Children's Nursery

maddiekat

Hi Everyone,

I'm new to the forum (and to practicing - just recently got my licence). I've been reading the postings on the forum for a while and gained lots of valuable advice from it - so thanks to everyone who posted and answered for all that.

I've just been approached by a children's nursery and wonder if anyone has one on their client list, or any experience of them.

Does anyone know of anything I should be aware of before meeting with them? Or alternatively, a good site that I can research on?

Kind Regards

Maddiekat

burg

Not got any as clients or got experience of them in that sense but I know some aspects from using them for my own children.

Generally income is from the childs parents/carers
There may well be childcare vouchers from employers which may need to be claimed either from the employer or the company that runs the scheme
There are is also funding that is received from local councils. Depending on your local policy this will be around 15 hours free for 3-4 year-olds. This gets claimed from the council and paid to the nursery directly.

maddiekat

Hi Ian,

Thanks for the quick reply. I'll need to look into the vouchers from employers and funding claimed from council to see how that might impact on the time I would spend on it.

Kind Regards

Maddiekat

T.C.

I do the year end accounts for one nursery, but they keep their own day-to-day book-keeping. The only things to keep an eye on, in my opinion, are minimum wage and petty cash. Oh and the tax man does not like alot of travel expenses. Hope that helps.

maddiekat

Hi TC

Thanks very much for your help. This is a new industry for my and I just want to know that I've 'done my homework'.

Kind Regards

Maddiekat

coojee

I do the books for a pre school, much the same as a day nursery. As others have said, income is through grant funding from LA. Are you just doing the year end accounts or the book keeping as well? A day nursery is more likely to have better records than a pre school. Pre schools tend to be charities run by a committee of parents so the treasurer is sometimes just a parent who knows nothing about book keeping. That was the case with the one I do, I started to do it unpaid as a parent treasurer and I very quickly said that it was too much work to ask anyone to do as a volunteer so it needed to be a paid job. If you're just doing year end accounts then you'll need to assess how good the person is who's put the accounts together (as you would with any business). I spend a fair bit of time making sure the LA have paid the right amount of funding (they usually don't and you have to watch them like hawks). If you're book keeping then it may be down to you to do this or will they have someone who already does it? Do they do their own wages?

Are they a limited company? Charity? Ltd charity?

maddiekat

Hi Coojee,

Thanks for your reply and sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

It's a Ltd Co (private nursery) and they will do their own book-keeping next year on sage. This year they want year end accounts but I'm not sure yet what their book-keeping is like. The owner didn't want to meet up yet and wanted me to quote without a meeting so I didn't get the chance to see what their records are like. (which I wasn't very happy about) I think they have just kept records on excel. So I'll probably have a lot to do to take it to trial balance and do checks. I've just quoted £600 for year end accounts etc. and quoted by the hour for any book-keeping that needs doing. I would expect that checking the funding would come under book-keeping. They do their own wages.

They haven't come back to me yet but if I get the client any advice you can give me would be much appreciated.

Thanks again.

Regards