery in the last few months?

Nursery... they won't put on an invoice what you have paid, they will only invoice for what you owe. They need to be able to tell you what is correct though.

Set aside half hour and go in and speak with the manager directly, get their figures and then sort your own figures so you can then work out how much you owe.

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grumpalumpgrumped · 15/12/2013 20:57

Are you sure your vouchers are getting to them, they may be sitting in your account to be activated by you. The nursery has no way of doing this. We have 80 families but track 200 payments (where 2 parents pay by voucher,then top up)

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RandomMess · 15/12/2013 21:00

Be patient with them and book an appointment to go through all the past invoices with them?

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NickNacks · 15/12/2013 21:07

I was going to ask the same- are you activating them each month. They won't receive them otherwise.

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SwimmingMom · 15/12/2013 21:22

Same situation with my DD's nursery. When she was ready to leave for school, I reckoned we owed them £300 ish & that we could settle some if it with the deposit. Opened a can if worms. The nursery sent me a statement (for 3 years) showing that I owed them £1300+. After combing through every item I found that their invoicing was quite incorrect. Especially when I had dropped days for specific months, they had still invoiced me for all days, when I had become eligible for funded hours, they had changed invoicing after a month..and so on. The only way to deal with it was to make notes for each month - clarifying where the invoice was wrong & where the Amount received by them was wrong. 2 meetings, 6 months & a manager change later we were still talking. But they were lost on the paperwork & my notes were crystal clear. So they had to accept my side of the story or refuse it with evidence. Finally they closed the case & took only the £150 outstanding. But I realised then that relying on nurseries to track this perfectly was a error on my part, I should have been more vigilant & settled the paperwork more frequently ESP as I was paying with vouchers & bank transfers & also being funded partly & also altering the number of days every now & then. Sigh!

Hope yours gets sorted out - paper, pencil & voucher/bank statements!

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HSMMaCM · 15/12/2013 22:23

Ask for a statement. That will show all invoices and payments. I have had voucher companies not sending me money parents had paid them. That is outside the nurseries control, if it has happened.

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TeamSouthfields · 16/12/2013 11:05

get your statements from ur vouchers, ur husbands vouchers and bank.statements and then make.an appointment with the nursery...

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grumpalumpgrumped · 16/12/2013 21:53

If your voucher company is 'computershare' then most likely a voucher issue in my experience.

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tinyturtletim · 17/12/2013 12:17

Grump I am inclined to agree about computer share.

Their instant payment system actually takes 4 days to be recieved so I always end up waiting for ages for my payment

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Mandy21 · 17/12/2013 13:01

We had this (with after school where we used vouchers from H's employer). His salary was being deducted for the right amount, didn't bat an eyelid until a few months later when after school provided said we owed 5 or 6 months. Turns out (after some investigation) that the vouchers were just sitting in his voucher account - they hadn't been sent on to the provider. Not sure if something had changed (they'd been sent on previously without H doing anything) but as of 6 months ago he had to authorise / physically send them on himself.

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