Design custom contracts, set billing schedules, define payment terms, and generate legally-compliant childcare agreements.
One correct contract means months of correct invoices — automatically. The billing mode, hourly rate, funded hours type, schedule, holiday rules, and recurring extras on a contract flow directly into every invoice KinderStart builds. Fix the contract once, and every future invoice is right.
Every time you generate an invoice for a child, KinderStart reads that child's active contract to answer these questions:
If any of these are wrong on the contract, the invoice will be wrong. Fix the contract and regenerate the invoice — that is all it takes.
The billing mode is the most important decision when setting up a contract. It controls the entire invoice calculation method.
KinderStart bases the invoice on what was contracted, not what happened in the diary. It counts the attendance days for the billing month using the contracted schedule, multiplies by your agreed hours per day, and applies your hourly rate.
Example:
Schedule: Mon–Fri, 8:00–18:00 (10 hrs/day)
Working days in May: 21
Contracted hours: 21 × 10 = 210 hrs
Rate: £7.00/hr
Invoice total: £1,470.00
Use CONTRACT mode when:
Holiday behaviour in CONTRACT mode: Your Holiday Billing Settings (from the contract and Business Settings) determine what happens on holiday days. If a child is away for a week and your policy is "half rate for child holidays", those days are charged at 50% rather than 0%.
KinderStart calculates the invoice from actual diary attendance records. It reads every diary entry for the billing month and processes the real start and end times from each session.
Use ACTUALS mode when:
This is the most commonly used mode for registered childminders. It creates a direct audit trail between diary records and invoices — which Ofsted inspectors and the LA can both verify.
Designed for funded-hours children. The LA pays you per term for the funded entitlement; the parent pays a consistent monthly amount for any private top-up. TERMLY mode divides the term's private cost by the number of invoice months in that term, producing an equal monthly charge.
Example (Extended 30 hours, spring term):
Funded hours: 15 hrs/week × 12 weeks = 180 hrs (paid by LA)
Private top-up: 5 hrs/week × 12 weeks × £7.00 = £420
Monthly equivalent: £420 ÷ 3 months = £140/month
Use TERMLY mode when:
A fixed annual private fee is agreed at the start of the year and divided by 12. The parent pays the same amount every month regardless of term-time or holidays.
Use ANNUAL mode when:
The contract links to a specific child profile. KinderStart pulls parent details from that profile, so keep parent contact information up to date in the child profile. This ensures invoices always reach the right person.
The period for which the contract terms apply. KinderStart uses these dates to apply the correct contract when generating invoices. If a child switches from part-time to full-time in September, set up a new contract starting 1 September rather than editing the old one. The invoice calculator uses whichever contract was active during each billing period.
Your private childcare rate in pounds per hour. KinderStart applies this rate to all billable hours — hours outside the funded window, or all hours if the child has no funding.
Your hourly rate and your LA rate are two different things. Your hourly rate is what parents pay for private hours. Your LA rate (set in Business Settings) is what the Local Authority pays per funded hour. The two are often different — for example, you might charge parents £7.50/hr but receive £5.20/hr from the LA for funded hours.
Review rates every April — your LA rate card updates annually, and outdated rates under-bill you by hundreds. Open each active contract, check the hourly rate against your current LA letter, and create a new contract or term override if the rate has changed.
An additional per-hour charge applied when a child is collected after the contracted schedule end time. Set this to £0 if you don't charge late collection fees. When set, ACTUALS mode calculates late minutes from the diary and adds a "Late Collection Fee" line to the invoice.
For ACTUALS mode, this is the reference schedule for determining what a "normal" day looks like — particularly for late fee calculation and for absence claim hours.
For CONTRACT mode, the daily schedule is the basis for the entire invoice calculation. It must accurately reflect the contracted hours.
Daily Schedule lets you set different hours for different days — for example, Monday 8:00–18:00, Tuesday 8:00–13:00, Wednesday off.
Which days of the week the child is contracted to attend. This drives the CONTRACT mode calculation and informs the ACTUALS mode schedule reference.
A fixed daily charge (in pounds) added for every day the child physically attends in ACTUALS mode. Use this for standard consumables included in your care — meals, nappies, craft materials.
Set this to £0 if consumables are included in your hourly rate or not charged separately.
Set funding correctly or KinderStart cannot protect you from over-charging parents — a legal risk, not a billing one.
In the contract editor, select the child's Funding Type:
| Type | Who it's for | Annual Hours |
|---|---|---|
| None | Fully private — no LA funding | — |
| Universal 15 | All 3 and 4-year-olds | 570 hrs/year |
| Disadvantaged 15 | 2-year-olds meeting eligibility criteria | 570 hrs/year |
| Working Parent 15 | Working parent supplement, 15 hours | 570 hrs/year |
| Extended 30 | 3 and 4-year-olds, both parents working | 1,140 hrs/year |
| Working Parent 30 | Full 30-hour working parent entitlement | 1,140 hrs/year |
Once a funding type is set, the invoice calculator knows:
If the child's funded session times differ from your business default, set a contract-specific funded window:
Example: Your business default is 09:00–15:00, but one child's funded hours run 08:00–13:00 per their LA letter. Set that child's contract to 08:00–13:00 — it applies only to that child.
Some LAs only start funding from a specific date (e.g., the term after the child turns 3). Enter the Funding Eligibility Date on the contract. The invoice calculator will not apply funded hours to any sessions before this date, even if the funding type is set.
Funded hours must appear as £0.00 on parent invoices. This is a legal requirement. KinderStart generates the funded hours line at £0.00 and labels it "Funded Hours (X.XX hrs)". Never charge parents for the funded portion of their entitlement — not directly, and not disguised as a supplement.
Each contract specifies holiday billing terms that override your Business Settings defaults for that specific family. Use this when individual families have negotiated different terms.
What percentage of the normal rate you charge when you are closed:
| Setting | Invoice result |
|---|---|
| None (0%) | No charge on your closure days |
| Half (50%) | 50% of contracted rate on closure days |
| Full (100%) | Full rate charged even when you're closed |
What percentage of the normal rate you charge when the child is absent on holiday:
| Setting | Invoice result |
|---|---|
| None (0%) | Free for parent on their holiday days |
| Half (50%) | Half rate on child's holiday days |
| Full (100%) | Full rate regardless of child absence |
If your policy includes a set number of free holiday days for the family, enter:
KinderStart tracks these across the year. It applies the free days first, then the paid days, then falls back to the Child Holiday Charge rate for any days beyond the allowance.
Mark holidays correctly in the diary — KinderStart handles the rest. When the invoice calculator encounters a diary entry marked as a child holiday, it checks how many free days have been used and applies the correct multiplier. No manual adjustment needed.
Recurring extras define charges that appear on every invoice — without adding them as manual line items each month.
Build your library of standard charges before linking recurring extras to a contract. Go to Business Settings → Invoicing & Billing → Consumables Library:
The library is your master list of reusable charge definitions. Create a charge once and link it to any number of children's contracts.
Typical consumables library items:
| Item | Price | Frequency when linked |
|---|---|---|
| Hot lunch | £3.50 | Daily (attendance days only) |
| Breakfast provision | £2.00 | Daily (attendance days only) |
| Afternoon snack | £1.50 | Daily (attendance days only) |
| Weekly activity pack | £8.00 | Weekly |
| Monthly craft materials | £5.00 | Monthly |
| Annual registration fee | £25.00 | Monthly (÷12) |
In the contract editor, scroll to the Recurring Extras section. Tap + Add Extra:
Once linked, these extras appear on every generated invoice for this child, correctly pro-rated for the billing period.
Example — a contract with three recurring extras:
Child: Oliver Smith — May 2026 invoice
Funded Hours (15.00 hrs) £0.00
Billable Hours (25.00 hrs) £187.50
Hot Lunch (21 days) £73.50 ← daily extra, auto-added
Weekly Activity Pack (4 weeks) £32.00 ← weekly extra, auto-added
Monthly Resource Fee £15.00 ← monthly extra, auto-added
─────────────────────────────────────────
Total Due: £308.00
For a daily recurring extra like "Hot Lunch", charge only for days the child was present. Toggle on Attendance Days Only and the calculator counts the actual diary sessions.
For a monthly extra like "Monthly Resource Fee", this toggle does not apply — it is charged once per invoice regardless of attendance.
Important: Absence-claim days (where LA funding is claimed for an authorised absence) do not count as attendance days for consumables and recurring extras. The child did not attend, so no meals or extras are charged.
Sometimes a child's terms change temporarily — an agreed rate reduction during a difficult period, or a rate increase after a review — but you want to keep the existing contract rather than creating a new one.
Term Overrides let you define a date range with different terms:
The invoice calculator uses the correct terms for each date: standard contract terms outside the override window, override terms within it. If a rate change happens mid-month, the invoice contains two separate line items — one at each rate — for the correct number of days.
| Status | What it means | What to do next |
|---|---|---|
| DRAFT | Created but not yet sent to parent | Review the contract, then tap Send for Signature |
| SENT | Sent to parent for review | Wait for the parent to sign via the parent portal, then tap Approve once they have signed |
| SIGNED | Parent has digitally signed | Tap Approve to activate the contract |
| ACTIVE | Currently in force — used for invoice generation | No action needed; KinderStart uses this contract automatically |
| EXPIRED | End date has passed | Create a new contract if the arrangement continues |
| CANCELLED | Manually cancelled before end date | Create a new contract if a replacement is needed |
The status flow is: DRAFT → SENT → SIGNED → ACTIVE. After the parent signs, you tap the Approve button to move the contract into ACTIVE status and enable invoice generation.
For invoice generation, only ACTIVE or SIGNED contracts are used. If a child has no active contract, the invoice generator will prompt you to create one before proceeding.
When you tap Generate from Attendance on an invoice, here is exactly what happens:
Every step is logged in the invoice's day-by-day breakdown, accessible by opening any generated invoice. This breakdown is your audit trail for Ofsted and LA queries.
The contract wizard walks you through five screens in order. Complete each one and tap Continue to move to the next.
Inspectors routinely ask to see contracts during visits. They look for:
KinderStart generates all of this automatically. The generated PDF is EYFS-compliant and includes all mandatory sections in a format inspectors recognise.
Quick demo for inspection: Open any child's profile → swipe left through the profile tabs until you reach Contracts (it is not on the first tab — the profile opens on Identity, so keep swiping left) → tap a signed contract → show the PDF. Demonstrate this in under 30 seconds.
Yes. Children often have successive contracts as their arrangement changes (going from part-time to full-time, changing their schedule seasonally). Keep old contracts as records; only the contract active during a billing period is used for invoice generation.
Use a Term Override to specify the new rate and the date it takes effect, rather than editing the main contract rate. This preserves the record of what was agreed at sign-up and generates correctly-split invoices if the rate change happens mid-month.
Set LA rate cards globally in Business Settings → Invoicing & Billing → LA Rate Cards by age group (3–4 years, 2-year-olds, under 2s). One set of rate cards covers all children of the same age, because the LA pays a fixed rate per age band.
Yes. Once you send a contract for signing, it appears in the parent's KinderStart app under Documents → Contracts. They read the full PDF and sign digitally. Both parties receive a copy of the signed document.
Set the Funding Eligibility Date on the contract. The invoice calculator won't apply funded hours before that date, even if the funding type is set. Sessions before the eligibility date are billed at the private hourly rate.
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KinderStart strives for accuracy. Competitor features and pricing comparisons are based on publicly available information as of May 2026. Details are subject to change by respective providers.