🔒 Paying with Tax-free childcare is in its testing phase and hasn't been released to everyone yet. If you don't see this option, don't worry! It's coming very soon 👀
If you'd like to pay your invoices using Tax-free Childcare (TFC), you can add this as a payment method in your in-app payment settings. Once your setting has enabled payments with TFC, you will be able to link your Famly account to your TFC account to start making payments. This article will walk you through how to link your TFC account to Famly and add it as a payment method.
💡 If you're having trouble connecting Famly to your HMRC account using a smartphone or tablet, try on a desktop computer instead
Link your TFC Account to Famly
Step 1:
To connect your TFC account with Famly, click on the banner or select TFC as a payment method in your automatic payment settings by clicking on Add payment method in your Balance tab.
Step 2:
Next, you will need to log into each of your TFC accounts (you have one for each child) and give Famly permission to link to your TFC accounts. Once you give permission, you'll be redirected back to Famly where you'll need to link your children.
Step 3:
Back on Famly, you'll need to enter each of your child's unique reference IDs to ensure the right children are connected. To find your child's reference number, in your TFC account, click on Account → Manage account → then scroll right to the bottom where it says "the payment reference for your child is ..."
The reference ID is unique to your child and is:
First letter of first name
Three first letters of surname
Five random digits
Once you confirm, you'll have connected your TFC account to Famly.
Step 4:
Then the next time you have a balance to pay, you can choose your children’s TFC accounts and pay their balances. Famly will display the balance including the government top-ups so that you can see if you can pay the balance in full or if you have to add more money into your TFC account.
You can use the amount in Cleared funds to pay with, which is what has already been topped up by HMRC
💡 You still need to top up your TFC accounts via bank transfer, but you don’t need to log into the TFC portal anymore to pay the setting.
Step 5:
If you are a bill payer for multiple children, you will need to enter the amount that you want to pay for each child. You can do this by using the Custom amount option when you click the three dots '...'
If you are invoiced for non-eligible items, it's your responsibility to make sure you only use TFC for eligible items. For pre-primary age that’s everything, but for OOSC, for example, it’s only sessions but not consumables
Step 6:
Lastly, when you tap Pay, the payment will automatically be added to your bill payer account and your balance will be updated!
Troubleshooting Tax Free Childcare Payments
If Tax Free Childcare payments are not working for you, there may be a few reasons. Here are some helpful tips to troubleshoot any TFC issues:
You need to have your setting linked to your TFC account, which you can do in the portal
You need to be marked as an invoice recipient or a bill payers
TFC setup can only be used by one login, even if there are multiple invoice recipients linked to a bill payer
You need to have topped up your TFC accounts