Fee Planner - FAQ
What is Fee Planner?
Fee Planner is a service which collects money from parents' bank accounts each month on your behalf, allowing you and your staff to focus on providing quality childcare, instead of struggling to speak to parents about how much they owe.
Our Fee Planner service currently operates at a 98% success rate!
Our Fee Planner service currently operates at a 98% success rate!
How can Fee Planner help me?
Let's face it - no one likes having awkward conversations about money, least of all childcare providers! By using Fee Planner you can eliminate these conversations by keeping your administration completely separate from the everyday care of children. This means you can avoid breaking the relationships you've worked hard to build with parents / carers.
Fee Planner will also save you valuable time as you will have less administration to take care of and you don't need to waste your resources chasing payments.
How do I set-up Fee Planner?
When you sign-up to Fee Planner we will send you an information pack, which includes mandate forms to give to your parents / carers. The bill-payer for each child must complete the mandate form, providing their address and bank account details, and return this form to you.
Each mandate will have a Unique Reference Number (URN) which you will need to enter into the 'Fee Planner No.' field in Abacus > Children > Accounts > Charges:
Each mandate will have a Unique Reference Number (URN) which you will need to enter into the 'Fee Planner No.' field in Abacus > Children > Accounts > Charges:
Once you have entered a Fee Planner number for all of your children you will need to return all of the mandate forms to us in the envelope provided. We will then set-up all of the Direct Debits on your behalf.
How does Fee Planner work?
Fee Planner collects your fees from parents / carers via the Direct Debits we have set-up on your behalf. All you need to do is tell us how much to collect from each bill-payer by emailing us your Fee Planner collection file. We ask that you provide this information on a specific date each month (these key dates are included in the pack we sent you when you signed-up) to give us time to contact each bill-payer advising how much will be debited from their account.
You are able to charge different amounts each month if required, simply let us know how much you need us to collect in your Fee Planner collection file.
You are able to charge different amounts each month if required, simply let us know how much you need us to collect in your Fee Planner collection file.
What is a Fee Planner collection file?
A Fee Planner collection file tells us how much money you want to collect from each bill-payer. The collection file will be automatically generated for you by Abacus when you process your invoices. The collection file will be a .CSV file which can be opened in Microsoft Excel, Numbers, or Google Sheets.
How long will it take to receive my money?
We will process the collections on the first working day of each month and, if there are no issues, your money will be paid into your bank account around 3 working days later.
What happens if a payment fails?
Fee Planner minimises the number of failed collections by charging parents/carers a £20 fine if we are unable to collect your fees from their bank accounts, in the same way as they would be charged if they failed to make a minimum payment on a credit card in time. We find that having these fines in place ensures, in the majority of cases, that parents / carers have sufficient funds in their accounts to allow us to successfully collect your fees.
If the first collection attempt fails we will immediately contact the bill-payer on your behalf to inform them that we were unable to collect their fees and that they have been charged a £20 fine. We will then attempt a second collection on the 7th working day of the month; if this collection is successful the money will be paid into your bank account on the 10th working day of the month.
Our experience has taught us that very few parents / carers fail to have sufficient funds available in time for the second collection - our 98% success rate is a testament to this. In the rare circumstance that this does occur we will contact the parent / carer to inform them that you have been notified of their failure to make a payment.
How safe is Fee Planner to use?
Fee Planner is one of the safest forms of payment as all of your parents / carers will be covered by the Direct Debit guarantee. For your business it means that sensitive financial details are kept secure instead of lying around on pieces of paper.
Click here for more information, or to enquire about our Fee Planner service.
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