Childcare vouchers - an employer's question

Bean_Counter

Hi,

I am in the process of looking at starting a childcare voucher scheme for our employees to try to save them some cash with possibly a modest saving for the company as well.

Can anyone recommend a scheme to use or any questions that I should be asking from an employers perspective? Obviously looking for a balance between cost effective and easy to administer.

Thanks in advance.

Lovelyjoolz

How many employees are likely to take up the scheme? I ask because if it's not very many, you should just administrate it yourself rather than pay a 'specialist company' to do it. These 'specialist companies' do make it sound much more difficult than it is, simply to allow them to charge you between 8% and 15% of the face voucher values.

I've run my own scheme for about 18 months now and it really is a doddle. After the initial set up, it's just a case of writing a cheque or sending a BACS payment to the relevant nursery once a month. It couldn't be simpler and there is no reason why you can't do it yourself.

Unless you have hundreds of staff likely to use the scheme, with each of them using a different nursery, it will not take up too much of your time to run it. Actually, once it's set up, I doubt even with a hundred staff to run it for that it would be that much of a problem!

Feel free to PM me if you want any more advice or help setting this up. I'm happy to help.

Oh and don't get fooled into thinking you need to produce some swanky, expensively designed, perforated, shiny papered 'voucher' either. You don't. I send out cheques with compliment or remittance slips. That is ALL you need. 'Vouchers' is a misnomer that 'specialist companies' use to justify charging you a small fortune!

Bean_Counter

Thanks for the reply.

At present there are only two people expressing an interest and I would expect that even if I went round and asked, we would be looking at less than ten.

Can you point me in the direction of a website that will give me a good starting point?

Thanks again.

xylophone

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/smechildcareguide.pdf
Does this help?

Bean_Counter

xylophone wrote: »

http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/childcare/smechildcareguide.pdf
Does this help?

That does help - thank you!

pjclar02

We use Busy Bees who are very good...

http://www.busybeesbenefits.com/

Lovelyjoolz

pjclar02 wrote: »

We use Busy Bees who are very good...

http://www.busybeesbenefits.com/

They may be very good but how much do they charge?

Really OP, it's so simple, it's laughable. And beware the HMRC data - it does, like most HMRC instructions, make it sound A LOT more complicated than it actually is!

pjclar02

£17 per month. Less than our employer NIC saving so we are happy!

Bean_Counter

pjclar02 wrote: »

£17 per month. Less than our employer NIC saving so we are happy!

Is that a percentage of total vouchers created? If so, can you tell me or PM me the rate?

Thanks

pjclar02

It is 7% - so that is based on the maximum of £243 per month. It works out at £17.01 plus VAT

Confused_on_childcare

Hi I have read somewhere that the cost of childcare can simply be reimbursed to the employee through his/her wages.

I am a high rate taxpayer receiving vouchers at the maximum of £222 per month sal sacrifice. We then have to make up the difference in cash each month to the childminder. Can my husband, (director of own one man ltd company) use salary sacrifice for the balance each month, approx £60. We have one child at nursery aged 18 months. Can this be deducted each month in arrears from salary pre tax/ni and paid over to childminder. (husband is basic rate tax payer. Confused is not the word...please help.