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Conditions for waiving Parent GAP

DESE has announced that services have the option to waive the gap (difference between Fee charged and CCS paid) for children under the following conditions:

  • the service is in an area under Stage 3 or higher lockdowns
  • the child is absent due to covid 19
  • an absence is recorded

Read the (very limited) details of the rules here : https://mailchi.mp/80285720845b/response-to-covid-19-in-victoria-are-you-ready-for-ccs

Auto Gap Fee Wavers for an entire attendance

To help you manage this process, SmartCentral has introduced additional options on the attendance screens to automate the waiving of the parent GAP, but it can only be for the entire week.

See the Staff Help on how to automate the waiving of the Parent GAP here.

The above help is for waiving the Parent GAP for the entire week, when every session has been marked absent.

See below on how to waive the Parent GAP for those sessions marked absent, in an attendance that also has attended sessions.

Direct Debit - Stage 3 Lockdown Areas.

Ignore this bit if you do not Direct Debit Fees

For those parents, you are waiving the entire week’s Parent Gap, we suggest you untick the DD box to ensure they do not accidentally get billed.

For those families you are partially waiving the Parent fee for, you need to make sure you have manually refunded the partial GAP, prior to invoicing the parent or Direct Debiting their balance.

Projecting Fees - Stage 3 Lockdown Areas.

Ignore this bit if you do not project fees.

Projecting Fees are based on an enrolment’s bookings and absent bookings are still counted as a charge.

If you are waiving the parent GAP partially or for the entire week, then we recommend you DO NOT project fees for the families you know in advance will be absent due to COVID reasons.

If all active families are grouped with a Parent Tag (Parent’s Direct Debit TAB -> Filter) then you can change the filter for those families, you know in advance, are going to be absent for the projected weeks to a COVID19 filter. Your Active families who will continue to attend will be tagged something else (eg Active) and exited families tagged for eg. InActive or Exited.

You then run the projected fees, for the other group of Active families only, using the parent TAG you gave them. (eg Active)

In this way you will only project fees for those attending.

COVID 19 Misc Fees

Set up a new Misc Fee Code so you can keep track of any manually waived fees.

Weekly Attendance Screen

You can only waive the fees if you are in one of the locked down postcodes/areas, and only if they are absent for COVID reasons. This bit isn’t likely to constantly change. According to the rules it should only apply to covid absences, but if the absence is under 42 days then no reason is required. so you can see this is hard to fully automate.

I can’t guarantee what will be the result of their design discussions, as it is still being talked about as to what they can and cannot automate.

Possibly: due to the way ccs is calculated, it’s likely we can only support automatic waiving of the gap if the child is absent for all sessions in the week . Part weeks will need to be done manually using a negative Miscellaneous Fee charge to refund the GAP.

if its auto: it will be up to a centre to set a ‘closure’ or similar and it will have to be up to them to determine if it’s appropriate or it may have to be a booked ‘absence” or something completely different. We will know more next week.

Rest assured if it isn’t automated or automation takes longer than next week, you can waive fees via a manual negative Misc Fee charge.

I suggest creating a new one just for this Code say: CV19 & description relative to the situation. That way you can run the Misc Fee report by Type to see how much you waive each week, to determine if it’s viable for you to continue to do so &/or give to your accountant/book keeper.