How to Enter Funding Grant Rates
In order for Famly to calculate what you can expect from the Local Council in funding for each child you'll need to enter your local council grant rates.
If you know that the rate will be changing, you can also add a new rate period.
How to Add Funding to a Child's Plan
Go to the Bookings tab in the child's profile to see their current plans. From here:
Click on the child's plan
Enter their sessions
Under Pricing Preview, click Add Public Funding
From here, you can view and edit funding information for this child
How to set funding automatically
By entering the allocated number of funded hours per week, Famly will automatically enter the amount in the Deduction from invoice box.
In the above example, to give this child 10 hours for free, £120 will be deducted from the parents' invoice based on the hourly rate of your session.
The number of hours you enter will depend on the number of hours your local authority mandates, and whether you're choosing to stretch their funding throughout the year.
How to set maximum funding hours per day
Setting the maximum funded hours per day will ensure the hours are automatically distributed accordingly across the week. Combining this setting with allowing or disallowing funding on specific sessions by clicking on them in the plan builder will help you with the setup of very specific funding patterns.
You can set a default maximum of funded hours per day by going to your Settings → Finances → Public funding
How to set funding manually
When you add funding to a plan, the system makes those hours free of charge, so the parent only pays for any hours above the number of free hours their child has been allocated. However, it is still possible to manually set the amount you would like to deduct from the invoice for the funding, but we don't recommend matching the claimable rate from the council as this could be the equivalent of adding a top-up fee.
Funding manually will leave you in total control of a child's plan funding and will require you to update it each time you change the plan or the child moves to the next pricing group.
💡 If you choose to set funding manually, you must also update the funding manually on this plan as this won't happen automatically if the child's bookings change
To set your funding manually, check the Set manually box in the Deduction from Invoice section to change your hourly rate or the total weekly invoice deduction amount:
What does the manual public funding alert mean?
When you set your funding manually, you may see an alert when you add a figure to the Deduction from invoice section.
This alert appears when the invoice deduction you've applied doesn't match the funding grant details.
For example, if the funding rate is higher than the hourly rate of the child’s sessions, the system will flag a potential discrepancy. Let's say a child is eligible for 10 hours of funding, but the deduction you've entered (£90) actually corresponds to 13.98 hours.
In this case, the alert is simply letting you know that the child is receiving more funding than they are eligible for.
💡 However, this is just a notification—it won’t prevent you from saving the plan. You can still proceed, but it's good to double-check your funding setup to ensure accuracy
How to Set Up Partially Funded Sessions
For sessions that are partially funded it is best to separate these into two segments, one funded and one non-funded. This is because if a session time is not fully funded it will calculate the funding per minute and due to rounding will result in your figures being off by a few pence.
To eliminate this issue, partially funded sessions should be entered as below. Say a child is attending a Full Day session, but funding should only be allocated between 6 am and 12 pm. Add two Full Day sessions with times to reflect the funded hours, then remove funding from one of the sessions:
You'll be left with a Full Day session, with funding applied to one half only:
To do this you will need a session available that can be booked by hourly and flexibly. See below which boxes need to be ticked to enable this. You can use your usual hourly pricing, or the hourly version of your day session to create this.
Now when you click on the session you will have the option to add two sets of start and end times, for example:
Save and your total will now be correct.
Change your Funding Distribution
If funding has been added, Famly highlights the hours that will be funded in a normal full week, by striping the session.
If you wish to change the way that Famly has distributed the funding, you are able to change it by clicking the session and selecting 'Disallow Funding'. Now, Famly will apply the funding to other sessions in the child's plan. A session that is marked with an 'F' is one that you have decided can have funding applied to it.
💡 You will receive a warning if there are not enough hours marked with an F to fulfil the number of hours you've added in funding. You will also receive a warning if the amount of funding (in £) is not large enough to cover the number of hours you've entered. The invoice will state the number of hours you've entered, not the amount in £.
See a Summary of Public Funding on a Child's Plan
To see a summary of a child's bookings, including Public funding and the amount shown on the invoice:
Go to the child's profile
Go to the Bookings tab in the child's profile to see their current plans
Click on their plan to open it
Find the Public funding section and click to open the summary
This will provide you with the funding details, as you've entered them - the number of hours and the funding amount that will be deducted from the invoice.
You can click on the arrow next to the session names in order to get a detailed breakdown.