Childcare centers can receive subsidy payments from state, federal, and/or local agencies. Managing these payments requires a different set of accounting features than managing privately paid invoices and payments from a student’s family.
Playground simplifies the process of managing third-party agency payments, ensuring programs can account for all revenue streams for their business.
Subsidies Dashboard
Under your Billing tab, navigate to Subsidies. This page will list all of your existing Agencies, a comprehensive list of Debits, and a comprehensive list of Credits across all funding sources.
Add Agency
From your Admin Dashboard, click on the Billing tab and then the Subsidies sub-tab.
Click Add Agency in the top right corner.
Add the Agency name.
Optionally add the Agency ID and/or description.
Click Save.
Agency name | Funding source that is providing payments to your center for childcare. Typically, a government organization or non-profit |
Agency ID | Unique ID provided by the agency (Optional) |
Description | Description of the agency or of the funds attributed to the agency for your convenience (Optional) |
Record deposits
Your method for recording subsidies will depend on how you charge families and track subsidy payments. Please refer to the section below that best matches your current subsidy tracking practices.
💡 Pro tip #1: Create a Program called the Subsidy Agency and enroll all of the students receiving the subsidy in it. This will allow you to use the Filters at the top of the Student Distribution table so that you do not have to sift through all of your students when recording deposits.
💡 Pro tip #2: The right-hand side of the Record Deposit screen will help you reconcile the deposit totals to the individual totals of all students who received the subsidy in the Distribution table.
I charge families the full price of care and add a credit for the subsidy
💡 The steps below should be used if you charge subsidy families full tuition and then record a credit in the amount of the subsidy payment to decrease the guardian's balance.
Navigate to the Subsidy dashboard and click on the subsidy agency.
In the top right corner, click Add and click the deposit option.
In the window, enter the Service start and Service end dates.
Optionally add the Deposit date and/or Deposit number
Toggle on Received option in the right corner
Optionally, the Date received can be updated to reflect when the payment was actually received, instead of using the default deposit date.
In the Distribution section of the page, distribute the total received amount per child. This is where you allocate the funds per student who received them.
Click Next: Review button in the top right corner to continue.
On the next page, be sure to toggle on Skip Expected Values so that families are not double charged.
Click finish and record in the top right corner to save.
Once you save, the guardian's balance will decrease by the received amount.
Family-view of Deposits
Primary guardians will see an invoice for the full amount of tuition on their statement. This charge will show under the student's specific Debits tab and does affect the guardian's current balance.
Once the amounts received for the subsidy have been entered, guardians will see a credit for the amount received. This will be reflected on the student's statement and on their specific Credits tab and will affect the guardian's current balance.
I charge families their copay and record subsidy payments separately
🚨 There has been a change to how subsidies are recorded in the system. In the past, the received amount for a subsidy was added to the expected amount and displayed as a discount. After the migration to the new system, this is no longer the case. Now, the received amount will be recorded as a credit. If you choose to waive the remaining balance, that waiver will also be recorded as a credit. Historical data will remain exactly as it was under the old system, but everything entered after the migration will follow this new credit-based behavior.
💡 The steps below should be used if you charge subsidy families only their private copay portion of the tuition, and separately charge and record payment for the subsidy agency.
When expecting a subsidy, navigate to the Subsidy dashboard and click on the subsidy agency.
In the top right corner, click Add.
In the window, enter the Service start and Service end dates.
Optionally add the Deposit date and/or Deposit number
On the Record deposit page, click on the Next: Review button in the top right-hand corner.
Distribute the total expected amount per child in the Distribution section of the page. This is where you allocate the total expected amount on a per-student basis.
If you haven't received the funds yet, click Finish and record in the top right to save your progress. When the payment arrives, proceed to the next step.
Navigate back to the specific deposit and click the edit pencil icon to the right of it.
When funds are received, toggle on the Received option in the right corner
Distribute the total received amount per child in the Distribution section of the page. This is where you allocate the total received amount on a per-student basis.
Click Next: Review button in the top right corner to continue.
On the review page, if the student's expected amount does not equal the received amount, the system will note the discrepancy in the Adjustments column. You have 3 options:
Waive: This will credit the adjustment amount, and the guardians will not see any change in their balance. This is a loss to the center of funds, which were not paid. This typically occurs if student attendance is not properly recorded.
Charge: This will charge the primary guardian the adjustment amount and add the amount to their balance, transferring the charge from the agency's responsibility to the guardian's.
No action: Keeps the adjustment on the guardian’s balance without waiving it.
Click finish and record in the top right corner to save.
🚨In the past, if a deposit only had an expected amount entered and nothing was entered for the received amount, no debit was created on the student’s account. After the migration, that behavior has changed. Now, entering only an expected amount without recording a received amount may impact the student’s balance.
This usually won’t cause problems since the system defaults to waiving the difference, but it’s worth double‑checking deposits before saving to be sure the balances are correct.
Family-view of deposits
Primary guardians will see an invoice for their copay portion of the tuition. This will affect their current balance.
Once the expected and received amounts have been entered, guardians will see a debit for the expected amount and a credit for the received amount. This will be reflected on the student's statement and on their specific Debits and Credits tabs but does not affect the guardian's current balance.
Editing and Removing a subsidy deposit
Editing a Subsidy Deposit
Navigate to the Subsidy dashboard and select the subsidy agency.
Click the three dots next to the subsidy deposit and choose Edit.
On the Record deposit page:
To edit a received amount, toggle Received on, update the amount, and click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save.
To edit an expected amount, toggle Received off, click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save.
Deleting a Subsidy Deposit
To delete a subsidy deposit (expected or received):
Navigate to the Subsidy dashboard and select the subsidy agency.
Click the three dots next to the subsidy deposit and choose Edit.
On the Record deposit page:
To delete a received amount, toggle Received on, set the amount to $0.00, and click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save.
To delete an expected amount, toggle Received off, set the amount to $0.00, and click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save. marked as Paid.
Once deleted, the deposit will still appear on the student’s ledger as a debit or credit, but the balance will show $0.00 and the status will display as Paid.
Editing Older Subsidy Deposits
Previous subsidy deposits from the old model are still present in the new system. When edits are made to these deposits, an extra warning will appear. A banner shows at the top of the page, and before saving, a confirmation modal must be agreed to. This step is required because editing older deposits can change student balances.
When an older deposit is edited, it can affect student balances in ways that may not have been part of the original record. These updates will show directly on the student’s ledger and are included in autopay, so any adjustments made here will carry forward into billing.
Steps to edit a migrated deposit:
Open the deposit and select Edit.
On the Record deposit page, update the amounts as needed.
A banner will appear at the top of the page explaining that this deposit came from the old model.
Before saving, a confirmation modal will display. Select the checkbox to confirm that the edit may impact balances, then click Edit deposit to finish.
