Tax free childcare account

You pay money in and it automatically adds the 20%. So if you pay in £8 it will add £2 so you will have £10 to pay the nursery xx

It adds it each time you put money in xx

Ah thank you, so I can start adding money in now ready for first bill at the end of October / build money up? X

Yes you can do that 😊

If it helps, when we get our bill from the nursery, we just times the total by 0.8 and that gives you the 80% of the total bill. We then transfer that over and the government top up the rest automatically. Then we pay the bill from that account 😊 x

Oh and it doesn’t show in the tax free account straight away (unlike bank to bank transfers). Mine shows the next day after I’ve transferred xx

Thank you so much everyone! Super clear ❤️ xx

Sorry to jump in, but I'm also new to the tax free childcare, I've put the money in the account, do the nursery now have to take the money or do I need to send the money to them?

You have to assign your nursery to the account, through a search on the site / following prompts. That’s as far as I’ve got though, I think you then log in and click to pay each time

Oops, didn't realise I had to do that bit 🫣 I thought the nursery received it automatically 😬 No one mentioned it at her nursery though haha, atleast I know now

Say If you have to may your nursery say £1249 each month. You might think 1249 divided by 8 =156.10 X2 (because it's 2£ for every 8) = £312.25 top up if you put in 936.75 But when you do it again the next month you'll hit your cap of £500 so it'll only top you up 187.75 (500- 312.25) The third final month when you're due to reconfirm you won't get a top up at all so would have to put in the full £1249 to pay on

So instead you might want to equal out your payments. 1249×3 is 3747. -500 is 3247. Split that equally across three months... Pay in 1082 a month. So you overpay to cover the second and final month.

I got caught out first time bc I didn't realize that once I reconfirmed I couldn't get the £75 left of my top up from the last 3 month period, so was eating into the £500 top up for the following three months. It gives you a month window every three months in which to reconfirm.

Also DO NOT forget your security questions for login... It is case sensitive and I lost access bc I forgot and it became like a Month late getting access again bc for some reason my telephone security check when I rang them failed to and then I had to send off notarised copy ID signed by a teacher friend. My nursery were super understanding and didn't fine me but I was so late paying them. Absolute 5h!tshow!

An essay I know and call me out if my maths are wrong anyone but I had a fiasco to begin with so hope it helps xxx