Setting Up Funding

There are an unlimited amount of funding types available on Blossom. These are listed below. A few examples are listed below:

The platform allows for both non-stretched funding & stretched funding.

Stretched funding is available for those children who attend all year round. This means instead of allowing children 15 or 30 hours per week you will apply the stretched amount. Your local authority will be able to advise you on what the stretched amount of hours should be.

Non-stretched funding is for children that apply term time only or alternatively children that attend all year round who are happy to be invoiced for the weeks that are not included in the funding period. The platform allows you to set up term time funding, this will run parallel to your local authority dates.

Early Years Pupil Premium funding (EYPP) is an additional funding type for early years settings. It allows settings to improve the education in which they provide for disadvantaged children aged 3 & 4 years.

Inclusion funding is funding which helps early years providers to deliver extra support to children that display emerging additional needs.

Other funding is any other funding the nursery may apply for to provide support to the children in their settings.

Children > Child > Booking pattern > Funding > Create > Funding type > Save.

Children > Child > Booking pattern > Funding > Funding type > Allocation to sessions >Edit pencil > Click onto the day you wish to apply funding > Add funding time > Save > Repeat for the week > Save > Apply to future weeks.

The hourly rate is the amount paid by your local authority.

Actuals: This option proportionally allocates funding for your selected invoice period, based upon the number of days the nursery is open for the time period of the funding. Nursery closure dates are taken into account for this calculation.

Averages: This option will equally divide out the funded hours/funding amount across the different months covered by the funding period. You must select full months for this option to be applicable; partial months being selected will mean that funding reverts to being calculated on ‘actuals’ (the option above). For the manual allocation option, average cannot be selected.

Your term time funding period should be your exact term dates.

Your exclusion period is a day you would like to exclude funding from.

The stretched funding period will be from the 1st of the month until the last day of the terms month with no exclusion periods.

Typically, this is 11 hours for 15 hours stretched & 22 hours for 30 hours stretched. This should be double checked with your local authority.