So welcome to home based childcare contracts, financial planning. And we'll go over some policy information as well. So, what is a childcare contract? So this is a contract made between the parent or guardian and a child care provider that outlines the terms of the child care for the parent or guardian's child or Children. So your state may have specific items that you will need to include your in your contract. A policy handbook is the rules that outline how you will care for the child and what the expectations are from both parties. So a contract and a policy are two different things. So it's important that you understand what the difference is between the two. So you want to include your financial policy. So when thinking about opening a home base, the financial plan is an important part that should be in your family policy handbook. So all the questions, the same thing that we talked about before, will you have a sliding scale based on income? Will you charge more for infants? Will you provide meals or have parents provide those meals? How much will you charge families? What will you be giving the sibling discount? What is your late fee for payments and your return check fee? So what should you include in your contract? Well, you should have names and ages of the Children that are going to be cared for birth dates included and the parent guardian contact information. So this is going to include your emergency contacts in case of a different pick up one day, who's authorized to pick up that child? And if there are any custody issues of somebody that cannot pick up the child, these are all really important things that you need to think about. I mean, you want to include in your policy during your contract. So, payment information, when is your payment going to be due? What are the overtime rates? What are the late pickup fees? What are your charge for holidays, vacations and other absences? So if a child is out sick, are you going to be charging families for that? Any other charges? So if you're going to be taking the Children on a field trip or you're going to be purchasing anything for the Children, gifts for holidays, things like that. And then you want to include those deposits, are you going to require a deposit? Most places will require a two week deposit that's collected at the time of enrollment, that's going to cover the last two weeks of care provided. This also covers you in case somebody leaves without paying their bill, then you have that deposit that is there for you already. And so what else should you include? Termination procedures, so the provider's right to end the care agreement arrangement and relatively short amount of time for any reason. So this could be for non payment, this could be for child becoming a danger to the other Children. You want to make sure that you have something in your policy that states that that can be terminated. A statement saying that parents must pay you during the termination period whether or not the child attends during that time. So if a parent says that next Friday is going to be their last day but they are not going to pay you for those. You can put in there that you require a two week termination period, so that you're still getting your pay. It's also the provider's right to terminate care without any given notice when a parent is behind and making payments. So if a parent stops making payments you have the right to not accept that child any longer. So those are all really important things. ,Let's take a look at our sample family childcare contract, you can find this in the resource section. So this is just a sample, but it has the parents guardians, the name, address, name of the family childcare provider which is going to be you. And the Children's names and birthdays. So you want to make sure you have those dates of birth on there because when your state licensing representative comes in, they're going to make sure that the birthdays the Children are within those ages. So if you can only have two under the age of two, you know that you cannot accept another two year old or under until that one of those Children terms too. So you want to make sure that you have all of that in there. The payment for care shall be whatever you're going to be charging by the week, day or hour and it should reflect the schedule. So are they going to be, what time will they be dropping off? What time will they be picking up? Obviously, if it's within your hours and you're open from 7 to 5 and the parent says, hey, I'm going to be running late if their time is scheduled to be picked up at 3. You have the ability to charge extra for those days or you can not charge extra that's completely up to you. So what is the late pick up for you going to be? If a parent is running late and they are running late to the point where it's a constant habit and you decide you want to charge them late fees for picking up, you have the ability to do that. So what day of the week do you require payments? Do you want them to pay you Monday for that week or do you want them to pay you Friday for that week? Again, those are things that all need to be put in here. If the payment is not made on time, will you be charging a late fee for payments, that's also something you would let you want to put on there. So if you use a childcare app for payments, so these are care for kids payments. Bright Wheel app has one, you can go on there and set when the parent has to pay you and they can add that to their fee. They can charge you and it will go right directly to your bank account. If you're going to charge beyond, we talked about that. So are you going to charge for holidays, vacations and other absences? This is typically something that providers will do because in a typical job you're getting holiday pay, you're getting vacation pay, things like that. So this is a job for you. So, therefore you should be allowed to have your payments for your vacations and holidays. But again, that's completely up to you if you choose to do something like that. So if they are not going to be expected to pay, then you want to make sure that that's outlined in there. Also, sometimes family providers will give the families a week of vacation time that they don't have to pay for. So if that's something that you want to do, you can put that in there as well. Any additional charges, so will you be charging for damaged property if a child breaks a toy? Will you be charging an additional fee if you're going to be taking the Children on a field trip? So if you're going to take all of the Children to the zoo, will you be asking parents to provide the money for them to get into the zoo or will that be something that you cover? Also the termination procedures? So this is basically saying that I can terminate care at any time that I feel this is not a good fit. And then of course you want to have their signatures because this is a legal document. So if it gets to the point where you need to go to court or do anything with this as far as non payment, this is a legally binding contract. So you have the rights for that payments.
