Calendar Holidays & Closures

Modified on Tue, 21 May at 1:51 PM

Table of Contents

Centre Holidays, Term Breaks & Discount Override
Public/Statutory Holidays
Emergency Closures
- Funding Continuity
Partial Closures & Half Day Holidays
Holidays set at a Group Level

Centre Holidays, Term Breaks & Discount Override

The Centre Calendar can be used to indicate how Discover treats your bookings when there is a public holiday, teacher only days, centre closure or Term Breaks where you might be open for holiday programs. This feature can also be used for Public Holidays.

Navigate to Centre > Centre Calendar. Select the relevant date, and enter the Type (Holiday period, Teacher Only Day etc), your date or date range and check the tick box if your centre will be open during this time.

Chargeable Indicator

With the Chargeable indicator, you may define a holiday and specify whether children who would normally be attending, are invoiced or not. Charge or no-charge can be selected.

Charging for Attendance during Term Break

If the centre is open, there is an additional option of "Charge only on attendance". Choosing this option will give parents a $0 invoice initially (if you invoice in advance), then once attendance is recorded in the system, Discover will automatically invoice parents if their child attended, based on the enrolled hours in the next invoicing cycle.

Waive Optional Charges

You can also waive optional charges (e.g. lunch fees, gym visits) on centre holidays if you wish, though this option will not be available for no charge days. On no charge days, optional charges will be discounted per their settings found in Centre Setup > Charge Adjustments.

Bulk Discounting

If the "Holiday is Discounted" box is ticked, each child will automatically be given a discounted holiday if they have enough holiday entitlement.

Discount Override

If specified, this discount will override the default fee discount. The child must still 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 Discounts, the child must have Holiday Entitlement to be eligible and receive the discount

DiscountOverride

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 child calendar.

$ - a specified amount
% - a percentage amount
H - an hourly rate
! - adjust the amount to be a specified amount instead
If you don't want to charge and want in the dropdown as No charge than add - !0

Public/Statutory Holidays (No Charge)

Statutory Holiday

Select Day Type > Statutory Holiday
Date From and Date To will be same
Chargeable > Select No Charge
If you have optional charges, it will function as per the holiday credit method in Charge Adjustments
Leave the No WINZ Payments unticked, as that will suspend the WINZ payment for that particular week cycle instead of that day.
Save

Holiday Period

Select Day Type > Statutory Holiday.
Select the start and end dates in Date From – Date To
Chargeable > Select No Charge
If you have optional charges, it will function as per the holiday credit method in Charge Adjustments.
If you don’t want WINZ payments during this period, you can tick the No WINZ Payment checkbox.
Save

Service/Centre Opening

In the case that you keep the centre open and have children attending

Select Day Type > Restricted Opening
Select the start and end dates in Date From – Date To
Is Open will be automatically ticked
Chargeable > Select No Charge
If you have optional charges, it will function as per the holiday credit method in Charge Adjustments.
Save
Enter the Licence Timing and Save again.

Centre Open (No children attending)

Please note: When your centre is open and no children attend, the MOE requests you email them at ece.funding@education.govt.nz to notify them.

Select Day Type > Service Open – Holiday Period with no attendances
Select the start and end dates in Date From – Date To
Is Open > Tick
Chargeable > Select No Charge
If you have optional charges, it will function as per the holiday credit method in Charge Adjustments
Save
Enter the Licence Timing in the Pop-up window
In this scenario, funding will be claimed also make sure you have staff rostered for that period.

In the case that you keep the centre open and charge for only attended hours and if you are creating a new fee set up for that period:

Choose the Charge by Attendance. This is only successful with hourly fees.

If you do not want to charge for unattended time, you will need to set up a special discount
Centre Setup > Centre Settings > Centre Holidays - Special Discount – H100%
This will only charge the attended component for the day.
Go to the Main Menu > Attendance > Click on Calendar
Go to that day in question > In the Discount field Select 100% discount Non-attending.
Copy the cell using Ctrl+ C or Cmd + C > Select the remaining cells > Ctrl +V or Cmd.
This will copy the Discount across all Children or you can do per room/ per centre
This will create a credit note for Unattended time.

Holiday Period at a Standard Hourly Rate & Daily Rate

In this scenario, you will need to create new fees by navigating to Centre Setup > Fees > Create New.

Fee Name
Age Group – Can be made available across the age group lets assume 0 to 72 months
Fee Engine – Hourly for $5 or Daily for fixed day charges
Min number of day - 1 and Maximum number of day - 5 (depending on licence)
Time from and Time to: Put in your licence time or can use the same as mentioned in existing fees
Dates - Enter the period of time that the centre will be open and charging special rates for
Fee amount - $? (Hourly) and $? (daily)
Invoice Attendance - Can select the Charge by attendance if you only want to invoice for the time attended (Please note it works with hourly fees). In order to calculate correctly, you need to first enter the attendances and then the invoice with the correct amount will be generated.
If you do an invoice for current/ future week you might need to untick Automatic invoicing from the Centre setting> Invoice settings and manage it manually. Using Bulk Action> Select Action- Enrolment Invoices for that duration.
Max weekly cap - In case if you have maximum weekly amount to be charged
You will need to run a Split Enrolment to cover the differing date ranges
Go to Bulk Action> Select Action - Split Enrolment
Split the enrolment for your date ranges
Please go to each Child's Enrolment tab. For the first enrolment, select the correct fees.
The second enrolment will have the information as the existing enrolment. It can be kept as it is if no further changes required.

Emergency Closures

An Emergency Closure occurs when circumstances beyond the control of individual services cause temporary closures.

Funding Continuity

Funding will continue where a service was forced to close for a short time. In an emergency closure approval needs to be obtained from the Ministry regional office.

The following are examples of emergencies where funding will continue:

Extreme weather conditions
Interruptions to essential services
Non-controllable health and safety issues

If your service is forced to close in an emergency contact your Ministry's local office. They will approve funded emergency closure and confirm this by letter.

Select Day Type > Emergency Closure
Select the start and end dates in Date From – Date To
Is Open > Leave unticked (even if it is a partial day)
Chargeable > Set as required/per centre policy
Save (when saved, all children will be marked as on Holiday)

Range of Days/Extended Period of Closure

Normally, Emergency closures are only a day or two, so this is a unique situation.

You will need to select the Emergency closure for the days your centre is normally open and between your current centre holidays - i.e. not Sat/Sun, just select Mon - Fri for a week at a time and in between the public holidays (when you are normally closed, if that is the case).

If you choose No Charge, the families will be not charged for that day. If invoices have already been sent, the next invoice cycle will automatically place a credit on their account. The Charge option means they will be charged the full amount for the day.

If you would like to give families a partial refund, this can be done via Bulk Actions > Partial Closure - Credit Note or create a manual credit note for the relevant families.

Alternatively, you could set a % holiday discount for the day and give each child a discounted holiday, however, this will consume some of their holiday entitlement so you also might consider increasing the child's holiday entitlement.

You can do this in the Child Record > Calendar > Override Entitlement

Partial Closures & Half Day Holidays

Not to be confused with Emergency Closures. An emergency closure occurs when circumstances beyond the control of individual services cause temporary closures.

MOE Definition: "A service can only claim funding for the hours they are open (half-day). The service cannot claim funding for the hours the service was closed."

Restricted Opening Day or Early Closure

Select Day Type > Restricted Opening
Select the start and end dates in Date From – Date To
Is Open will be automatically ticked
Chargeable > Select as relevant
If you have optional charges, it will function as per the holiday credit method in Charge Adjustments.
Save
Enter the Opening and Closing times, then Save again

Please note: Though Restricted Hours means the centre has reduced hours on this day, this does not change enrolments or the amounts parents are invoiced, however, no MOE funding will be claimed outside of the specified hours for the day.

If you choose No charge, the families will not be charged/refunded for that day. If invoices have already been sent, the next invoice cycle will automatically credit their account.

If the parent is charged they will be charged the full amount for the day.

If you choose to close slightly earlier and open slightly later, but still over 6 hours per day, you still need to alter the Opening Hours for MOE funding purposes as you will need to keep accurate information for auditing purposes too. It is up to your centre as to how you meet this requirement.

You can use the Restricted Hours feature so that any booking that falls outside those hours is correctly reported for Funding.

Holidays set at a Group Level

Holidays set at a Group level will appear in brown on the Centre Calendar and can be adjusted, but only at a centre level. The new settings will not change for other centres in the group.
Once adjusted, the holiday entry will appear in orange, and if deleted, the calendar entry will return to the brown group level settings.

To create a Group-level Calendar entry:

Navigate to Group > Group Calendar.
Double click the relevant date.
Enter Holiday information as above.