Homebased: RS7 Submission and Checklist

The RS7 Early Childhood Funding Return is the main funding return for early childhood education services. All ECE services must complete the RS7 Return in order to receive funding.

The RS7 Return tells the Ministry the number of funded child hours that are funded for each service, and the rate at which each funded child hour will be funded.

The following guide goes through how to prepare for this funding period in Discover, and you can view our video library to assist you complete processes in Discover.

Please note: These videos may contain reference to Staff hours and pay parity. Please disregard these steps, as they are not applicable to Homebased services

1. MOE Updates

Please check the Ministry of Educations Bulletins to see if there are any for the current funding period that effect your centre. You can view these here.

2. Frequent Absence Checks

You can monitor your enrolments with frequent absences by downloading the Frequent Absence Report under Reports > Children Reports > Frequent Absences.

Discover automatically limits funding based on whether your children are breaking enrolment rules including frequent absences. In Discover, you do not need to manually apply any funding overrides or similar actions. If funding is limited due to frequent absence, the report will indicate as such.

A yellow status a indicates a warning for any absence types where child is starting to break rules and a red status a indicates funding stopped or limited for any reason.

For further information on reading the Frequent Absences report, please see our article here

3. Service Funding Report

The RS7 process submits the data as displayed in the Service Funding Report found via Reports > Homebased. 

Checking this report for the required funding period will ensure you don’t submit missing data. This report should be generated for the funding period you are submitting for

When checking this report, you may see red or yellow highlighted sections:

Red sections indicate that there is missing attendance data for the child for that day. 
Yellow sections may mean there is an issue with the child's hours for the day - they may have had their attendance logged outside of your service's opening hours.

You can click the drillable date on the left-hand side of the report, which will take you to roll for that day and supply more information about why there is an error. Common reasons included missing or incomplete attendance records.  

4. Update the Service and Educator Calendars

It is also worth checking your Service Calendar under Service > Service Calendar for holidays in the period being covered by this submission and the following two funding periods, to ensure current and future funding amounts can be calculated accurately.

It is also a good idea to check your Educator's calendars at this time, via Service > Educator Closures.

5. Submission

You can submit your RS7 funding by selecting the menu option Ministry > RS7. Select the correct funding period and press 'Create'.

All the data that has been prepared and checked through the Reports mentioned above will be confirmed throughout this process.

Services can submit as many times as they like prior to the cut-off date. The Ministry will review the latest submission once the cut-off date has been passed. If you miss the cut-off date, please contact the Discover Support Team.

Please note: You may see reference to Staff Hour Counts/Pay Parity throughout this process. Please disregard, as this information does not apply to Homebased services and will not impact your funding.