Tweet
And I'm back from childcare with yet another story to share, except this time it doesn't involve a child. This one comes secondhand from another centre.
Basically, there are two main bookings we have in our system:
Permanent Bookings: these guys may attend morning or afternoon sessions, but not always on the same day. They will ALWAYS attend these sessions unless they're sick or something else happens. They get charged our base rates. The only way these can be changed is in writing and we require a 2-week notice for those changes. We also have daily and weekly bookings which work in the same way, but there are discounts for these (a daily booking means that the kid attends both morning and afternoon, a weekly kid means he does this five days a week morning and afternoon)
Casual Bookings: these guys don't come in on a regular basis and don't have a regular attendance pattern. We don't usually know these guys are coming in until the day before (some of the very occasional care folks will do up to a week before which we love). Casual bookings get charged a little extra to cover the cost of extra staff (if needed). BECAUSE they're casual, they don't need to fill out the forms for booking changes because they will only use it on an as-needs basis, rather than a constant one.
Well, as it turns out, one parent has decided that apparently she's too good to pay the little extra (it's $2/session) and kept changing her child's attendance pattern EVERY. WEEK. So she'd show up with a new form and her child would be put into the system as permanent, but never had a regular attendance pattern.
I realised tonight that the parent is actually cutting her nose off to spite her face on this one. Why? Well remember where I said that we require 2 weeks notice for permanent booking changes? Well, if the child doesn't rock up for those sessions, they will still get charged for those sessions even though the child may not be there. So the mother was basically paying an extra $15-$30 or so a week simply to avoid a $2 fee! (this was pre government-rebate as well)
(To clarify, we have a few options for payment: direct debit through a 3rd party provider, paying in advance per term, paying every fortnight via cheque or similar)
Basically, there are two main bookings we have in our system:
Permanent Bookings: these guys may attend morning or afternoon sessions, but not always on the same day. They will ALWAYS attend these sessions unless they're sick or something else happens. They get charged our base rates. The only way these can be changed is in writing and we require a 2-week notice for those changes. We also have daily and weekly bookings which work in the same way, but there are discounts for these (a daily booking means that the kid attends both morning and afternoon, a weekly kid means he does this five days a week morning and afternoon)
Casual Bookings: these guys don't come in on a regular basis and don't have a regular attendance pattern. We don't usually know these guys are coming in until the day before (some of the very occasional care folks will do up to a week before which we love). Casual bookings get charged a little extra to cover the cost of extra staff (if needed). BECAUSE they're casual, they don't need to fill out the forms for booking changes because they will only use it on an as-needs basis, rather than a constant one.
Well, as it turns out, one parent has decided that apparently she's too good to pay the little extra (it's $2/session) and kept changing her child's attendance pattern EVERY. WEEK. So she'd show up with a new form and her child would be put into the system as permanent, but never had a regular attendance pattern.
I realised tonight that the parent is actually cutting her nose off to spite her face on this one. Why? Well remember where I said that we require 2 weeks notice for permanent booking changes? Well, if the child doesn't rock up for those sessions, they will still get charged for those sessions even though the child may not be there. So the mother was basically paying an extra $15-$30 or so a week simply to avoid a $2 fee! (this was pre government-rebate as well)
(To clarify, we have a few options for payment: direct debit through a 3rd party provider, paying in advance per term, paying every fortnight via cheque or similar)
Comment