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 Full Tuition and Apply a Credit for the Subsidy
💡 Use these steps if you charge subsidy families full tuition and then apply a credit once the subsidy payment is received. This reduces the family’s balance without changing their original charges.
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 This deposit has been received option in the left corner and enter the 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. Do not enter anything in the expected values
Click Next: Review Difference button in the top right corner to continue.
If everything is correct, Click finish and record in the top right corner to save.
Enter Confirm to verify the change and finish. Click Edit Deposit.
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.
For a step-by-step video walkthrough of this process, click here
I charge families their copay and record subsidy payments separately
🚨Subsidy deposits now record differently in the system. In the past, expected subsidy amounts were combined with the received amount and shown as a discount. Now, any expected amount is recorded as a debit (charge), and any received amount creates a credit on the family’s ledger.
If you choose to waive the remaining balance, that waiver is also recorded as a credit. All older deposits will stay exactly as they were, but everything created going forward follows this new credit-based system.
💡 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
Toggle on This deposit has been received option in the left corner and enter the deposit date.
Distribute the total expected and received amount per student in the Distribution section of the page.
If you haven’t received the funds yet, we recommend waiting to enter the deposit until payment has arrived. Entering only the expected amount will create a debit on the student’s account.
Click Next: Review button in the top right corner to continue.
At this point, the steps are the same for every program. What happens next depends on whether subsidy payments are visible to families or hidden in your program’s settings.
🚨 As of mid-October, new programs have subsidy payments hidden from families by default. This means guardians will not see any subsidy-related charges or credits on their statements. If your program was created before this update and you’d like to hide subsidy payments, please reach out to the Support Team and we can enable this feature for you internally.
The next steps will look different depending on your program’s settings and preferences:
If your program hides subsidy payments, families will not see the subsidy charges or credits in their ledger.
If your program shows subsidy payments, families will see both the expected charge and the received credit.
Use the toggles below to follow the steps that match your setup.
If subsidy payments are hidden from families
If subsidy payments are hidden from families
Use these steps if your program has subsidy payments hidden on family statements. Families will only see their copay or private tuition charges, subsidy credits and debits will appear only in your admin view.
On the review page, if the student's expected amount does not equal the received amount, the system will note the discrepancy. You have 3 options:
Action: No Action
No charge or credit is applied. The balance remains on the student’s account, visible only to the provider. Parents do not see this balance.
Action: Waive
The remaining amount is added as a credit to the subsidy charge. Parents do not see this on their statements.
Action: Charge
The subsidy debit is zeroed out with a credit, and a new charge for the same amount is created. Parents see only the new charge.
Enter Confirm to verify the change and finish. Click Edit Deposit.
If you choose Charge, the student’s billing profile will show the subsidy charge added to their account. Use the filters at the top (All sources, Private pay only, or Subsidy only) to see how the charge appears alongside other billing items.
For a step-by-step video walkthrough of this process, click here
If subsidy payments are visible to families
If subsidy payments are visible to families
Use these steps if your program displays subsidy charges and credits on family statements. Families will see both the expected charge and the received credit for each payment.
On the review page, if the student's expected amount does not equal the received amount, the system will note the discrepancy. You have 3 options:
Action: No Action
No charge or credit is applied. The balance remains on the student’s account and is visible on the statement.
Action: Waive
The remaining amount is added as a credit to the subsidy charge. Parents see this on their statements.
Action: Charge
The subsidy debit is zeroed out with a credit, and a new charge for the same amount is created. Parents see both the subsidy adjustment and the new charge.
Enter Confirm to verify the change and finish. Click Edit Deposit.
If you choose Charge the student’s billing profile will show the subsidy charge added to their account.
For a step-by-step video walkthrough of this process, click here
🚨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
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, and click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save.
To delete an expected amount, toggle Received off, set the amount to $0, and click Next: Review. Then select Finish and record to save. marked as Paid.
Enter Confirm to verify the change and finish. Click Edit Deposit.
One the deposit page, click the three dots next to the subsidy deposit and choose Delete
For a step-by-step video walkthrough of this process, click here
Duplicating Subsidy Deposit
Navigate to the Subsidy dashboard and select the subsidy agency.
Click the three dots next to the subsidy deposit and choose Duplicate
In the window, enter the Service start and Service end dates. You have the option of duplicating the received values as well, but the in the new deposit has recorded Deposit Date.
After duplicating the deposit, follow the same steps outlined above to complete and record the subsidy deposit, including entering the amounts and confirming the submission.
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.
