End of Calendar Year in Discover

The end of year is a busy time for childcare centres and we're trying to make this transition period as easy as possible in Discover. 
Here are a few things you can do to successfully organise your operations for the end of the calendar year.

Updating the Centre Calendar

You can use the Centre Calendar to indicate how Discover treats your bookings when there is a centre closure like those planned over the holiday period.

To access your centre calendar, head to Centre > Centre Calendar. Select the day/s you want and use the various settings to indicate the charges and discounts. You can find out how to create Discounts below.

Applying Holiday Discounts 

You can set up a holiday discount which will override any current or the default fee discount amounts applying on accounts. The discount can be applied on days indicated on your centre calendar as 'Holidays'.  

The child must be given a discounted holiday to receive this discount, but it can be a different discount to the amount you have set up for your fee. For this discount to apply correctly, the child must have Holiday Entitlement to be eligible and receive the discount.

Discover allows you to toggle the holiday entitlements; you can approve a particular day for a discount and the bill payers get a credit note based on the fees for that day. This is managed by enabling the automatic mode in your Centre Settings.

Discover automatically calculates, for each calendar year how many days a child is entitled to.  This is based on the number of # Holiday Days set in your Centre Settings and how many days of the year the child is enrolled on a prorata basis.  

You can allow special dollar values or percentage discounts as alternative options when giving a child a discount for a specific day on the child's calendar.

You can specify multiple options by separating each with a comma and these options will become available on the individual child calendar. 

• Using the $ will allow you to deduct a specified amount as a discount
• Using the % will apply a percentage amount
• Using the H will allow you to deduct at an hourly rate
  
• Using ! will apply a discount at a fixed day rate
  
  

Increasing Fees

The end of the calendar year may present an opportunity for your centre to increase their fees for the new year. If you do plan to make any adjustments to your fees, please make sure these are in line with your centre's current fee policy.

To set a fee increase ahead of time, head to to Centre Setup > Fees. 

1. From the list, select the fee that you would like to edit. 
2. Move down the screen to the Date From field and set the effective date.
3. Move down to the  Fee Amount and set the new rate.
4. Save the changes.

We suggest running an Invoice Preview report to ensure the new rates are calculating correctly for the dates selected. If saved with an incorrect date, it will reverse and recreate invoices depending on the month/year added in the field. In the case this happens, please contact Support immediately.

Invoicing 

We recommend continuing invoicing as normal, even over holiday breaks and closures. When setting up your holiday discounts, this is the best time to choose whether you'll be invoicing or not.

If you do not want invoices to go out during the holiday period, we would to leave auto invoicing on but to tick the ''send to centre only'' option.

WINZ Payments

Typically WINZ stops payments when centres close for the holiday period. If your centre is remaining open for this period, WINZ will pay for the hours/days that the child will be attending but not for the Stats or if they are on Holiday.

Family Boost

If you have opted to have Family Boost Quarterly Statements sent automatically, these will be sent on 6th January 2025.
It is important to ensure you have recorded any payments* families have made in the lead up to this date, or the statements will be inaccurate.
If your centre is shutting down over the holiday period, you can opt out of automated Family Boost statements by navigating to Centre Settings > Centre Details > Invoice Settings header and untick 'Automate Family Boost Statements'.

When the centre opens in the new year, statements can be sent manually via Bulk Actions.

*If you are integrated with Xplor Pay by Debit Success, you may notice a delay in your payments processing around the public holidays.

Making Children Inactive 

If you have children leaving your service at the end of the year, the most efficient way to set a leaving date for a child is by following the steps below:

1. Go to the Child's Profile > Child tab
2. Under the Centre Details section locate the Leaving Date field
3. Input the child's leaving date
4. Save

Discover will automatically update all records accordingly with the date given - including the Enrolments.

Additionally, if the child's latest enrolment is updated to go past what is setup in the Leaving Date field, this field will automatically be updated to the date of the enrolments last day.

To review which children will be leaving at the end of 2024, you can build a report called 'Children Leaving' by heading to Reports > Children Reports > Leaving