Tip of the Month 2025 - March - Meals, Products & Consumables!
The clocks have gone forward, the evenings are getting lighter, the weather is warmer and the Tip of the Month has been written! What a time to be alive! For this months tip, we are looking at additional charges that can be put onto the invoices aside from the sessions. We will cover how to apply products, meals and consumables to your invoices so that you can account for any additional charges!
Meals
A child will be charged the rate of a meal in addition to the cost of the session providing that the meal box is ticked in Settings > Session Types.
If the box is ticked, the invoice will include a "Meals" section and the meal corresponding with the tick in the box will be charged every time the child attends that session.
To set up you meal costs, you will need to head to Settings > Configuration. In the "Invoice Details" section, you will find the meals fields. Here you can set you costs for Breakfast, Lunch, Tea and Supper/Snack.
Meal boxes cannot be ticked or unticked once a session type has been created. You will need to create a new session type if you are looking to charge for meal on an existing session type. If you need help creating new session types, click here.
Products
Products can be applied to the invoice as a one-off or on a recurring basis. You can utilize products for things like school uniform, outings and events but this is also a good place to add any other one-off product like a refund or a deposit.
To create products, head to Settings > Products and click on the plus button to create a new product. Enter the information in on the left-hand side. You can edit the cost of the product at the time of adding it to the childs account so if it is something that might have a varying cost (like a refund), you don't need to worry too much about the cost being correct.
For a guide on creating products, you can find our helpfile here.
One-off Products
To create a one-off product, head to Children > Accounts > Extras and click on the Plus button 
.
Select the product from the list of your created products and select the invoice date, cost and quantity. This product will appear on the next invoice that you run and the cost of it will contribute to that invoices total. A one-off product will not appear on any invoices going forwarded unless it is added again.
Recurring Products
If you have added a recurring product, this amount will be added per invoice so would vary based on if you run your invoices weekly, monthly, term and so on. You would add a recurring product in a similar way. Head to Children > Accounts > Extras, but this time would would select the basket icon 
For a guide on adding products to a child's account, click here for the helpfile!
Consumable Fee's
A consumable fee can be added to a childs account and the cost of this fee is customisable to be added to the invoice per day, per session, per funded session or per funded hour.
Much like meals, the cost of your consumable fee will be in their own section on the invoice under whatever name you have chosen for them. To set up a consumable fee - head to Settings > Configuration and click on the "Set up Consumables" button. 
Click on the purple plus button to create your consumable fee. You can create as many as you like but only one consumable fee can be applied per child so you will want to make sure this fee encompasses any fee that you would like to appear in this section of their invoice.
Remember that the "Description" is customer-facing and will appear on the invoice so it is important to make sure that it is clear so that the parent understands what the fee is for. Make sure to check with your Local Authority to see what their guidelines are with regard to the amount of detail to add to your description!
The "Consumable Type" refers to how often this charge will be applied. They are as follows;
Per Day - The fee will be applied every day that the child attends the setting.
Per Regular Session - Each regular session will incur a consumable charge. If the child has two regular sessions a day (like morning and afternoon), they will incur the consumable fee twice.
Per Funded Session - Each funded session will incur the consumable fee. This only applies to the funded sessions so regular sessions do not incur the charge
Per Funded Hour - A consumable fee is applied per funded hour. A charge will be added to the invoice for every funded hour applied.
To apply the consumable fee to a childs account, just head to Children > Accounts > Charges > Consumables! Once you have selected the consumable and saved. Your next invoices for that child will include your chosen consumable charge.
The Subheading for your Consumable charge on the invoice is your to customise. If you don't call them "Consumables", this is not a problem! Whatever it is named on the "Setup Consumables" is what it shall be called on the invoice for the parent to see.
Thank you for reading our tip on Meals, Products and Consumables! Adding extra charges can be a little confusing so I hope that we have been able to help!
As always, the Customer Support Team is here to answer any queries that you might have - pop us a ticket in the Help & Advice section
or give us a ring on 0800 002 9242 - Option 5!
or give us a ring on 0800 002 9242 - Option 5!
See you next month!
- The Customer Experience Team
If you found this tip helpful, please let us know by clicking "yes" below! Related Articles
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