Infocare Solutions

The Fee Update screen is used to create and amend certain options that affect the way fees are calculated for your service.

How are fees calculated?

To calculate the fees, Infocare will use the following information:

1.  The Fees Structure that you specified on the Child Update screen.

2.  The Daily Sign In Sheets and/or timetables.

3.  The Effective Date on the Accounts Processing screen.

When creating an invoice, if you do not want fees to be included, check the "Exclude Fees" radio button in accounts processing. If you check the exclude fees radio button in accounts processing, when you click the "Create" button you will be presented with a zero value invoice. You can then add products as required.

When calculating fees, Infocare gets the fee structure that is associated with the child.  If the fee structure does not exist because it has been deleted, an error is displayed. Infocare is unable to create invoices if the relevant fee structure has been deleted.

Using the "effective date" from the Accounts Processing screen, Infocare determines whether fees are due. It reads the transaction file to determine when fees were last charged, and will use all the Daily Sign In Sheets or timetables after that date to the effective date. Therefore, it is important to ensure that all your Daily Sign In Sheets are 100% complete up to that date.

For example, if the last fees were raised on Friday 7th April, and you set the Effective Date on the Accounts Processing screen to Friday 14th April, and the child appears on sign in sheets for Monday 9th and Tuesday 10th, then Infocare will generate an invoice for the period Monday 9th to Friday 14th April.  If the child does not appear on any sign in sheets in this period, then the child will be invoiced as per their timetable.

Using this method you can charge in advance. If you do not wish to charge in advance, simply ensure that the effective date on the Accounts Processing screen is not for a future week. You will notice that Infocare will not allow you to use an effective date unless it is the end of your working week. If your service is open Monday through Friday then this date must always be a Friday. If you are open on Saturdays, then this date must always be a Saturday. As a result, fees are always charged up to the end of your week, and you must ensure that sign in sheets are completed up to that date. 

The fees are calculated based on the booked times, or the attendance times, depending on which is the greater. If the child was booked to attend from 08:00 to 12:00, but actually attended from 07:00 to 12:00, one hour of fees will be lost in the calculation if the relevant sign in sheet has not been updated.

When setting up your fee structures using this screen, it is very important to understand the various options that are available.

You are not limited to having a single fee structure, you can set up as many as required. This gives you a great deal of flexibility. You must link a child to the relevant fee structure on the Child Timetable screen. For example, John could be linked to a fee structure called "Standard Fees", but Jill might be linked to "Family Fees", because she has a sibling at your service.

Creating or modifying your Fee Structure

Centres to be updated:

When creating a new fee structure the option to select Centres to be updated may be available. If your service is part of a region, area, subgroup, or group you will have an option to select one of these. 

Selecting group for example will apply this new fee structure to every service with the group.

Leaving this option set to centre will only apply the new fee to the current centre.

Existing fee structures across multiple services cannot be updated using this method.

If you are modifying an existing fee structure, the Description field will contain the name/description of the fee structure. You may amend this by typing the required name in the Description field. If you are creating a new fee structure, enter the Description for this fee structure in the Description field.

If you have a specific Ledger Code for this fee structure, enter it in the Ledger Code field.

If you want this fee structure to Disregard 20 Hours ECE when calculating fees, select Yes from the Disregard 20 Hours ECE drop down list. Alternatively, select No. Please note that if you choose to Disregard 20 Hours ECE, this will not affect your funding calculations in any way. 20 Hours ECE funding will still be calculated correctly.

If you would like this fee structure to be GST Free select Yes from the GST Free drop down list. Alternatively, select No.

If you would like to set a maximum Price per week for this fee structure, enter the value here. For example, you may have a maximum charge per week of $250.00 but also specify an hourly rate of $10.00. If a child attends for 30 hours in the week, the charge will be capped at the weekly rate, so the bill will be $250.00 and not 30 * $10 = $300.00

If your service offers a discount when a child is on holiday, specify the discount percentage in the Holiday Discount % field. Children who are marked as “Holiday” on the daily sign in sheets will get the specified discount for those days.

Following is an example fee structure:

The fees calculation first uses the sessional rates if they have been defined. Infocare caters for up to 2 sessions per day. If you do not want to offer sessional rates on this particular fee structure, simply leave all the Sessional fields blank.  

After looking at sessional rates, Infocare will then use the Per Hour rates, followed by the For Period 1-10 rates, and finally the Per Day rates. If you do not use any period rates, simply leave these fields blank.

If you set up sessional rates, you should enter hourly rates if you wish for any time outside of the session times to be charged. For example, if the child comes from 08:00 to 12:30, and the session time is 09:00 to 12:30, the additional hour from 08:00 to 09:00 will be charged at the hourly rate.

When calculating fees, Infocare first establishes how many days the child has attended during the week, and uses the appropriate rates. For example, if the child has attended on 3 occasions, then the rates under 3 Days will be used.  

You will notice that only one hourly rate has been set up in the example. In this case, the 1 Day Per Hour rate will be used regardless of how many days the child attends during the week.  

Only use additional rates under 1 Day, 2 Day etc., if you wish to offer different rates depending on the week's attendance.

Rates are used in the following order:

1.  Sessional

2.  Hourly

3.  Period

4.  Daily

5.  Weekly

For Session 1 - If the child attends during the specified From Time and To Time, then Infocare will charge For Session 1. For any time attended before or after the session times, fees will be charged at the second session, hourly, part, or even daily rate. Note that the child will be charged for the entire session, regardless how much of the session was attended.

For Session 2 - If the child attends during the specified From Time and To Time, then Infocare will charge For Session 2.  For any time attended before or after the session times, fees will be charged at the second session, hourly, part, or even daily rate. Note that the child will be charged for the entire session, regardless how much of the session was attended.

Per Hour - If your wish to charge an hourly rate in this fee structure, enter the rate (i.e., $10 Per Hour) in the relevant daily column. For example, if you charge $10 per hour and the child attends 1 day a week, enter $10.00 in the 1 Day column. If you have a different rate for children who attend 2 days in the week then you would enter that rate (i.e., Using Per Hour rates you can specify a value in Max Hours). If you specify a maximum number of hours, the Per Hour rate will be used providing the child has not attended for more hours in the day. Using the above example, the hourly rate is used unless the child has attended for more than 3 hours, in which case the For Period 1-10 rates are used. Note that you can enter fractions of hours by entering 3.5 for 3 ½ hours etc.

For Period 1 - If you wish to offer rates for a set number of hours in a day, you can do so using For Period 1 rates. Children will be charged the For Period 1 rate unless the Max Hours has been exceeded, in which case the For Period 2..10 or Per Day rates are used.  In the above example the max hours are set to 5, so the For Period 1 rates are used unless the child attends for more than 5 hours.  As with the Max Hours for the Per Hour rates, you can specify part of an hour.

For Period 2-10 - If you wish to offer rates for a second set number of hours in a day, you can do so using the For Period 2-10 rates. Children will be charged the For Period 2 rate if the For Period 1 Max Hours have been exceeded and until the For Period 2 Max Hours has been exceeded, in which case the For Period 3-10 or Per Day rates are used. In the above example, the max hours are set to 6, so the For Period 2 rates are used unless the child attends for more than 6 hours. As with the max hours for the Per Hour rates, you can specify part of an hour.

Per Day - Infocare uses the Per Day daily rates unless the child has attended more days during the week than are specified in Max Days, in which case the Price per Week rate is used. In the above example, the Per Day rate will be used for 4 days, or the Price per Week rate if the child attends 5 days.

Free per day - Use this field to specify any hours that will not be charged (i.e., you may wish to offer 6 hours per day free and a maximum of 30 hours per week). Enter 6 in the Free per day field and 30 in the Free per week field. In this case, the child would get 6 hours free each day until the limit of 30 hours has been met. These two fields can be used independently; you do not have to set both. If used in conjunction with 20 Hours ECE, Free per day must not be less than 6 hours, and Free per week must not be less than 20 hours.

Free per week - Use this field to specify any hours that will not be charged (i.e., you may wish to offer 6 hours per day free and a maximum of 30 hours per week. Enter 6 in the Free per day field and 30 in the Free per week field. In this case the child would get 6 hours free each day until the limit of 30 hours has been met. These two fields can be used independently; you do not have to set both. If used in conjunction with 20 Hours ECE, Free per day must not be less than 6 hours, and Free per week must not be less than 20 hours.

Age in months and Chain to - If you want to set up an automatic chain from this fee structure to another fee structure when children reach a certain age, please enter the age in months (i.e., 36 for when the child turns 3), and then select the appropriate fee structure from the Chain To drop down list. For example, if you wish children to automatically move from the under 3 fees to the over 3 fees when they turn 3, select the over 3 fees in the Chain to drop down box, and enter 36 in the Age in months field.

Date Expired and Chain To - If you want to make this fee structure inactive, enter the expiry date (the date you would like Infocare to stop using this fee structure) in the Date Expired field, and select the appropriate fee structure which you wish Infocare to use instead of this fee structure from the Chain To drop down list.

Update - once you have completed entering the information for this fee structure, click the Update button to save the information and return to the previous screen.