ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
RS7 Submissions in Discover (with Todd Painter)
RS7 Video transcript
Candace: Kia ora. Welcome to our RS7 webinar everyone. I’m Candace. I’m one of the trainers here at Discover and here we also have Todd Painter from Advance ECE. So, I’m sure many of you are very familiar with Todd. He has very kindly joined us in all of our RS7 webinars for quite some time now. He’s also a trainer and consultant in all things ECE, admin and today he’s going to take us through all of the details of preparing your data for your RS7 submission.
This session is recorded, and it will be posted later today. You can always find it on our knowledge base. And we do also have at the top of the screen there, you’ll see we’ve got a Q&A box. It’s just two little speech bubbles with a question mark in the middle of it. If you have any questions, please put them in there and we’ll take a look at those towards the end of the session.
That’s it for me for now. I will pass over to Todd.
Todd: Thank you, Candace. Welcome everybody to another RS7 submission webinar. This really did come out of COVID times really, where there was a lot of a lot of funding changes, lots of temporary changes that were happening. I was just saying to Candace before, it’s really lovely now it definitely feels a lot more calm. And a lot more settled, so it just means that we can just go through the details that you’d need to know around submitting an RS7 and that we could just be a little bit more relaxed and casual and get, make sure we get through and you understand all that you need to do.
I find that in these, you think, something in RS7, it’s actually quite an easy process. And you can just take a couple of boxes and you’re there, but we do generally find that in these webinars, there’s a good half of you that are actually quite new. Submitting an RS7 is actually, there’s a there’s a bit of money involved for services around this so it, and especially with pay parity and testing and pay parity, that’s actually quite a major thing now yeah.
It’s just really good just to, to go through it and just make sure that you understand all that’s current at the moment so that you can definitely make the right decisions. I am as Candace said I am a consultant. This is my webpage. I predominantly just work with services around administration.
Discover and Discover training is part of it, but we’ve got the likes of Candace here from Discover that does a lot of the, a lot of the training. What I do tends to be a little bit more around it might be integrations. It’s getting the, another level out of, out of your student management system from an administrator’s perspective.
So, do check my website. I do have some workshops coming up some events like with Early Childhood Council. I’m doing a management administration workshop coming up on the 11th of February and I do get around the country Wellington and Christchurch trips that are coming up. So, be sure to jump on the web page and if you’re interested in any help. Then just reach out.
So, what I’m going to do initially when I work out where I am, there we are. Initially, what I’m going to do is go through some notes that I have for this current funding period. So, this is the October to January 2025 funding period. It’s what we know as the March return, the March 2025 RS7 return. The Submission window opens on the 3rd of February, and it is the 10th of February that is the final date for either electronic or paper RS7 returns to be received by the ECE funding team.
Payment is then made overnight on the 3rd of March. I’m going to dive here straight into Pay Parity. So, funding rates. Refer to the ECE funding handbook, Appendix 1, on the education.govt.nz website, and note that new funding rates are effective from the 1st of January 2025. So, we do have a new set of rates there.
But for the minimum salary scale, so that’s pay parity, refer to Appendix 4 on the education.govt.nz website. I know that some places, there are places where funding rates and salary scales are published, but I always go to the source. I always go to the Ministry’s website, Appendix 1, Appendix 4. That’s the, that’ll be the most relevant and most accurate and most up to date.
Ensure that you refer to the salary scales from the 1st of December 2023. That is the current ones. I have just seen recently a service where they basically went through and jumped on the 1st scale that they saw and it’s actually out of date.
Current scale, current salary scales are from the 1st of December 2023. A little bit of FYI, a little bit of statistics here. 53 percent of services attest to the full salary scale. That was in the November 2023 funding round. 35 percent of services attest to extended. And now it’s down to 9 percent of services attesting to parity scale 1 to 6.
Definitely, definitely it’s moving definitely moving away from the one to six. And yeah, I’m surprised, we’ve only got a third of services that are actually extended. Most services are now on the full salary scale.
A reminder that from the 1st of October only permanently employed teachers in your service, both full time or part time, have to be paid at pay parity rates ,so that’s what we’re talking about here is you’re relieving staff, your casual teachers, then because they’re not permanently employed, they do not have to be paid at pay parity rates, but this does not override pay arrangements in existing employment agreements. So, I hope that makes sense. Refer to section 3B2 of the funding handbook and the pay parity guide and just know that the latest guide is dated just October 2024.
So, there’s, I know that a lot of us don’t spend much time reading the funding handbook and we can get lost in that or even the pay parity guide, but there is still a lot of crazy questions that can be out there. A lot of misunderstanding. If you’re going to do any reading, then I would suggest, yeah, Section 3b2 of the Funding Handbook.
Now, I’ve got this thing here about changing your attested salary scale for advanced funding months. What we normally do to optimise to optimise funding, basically, is that if we are looking to move from, say, extended to full, then the best time to do that naturally is at the start of a funding period, because that’s when you are attesting to have paid or certified teachers at that new scale.
So, that means October for us, for the current month of current funding period, or February, or June. Ultimately, those are the three times in the year that we would consider moving to a different scale. You can do other times naturally, but, you could do August, but generally to optimise your funding you’re going to look to actually make sure that you’re paying all your teachers at the scale that you’re going to attest to in the funding period October, February, June is your best time.
Now what happens here at the moment is, if you’re on Extended, you’ve paid your staff at Extended through October, November, December, January, then you’re going to submit your RS7 at Extended. Your wash up funding will be Extended, your Advance funding will be extended, but we do have this option here, where if you were considering moving to fall, then again, the same question, October, February or June.
If you decide that you want to move to full from October, then you need to have paid all your certified teachers the full salary scale from October, or if you intend to start it in February, you actually in this funding period can actually communicate with the ECE funding team and let them know your intention to move to full, and then that way your advanced funding, Can be at the higher rate. Okay, so then you would still I know this can be a bit confusing. So, just reach out if you need help. But, if you are at extended now, and you’re moving to fall from October, then you will attest in your seven that you have paid your teachers at full.
But if you intend to move to fall in February, Then you can actually ask for your advanced funding to be paid at full. So, that will actually help with the cash a little bit to actually support paying the teachers the extra amount.
What are my notes saying here? So, for whatever salary scale you paid or your certified teachers for October, November, December and January, if you intend to move the minimum salary scale in the next funding round, higher or lower from the 1st of February, you can contact the ECE funding team so that rate of your advanced funding in this payment can be paid to reflect the new intended scale.
It will be a EC20A form that you would… So, basically attesting to moving to the next scale in February. And just know that what actually happens is your March payment will still be at your old scale, and then the additional advance would actually be paid on the 20th of March. It comes in a little bit later.
So, there’s a little bit there but just know that you can get that extra bit of financial support, if you intend to move up a scale for the next funding period.
Now, resubmissions has become a bit more of a thing in recent times. We never used to really, really resubmit our RS7s. But things have become a little bit more fluid, where people have attested to the wrong rates, or they’ve missed data or whatever reasons. So, there’s been a bit of formality put in around the resubmission of an RS7. So, resubmission for prior RS7 periods has become Oh yeah. More of a thing in recent times. In the latest MOE bulletin, the issue one, two, three, which was on the 16th of January, it states that only prior periods, February to September, so that’s going to be the last two funding periods, February, March, April, May, last year, and June, July, August, September.
So, those last two funding periods last year can be submitted, but now only using a paper based RS7 form. So, that’s a change. Anything prior to February 2024 will not be processed. And just remember that if you find that you’re needing to resubmit your RS7 for February, March, April, May last year, or June, July, August, September last year that your resubmission may be audited. If you are having to resubmit February, March, April, May, and you’re submitting a paper based RS7 because of a mistake, then it may get flagged with the auditors and they may come out to actually audit your February, March, April, May.
So, just to tidy up things a little bit around the resubmissions. The other thing to tidy up is around service open, the SO code. So, if your service was open on a day where children were enrolled. But no children attended, you can claim funding for that day by emailing the ECE funding team, specifying the date your service was open with no children attending. When completing your RS7 form, use the SO code to input the funded child hours enrolled for that day so that funding is paid correctly. So, what that means is that, especially like in this period, over Christmas, we’ve chosen to be open between Christmas and New Year’s. And we had two or three teachers they’re working and out of five or ten planned children, no one turned up. So, you actually would in your centre calendar, in Discover, you’re going to put in and use the SO code to show that the service was open, but no children attended, but you actually do need to email the funding team and let them know.
So, I before this communication came out from Ministry, I had worked with some services last year where they had used the SO code, and they were unfunded. Because they actually hadn’t notified Ministry. Just look at it as a little bit like emergency closure. Although it’s not, it’s service open, no children attending, you need to notify the ECE funding team, and you need to use the SO code in your centre calendar so that goes through on your RS7.
Just a reminder around discretionary hours that services can use up to 80 discretionary hours when a qualified certificate reliever is not available. So, then yeah, that kind of sounds to me like someone needs to be away. Services are not required to have evidence that they have looked for a certificated teacher before using discretionary hours.
That’s a recent change. No longer need to keep evidence and that services are required to submit a record of the number of discretionary hours they have used in a funding period. And this is done automatically by Discover. So, you don’t need to worry about that. But just know that when you use discretionary hours, then when you submit your RS7, then there is a report that is sent to Ministry notifying of the discretionary hours that you used.
Reminder around emergency closure funding, and that is that it can be requested when services are unable to operate because they cannot meet minimum staffing requirements due to being unwell, staffing unwell with an infectious disease. So, if you’re facing operating issues, you contact your local MOE office, and then services may need to provide evidence before emergency closure funding is approved. That’s in there, but they tend to be still quite nice about it. And you would then select the emergency closure option in your centre’s calendar for that particular day so that your funding is claimed as a normal day of operation on your RS7. Yeah, so just. Same, same thing as that service open thing. If you can’t meet the minimum staffing requirements due to staff being unwell, then you will need to contact your local office and then you can actually use the emergency closure code in your calendar.
Another little reminder I love this because it’s all like little reminders, FamilyBoost. There is the ability for the quarterly statement to be sent automatically to all bill payers that had their child enrolled in that quarterly period, or you can use the bulk action feature to manually send to just those that request it. If you want to automate, make sure this is turned on under your centre settings.
I recommend that we automate because it’s going to be something that keeps coming up every 3 months. And having to send out these statements, what I like to do is send it to all automatically in the in the communication that goes out with that quarterly statement. I’ve just actually added a bit more to that and a link to the Inland Revenue webpage. So, what I’m actually doing is encouraging and encouraging. Thank you. all families to look at whether they can get that rebate. So, I just think it’s just good that a quarterly statement goes out and parents are regularly reminded to consider because I don’t think I don’t think all families are taking it up when they’re actually potentially entitled.
Those are my notes on this current funding period. So, nice, easy, tidy. We’re racing through it. Just about ready to submit an RS7 return. So, I will get into that. Share screen.
That’s all good, Candace. There’s nothing there that you can think of.
Candace: Not that I can think of.
Todd: Cool. Okay. Okay. So, you should be able to see the demo web page there for Discover. Thumbs up. Awesome.
Candace: Yeah. Cool. Good.
Todd: Okay. All right. So, what we’re going to do is. We are predominantly going to use demo data to submit an RS7, go through the RS7 process. I will flick over to my own centre at some stage so that we can look at real data, but just, for privacy, we don’t try and show you everything. So, to submit an RS7, we simply just go down to Ministry from the main menu. Click on that and then click on RS7. Once when that window pops up you will see up the top here in the blue box is a little RS7 wizard that explains the steps that you actually need to take in submitting your RS7.
So, step one, please ensure that all your staff rosters and attendance data is complete up to the end of the funding period. So, from the main menu there, you’ve got your attendance and your staff roster. So, then naturally all your children’s attendance will need to be in and recorded for the funding period. And your staff roster so the, a lot of us will use Discover to have a roster plan. So, we have to make sure that our roster actuals are in up to the end of tomorrow, 31st. Yeah, so up to the end of tomorrow.
Once we’ve done that, step two, if you have not done so already, then you must set up your public holidays for the next funding period in your centre calendar. The reason for this is so that the funding for your advanced days can be calculated correctly. So, what kind of happens is we generally open. 82, 83, 84 days in a funding period. It’s not huge fluctuation, but it does fluctuate and, funding on one or two days. If you’ve, if you have not put in your calendar that you’re actually going to be closed and you were funded a day that you were not actually open, then in your wash up, that’s a significant amount of money that’s taken back. So, we need to tell Ministry what, how many days we’re going to be open in the advance period so that it can be calculated correctly. So, what we do is we go into centre from the main menu and down onto centre calendar. Once when that opens, what I like to do is make sure that for the current funding period, which is October, November, December, and January, that we’ve definitely got our public holidays in there, so there was Labor Day on the 28th of October, we’ve got nothing that I can think of in November, December I think we were pretty much all off on Christmas Day, Boxing Day in this case, this particular service was open in between Christmas and New Year’s. If you were closed, you’re naturally going to click on that date, you’re going to choose that it was your holiday period as the right day type. Holidays, you’re going to put in your date range and make sure, because some people are getting caught out with this, around whether you charge fees or not for that. So, that’s what you would do to actually set up all days that you were closed. This is the same thing that you would do for the service open that we were talking about earlier, where you’re going to let Ministry know that you were open, but no children attended. And then, of course, emergency closure is the other option there. If that was something that happened to you, I thought magnify with a tornado, then there might be a few services that would’ve been using the emergency closure, but it sounds like they may have actually got away with that.
Okay. So, that’s October, November, December, and then January. Of course, you’ve got New Year’s Day, day after New Year’s Day. There’s Auckland anniversary on the 20th was Wellington. I cannot remember. I think Christchurch had theirs. October or November. I’m sure that you guys know when you had your public holiday and then we’ve got Waitangi Day. Oh, that’s in February.
Okay. So, that’s the current funding period. But if you remember in the wizard, it talked about for the advanced period. So, we want to look at February. So, Waitangi Day, nothing in March, April, we’ve got Good Friday, Easter Monday, Anzac Day. So, just make sure that those are in there. It may be that Discover has prompted you and it’s grey. If it’s a grey box, you need to go in and basically accept that public holiday. And May, that’s it. We go quiet in the middle of the year, don’t we, until June. Okay, so you’re going to go through and make sure that all your public holidays are in for the advanced funding period.
So, if I now go back to my RS7.
Candace, we might have Q&A time at the end. So, we’ve done step one, rosters and attendance data complete up to the end of the funding period. And then we’ve got the public holidays set for the next funding period, February, March, April, May. Maybe we should do June and then the step three is to review your centre funding by running a centre funding report. So, what this is if we go into reports finance reports. And then you go down to centre funding in here. We want to look at the current funding period. So, you’re going to go back to October. So, you want to run this report month from October 24 to January 2025 and then get report. Once when that comes through, then what you’re going to do there is you need to review your data. Now, the first thing that the report will show us here is your registered staff percentage. Okay, so this again is for October, November, December, January. What it’s telling us here is the days that you were open as by the calendar that you had put in your public holidays. And it’s put, it’s got here how many roster days you’ve got in Discover. So, we do want that to all match, but you can see like in January here We’re saying that we’re open on the calendar for 20 days, but at the moment, we’ve got 19 days of roster in there. So, there’s still another day of data to go in there. So, this service at this stage, if we look at October, on any day, it achieved 100 percent staff hour count, and on the worst day, it achieved a 67.47. And then over the month, it did 91.42. Now, none of that really matters too much. It, it does in the way of that you do ultimately want to try and achieve your staff, our account that you intend to achieve at the end of the funding period. It’s just this, that is the crucial part. As long as you achieve your staff, our account for the funding period, then, your funding will be as you were expecting. So, that, that’s just, that’s a guide. That’s, that just helps us with planning to see how we are. Tracking there’s a lot of services at the moment that have been considering the 100 percent staff hour count. So, they’re using this to help them either look at a prior period and work out what they needed to have done to have achieved 100 percent and then, of course, then they’re going to use this to actually monitor and make sure that they actually stay at the 100%. So, it’s quite a handy tool.
And then over here is your discretionary. Now the way that Discover works is that you can plan how many discretionary hours, it’s not planned sorry, it’s more a case of if you have a certificated teacher away and then you use discretionary but you might apply 8 hours of discretionary to a day, so then it will say 8, but Discover will only allocate will only take out of that 80 hours what actually makes a difference to your staffing account. So, it may be that this will say rostered 8, allocated 4, because 4 is actually what is making a difference, which means that you’ve still got that other 4, where you could actually have that allocated somewhere else. Okay, so you can basically roster as many discretionaries as you like. The allocated will stop at 80.
Now, once we’ve gone through the registered staff percentage, section and check that. Then what we need to do is we need to look further through here and what we’re doing is looking for any alerts and I can see that we’ve got one here for the 3rd of October. So, what happens there is we need to actually drill down. We can click on that blue link on the date. That’s a link to data where you can go in and look specifically at the makeup of your funded hours for that day and your staff numbers. So, then you can actually look to see what is going on and why you haven’t actually met, in this case the yellow, means you haven’t met the minimum staff requirement at some part of the day. So, it will be that you need to go back to your roster and look and see whether you’ve got something, some data missing from what you’ve got entered into Discover. You’re going to see how you can minimise and eliminate these alerts.
So, we need to scroll through and make sure that our data is all good. And you can see with this centre here, there was a little bit to be looked at. The other alert that you will get will be these red ones. And so that’s to do with unknown attendance. So, that is that’s this current week. So, there’s some missing attendance data at the moment, and we haven’t met minimum ratio for some reason. So, that’s another day that needs to be looked at.
Okay. So, once we’ve gone through and fixed our attendance and our roster data, and we’ve been able to eliminate these alerts, then our data is ready for an RS7. So, if I go now back to Ministry, RS7. So, we’ve done one, we’ve done two, and we’ve done three. We’ve done the, we’ve done the rosters, we’ve done the attendance data, we’ve done the calendar, and we’ve reviewed our funding data to make sure that. The data is all correct and ready to go.
So, step four is to create your return and submit your RS7. Okay, so what we’re going to do here is, ah, where is it, Candace? It’s not there. I’m in the wrong centre. Hang on. I’m in, I need to go back to the demo. Ministry, RS7. Okay, all right, so the current funding period is the October to January 2025. Submission start will actually say from the 3rd of February and that will actually say till the 10th, but you just got to make sure that you are selecting the right funding period and generally that’s the only one that will actually be there that you can create anyway. So, we’ll click create. Once when it’s gone through, then we’ve got another chance to just double check. We’ve got the right funding period 1st of October 24 to the 31st of January 2025. That is us. So, we’ll click continue. This part you can pretty much skip over, but what it’s telling you is this is the funded data, this is the data that is being submitted to Ministry for October, November, December, and January. It is your under twos and over two funded hours, your 20-hour ECE hours, and your staff hour count. Okay, so that can’t go in here and tutu with your numbers or anything like that. It’s purely just a window that shows that this is the data, these are the numbers that will be submitted to Ministry.
So, we click continue. In the advanced days, because we had gone through and we had done the calendar, then these days in here will reflect the number of days that you are open. So, you will be able to just skip over that and click continue. You will get this warning and that is because, oops, if I go back. You will get this warning because of we’ve got zero in against Sessional. That’s because we are an all-day service here. So, that’s why there’s nothing in there. So, you keep that nil and click continue. So, yep, that is okay. Happy with that. And here we are at the Attestation of Certificated Teachers’ Salaries.
Okay, so this is the big one. You definitely don’t want to be clicking No Salary Scale. Although that does happen for three or four services in each funding period. Base Salary Scale. This is where you are attesting to paying all your Certificated Teachers. At least the minimum step 1 which again it doesn’t really happen.
Parity. This is the 9 percent of services that are still attesting to this scale. So, this is that you are paying all your certificated teachers at least as per the scale one to six. And then, of course, we’ve got extended and we’ve got our full. Now, remembering that if, this is about what you did, what you paid your certificated teachers for the months of October, November, December, and January. So, it’s not about what you’re going to do in the future, it’s what you did for those four months. Okay, so if you’ve paid all your certificated teachers at the extended parity scale through October, November, December, January, you’re going to select extended. If you’ve actually paid all your certificated teachers at full parity salary scale from October, November, December, and January, then you’re going to select full.
Okay, so then we click continue and then on the last page we’re going to put our name, our phone number and what our role is and click submit. Okay, just keep in mind that what you are doing here is you are attesting that, you’ve made no false statement, that you’ve answered all the questions in full, and that you’ve got all documentation supporting the funding claim. So, what that is talking about is enrolment forms, attendance records, staff records, teachers’ qualifications, all that. That’s quite a big one. And that you just got to remember that funding can be withheld or claimed back in an audit. And of course, there is that thing of that you could be prosecuted or fined or imprisoned. That’s there. I’ve only ever known one person to actually cop the imprisoned. Thing for falsifying data, but yeah, just I don’t mean to scare but it’s just to just understand that what you’re doing here is attesting that that all the data in this claim, to the best of your knowledge, is true and correct.
Okay, so that is submitting an RS7. Candace.
Candace: Amazing. Okay we don’t have very many questions in the Q&A section at the moment. If you do have any, please post them there. But there is one really good one and this comes up every time and it’s an excellent question. We purchased an ECE centre in mid-December. So, there is a part of the funding period that is before we took charge. How do we manage the submission with the previous owner?
Todd: Yeah, the previous owner needs to submit an RS7 for their period, so that October, November, and mid-December more than likely that’ll be a paper RS7, so they’re best just to get in contact with the ECE funding team and just make sure that, yeah, so normally what happens is the previous owner submits it on paper, and because the new service now has the connection to Eli. They’re the ones that can actually do the electronic RS7 submission and that’ll just be forward that for your funding period. It will be that the March payment will come through to the new service. And that you will have to fight it out, divvy it up between you and the previous people.
Candace: Can’t make it too easy, can we?
Todd: It happens a lot. It happens a lot now. But yeah, you are relying on the previous owner to submit. So, just make sure that they know that they need to do that. Talk to them and make sure they know that they need to submit their October, November, December, and it will be paper based.
Candace: Another question. Will the recording be made available? Yes. Yes, it will. So, these are always, this will be posted later on this afternoon. And if you also click on your need help button at the top right-hand side of Discover, it’ll take you to our knowledge base. And from there, you can also do a quick search for RS7 because we’ve got like a checklist for you to run through. There’s a learning path. There’s lots of other sort of tutorial videos and that sort of thing. So, you can watch those as well. You’ve also got the support guides that will run you through step by step. And if you’re looking for more help you can always reach out to Todd. Of course, he does have sessions, being the consultant that he is. And for any troubleshooting you can always get in touch with our support team, of course. We also do run Expert Hour. Those run daily. So, you can search for those in the knowledge base as well. That’ll be a 1 1, 2, I think it can be up to 20 people type session. Those are available as well. So, do a quick search from your need help button of RS7 and you’ll find all the resources there.
Just having a look through some of the other questions.
When I go into the report section in Discover, under Ministry Reports, none appear. So, I can’t seem to access the Centre Report. Is this because this will be our first full funding period with Discover? It might have something to do with your settings. Settings. Quite possibly. Yeah.
Todd: Yeah, they just don’t actually have access or permission.
Candace: Yeah, I think you whoever has the main logins for your centre just check in with them because it likely has something to do with your settings.
Another question, can we use discretionary hours to bump up to 100 percent funding band?
Todd: Yeah, you can. Absolutely. But it is that the wording is that you can use discretionary if you’ve got a certificated teacher away. You can’t just go using it. I have lunch breaks or something like that, which is generally what people in the 100 percent they’re looking to do, they need 7 teachers to meet minimum ratio, and they’ve got 7 qualified and then someone goes to lunch. So, then they want to use discretionary for that. But the rules around discretionary is that it can be used when you’ve got someone away. So, I hope that helps with that.
Candace: Any other questions. Everyone, please pop them in the Q&A we’ve still got just over 10 minutes left, so plenty of time. And Todd is absolutely the expert here in all things, so please pop them through.
Todd: I just talk to a lot of people and hear lots of things.
Candace: I need to get in on your network. I need to be over in New Zealand actually. I’ll tell you what, when I came over for ECE the early childhood conference last year in Christchurch, the second I got off the plane, I thought, all right, now, how can I move to New Zealand permanently? I love it. I love it so much.
And the entire the community over there is just fantastic. You’re all you’re a great bunch of people and I love working with you all. That conference was such a highlight last year, getting to meet with everyone, chat with everybody. It was great.
Pop those questions in, guys. Now’s your time. Oh, excellent. We’ve got another one. All right.
When a child is away on holiday, do we mark them as absent or holiday? Or does holiday mean centre holiday or fees holiday?
Todd: Yeah, depends on where you’re doing it. Are you, if you’re doing it in the attendance screen, where there’s the drop down then it’s not really doing anything. It’s going to mark the child absent for absence rules. But it’s not going to change necessarily your invoicing. So, what I like to do is yeah, again, it I think it just depends a bit on you on your settings. Doesn’t it, Candace? But, if you go into the child’s calendar and mark them on holiday then at least it just shows that for internal reporting, it shows that they’re on holiday as opposed to just being, absent, which could be just being sick. But it’s in there where you can choose whether there’s going to be a charge or a discounted charge or no charge. But again, that depends on whether that’s an option in your settings.
Candace: Yeah, Lara’s just said here she was talking about the attendance screen. And I think, yeah, it largely does come down to what kinds of discount that you want to apply as well. And yeah, the difference between your holiday and your absence largely does come down to your reporting when we’re talking about absences and where they really have an impact is your absence exemptions.
Todd: yeah, the end screen that’ll just be for RS7 for absence rules that will just say that the child’s absent. If it’s, if it says holiday, then, it’s absent due to a holiday.
I can’t see any questions, Candace.
Candace: No, I can’t either. We did have one here. I know Tammy’s seen it. That’s right. It was more just about an individual FamilyBoost issue. Brilliant. All right. Oh, another question has come in. Just looking at EC20A form, what funding period will your advance period attestation apply? I assume March.
Todd: February, March.
Candace: February.
Todd: March, April, May, June.
Candace: I’ve got it written here. I always have to write down the funding periods in my book. Yeah, through, through till June.
Todd: Yeah, because February is your reporting month. March, so it will mean that you’ve already been advanced for February, so it means that your EC20A will give you advanced funding for March, April, May, June.
Candace: Just to follow up, it gives me three options, March, July. November.
Todd: Yeah. So, it’s telling you, you’re telling them which funding period.
Candace: Yeah.
Todd: So, you’ll be selecting July because the July funding the July funding period is February, March, April, May, March. Yeah, sounds a bit confusing. But yeah, it’s
Candace: sometimes I wish that they would do it by term turn 1, like 3, 3 months instead of 4. So, we can all remember very, this is Term 1, Term 2, 4. I
Todd: think the main thing just to remember is, because there is that thing of, months and stuff, but it’s just, it just supports you moving to the next scale, you will get some money it will. It will all come through in your wash up, but in the past, we had to wait for it in wash up, so we’re here at least now you can get a little bit to help you moving to the next step.
Candace: Another good question. Is there a grace period for sign in sign out, for example, 5 to 10 minutes before funding is affected?
Todd: Yeah, there is. There is a grace period. Although it’s not written in the funding handbook and so I’m guessing they’re talking about a sign in sheet.
Candace: Yeah. Yeah. If a child is signed in 5 to 10 minutes after or before.
Todd: Yeah.
Candace: It’s it is one of those vague things, isn’t it? It’s like an unwritten guide, a guide or, indication that, yeah.
Todd: Yeah, the auditors generally if you’ve got a child enrolled 9 to 3 for 6 hours for a 6-hour booking, then there is generally seen as a 15-minute grace on either side.
Yeah. Where, if the child doesn’t quite attend six it won’t necessarily be flagged for an absence rule. So, there is a little, there is a little bit of grace, but I generally try not to rely on that kind of thing. I’m like in the upcoming you Workshop that I’m doing for the child council. I talk a lot about having a really good enrolment process. That is basically an induction inducting the parents so that you set your expectations around attendance and try to avoid having to be concerned too much around grace periods because it isn’t actually. It isn’t actually a written rule.
Candace: We love a bit of vague. A bit of, yeah. Or
Todd: interpretations.
Candace: Interpret, yep.
Todd: Yeah, interpretations of rules.
Candace: I’ll never forget the first time I read the Funding Handbook. I will never forget it.
Todd: Don’t tell anyone, but it took me a long time to read it.
Candace: Do you know what I did? I sat down with a notebook. And studied it like I did at uni, I studied it. All right, I think that’s all the questions that we have for now. So, we will leave it there. Thanks again everyone for coming along and thank you so much, Todd.
These sessions are such an enormous help to everyone. I know everyone really appreciates them. So, this will be posted later today. It’ll be up if you just search RS7 in the support knowledge base. Oh, we’ve got a raised hand. Oh, sorry. Okay. All right. One last question. We got time regarding equity funding.
We have three children with special needs but are not receiving special needs equity funding. What do we need to do?
Todd: Oh, three children not receiving equity funding. Yeah,
Candace: That is a good question that I perhaps don’t have an immediate answer to,
Todd: But we’re talking about specific children. Yeah. Let’s we’ll have to park that one. And if you don’t mind just sending that question through to email and we’ll look into it for you. But yeah,
Candace: I’ll see what I can rustle up. Off the top of my head, I couldn’t tell you, but we’ll, I’ll look into it. All right. Everyone. Take care.
RS7 Video Details
What are RS7s, and how does funding work?
Join Discover training specialist, Candance Glover, and accredited Discover trainer, Todd Painter, as they take you through RS7 submissions in Discover in this informative webinar.
