Nursery World - To the point - Take care of cash flow

As a childcare provider with nursery settings throughout the country, it is important that we control our business systems efficiently to make the most from the resources we have available.

This matters just as much whether you have one or many settings. Increasingly over the past 12 months I have had conversations with other providers about the levels of debt they have or the security of money owed to them.

Cash flow is extremely important to businesses that are working with very low margins. Inevitably the greatest cost is staff wages, and it is vital that all of the staff are paid on time, as they have regular bills and commitments.

Many providers and parents have expressed concern over the security of childcare voucher payments, as there are now so many voucher providers. We ran our own childcare voucher service for many years and were very aware of the importance of ring-fencing the voucher funds and not using the money to support general trading. The good providers are careful to identify voucher funds separately until they are paid to carers. We redeem thousands of childcare vouchers every month and have had little issue with the better voucher providers.

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