The 4 October deadline probably seems far enough away that you don’t have to worry just yet, but once you factor in final payroll cut-off dates – it’s a lot closer than you think!
There’s still time to support your working parents with their childcare costs, but make sure you act fast and maximise parent uptake of the scheme now.
Driving uptake of new or ‘lapsed’ parent registrations
Parents who are yet to register on the scheme, or those whose last childcare voucher was more than a year ago, need to have a childcare voucher taken from their pay by 4 October to remain eligible for them after the scheme closes. But do they know when your payroll cut-off date is for that to happen?
For employees who are paid monthly, this is likely to be the end of August or early September – with parents having a voucher deducted from their pay at the end of September.
If you’d like help trying to identify those working parents not yet registered on your childcare voucher scheme,
download this short survey and send it out to all your employees.
But what about the parents who are already registered on your childcare voucher scheme?
Make sure you get in contact with your employees who are currently on maternity/paternity leave and let them know they need to have a voucher taken from their pay at least once in every rolling 12-month period to remain on the scheme. Have you thought about funding a voucher as part of a paid Keep in Touch day or from a day’s annual leave? The voucher value can be for as little as £20!
If a parent is registered on the scheme but it’s more than 12 months since their last order, they need to have a voucher deducted from their pay by 4 October to remain eligible for childcare vouchers after the scheme closes.
On the other hand if it’s less than a year since their last order, they just need to have a voucher taken from their pay at least once in every rolling 12-month period to remain eligible after the scheme closes. For example, if their last order was November 2017, they need to have their next voucher taken from their payroll by November 2018.
What about parents who miss the last payroll cut-off date?
If you’re the scheme contact get in touch with us by phone or email (with the parent’s details) and ask us to raise an additional order request.
We will accept additional orders right up until 1 October, as long as you can get cleared payments to us and make a deduction from the employees' salary by 4 October.
For more information on all things TFC, take a look at our toolkits for
employers and
parents.
