How do I start using 20 hours ece in my centre?
To start using 20 ece hours in infocare, you first need to tell Infocare to use the 20 hours ece facility. Because of the rules and structure of the Ministry's 20 ece hours policy, it is necessary for the fee structure for the children having "ece" to be based on an hourly rate. Please ensure that the fee structure for these children is set to an hourly rate.
From the home menu, click "Centre", "Centre Options".
Scroll down to the "Miscellaneous Options" section and tick the "Offering 20 ece hours" check box. Scroll to he bottom of the screen and click the "Update" button.
You will now need to add a new timetable for each child who is having "ece" at your centre and to specify the number of hours "ece" that they will have.
From the home menu, click the "Children" icon, or from anywhere in the system, click the blue piece of puzzle at the top left of the screen that is labelled "Child".
Select the name of the child you wish to allocate ece hours to from the list of children's names.
Click on the Timetable" button.
Click "Add" to enter new timetable details for this child.
Enter the date on which you wish this timetable to be effective. For "ece' This date has to be set to a Monday. If you are adding a timetable for the start of ece in July 2007, set the effective date to 2 July 2007. You can enter dates as far in advance as you like.
Ensure that the correct "Fee Structure" has been selected for this timetable and that the "Fee Structure" is based on an hourly rate.
If this child is entitled to a fixed value discount (for any time they attend your centre that is not covered by ece), then enter the amount of the discount in the "Discount Amount" field.
If this child is entitled to a percentage discount (for any time they attend your centre that is not covered by ece), then enter the discount percentage amount in the "Discount Percentage" field.
Enter the times that this child will attend your centre on each day of the week. Enter the attendance times for this child in the top set of "From and to" times. Only use the bottom set of times if this child is attending two separate sessions on the same day with a break in between. If you have pre-defined session times, you will be able to select the session name from the "Session" drop down box for each day of the week.
If the child attends every day of the week at the same time, enter the times for Monday and then click the "As for Monday" button to copy the times to every other day of the week.
If you wish to clear all the times and start entering them again, click the "Clear Fields" button.
Enter the number of "ece Hours" that this child will have on each day at your centre. If the child is having all of their ece hours at your centre, you simply tick the 'Max" check box and the system will allocate the maximum hours of ece possible to this child.
Once you are happy with the times you have entered, click the "Update" button to save this timetable and return to the previous screen.