What’s New
💵 Improved Absence Discount Calculations
We’ve made an important improvement to how absence discounts are calculated for Services who have a different fee for each day.
If your Service has a fee setup similar to the one below, then this functionality is important for your review.
Day 1 – $50
Day 2 – $100
Day 3 – $160
Day 4 – $230
Day 5 – $320
We have introduced two options:
1. Tiered Difference – Recommended & Default
Within this setting, the system will calculate the discount based on the actual price difference between the Enrolled Days and the Attended Days.
For example, if a child is booked for 5 days but attended only 4 and if the 5-day fee is $320 and the 4-day fee is $230, the difference is $90. A 50% absence discount would therefore reduce the weekly charge by $45.
2. Daily Rate
Within this setting, the system will calculate an average daily rate based on the Enrolled Days and apply the discount to the absent day.
Taking the same example as above – if the child is enrolled for 5 days and the 5-day fee is $320 then the average daily rate will be $64 ($320 ÷ 5). A 50% absence discount would therefore reduce the weekly charge by $32.
Both methods apply a discount for the absent day — the difference is simply how the discount is calculated.
📌 Which method should you use?
Tiered Difference is the recommended method and is now the default. It reflects the actual pricing structure of your fee.
However, Daily Rate is also available if this better suits how your Service calculates and explains absence discounts.
You can select your preferred method in your Invoice Settings. If no method is selected, Tiered Difference Method will automatically be used.
🌴 Annual Holiday Allowance
We’ve introduced a new Annual Holiday Allowance feature to give Services more flexibility in managing discounted holiday days for Tamariki. ✨
You can now set up your Service wide allowed number of discounted holiday days per year.
For example, a Service may offer 10 holiday days at 50% off. Once a child has used their allowance, any additional holiday days will be charged using the Service’s normal pricing.
Services can now configure their holiday allowance under Invoice Settings, including:
- Annual Entitlement – The number of discounted holiday days each child receives.
- Annual Holiday Discount – The discount applied to eligible holiday days, such as 50%.
- Year Starts From – Choose when the holiday year begins. If left blank, it defaults to 1 January – 31 December.
Easier Holiday Recording
When a child is marked as absent with the reason code Annual Holiday, the Service’s Annual Holiday Discount will be pre-filled automatically.
This can be done through the Children Holiday Register or the Attendance marking page.
Staff can still override the discount for an individual holiday where required.
Importantly, the holiday discount will only apply while the child has remaining days in their annual allowance. Once the allowance is used, additional holiday days will be treated as a normal absence and charged according to the Centre’s usual pricing.
When adding Annual holidays, if the limit is exceeded, the system will save the holidays but will:
- Show an alert for the days that have been exceeded
- Only add the discount to the holidays within the limit. All additional holidays will be saved without a discount.
Managing Existing Holiday Balances
If your Service has recently joined Juniorlogs OR if you have been tracking the used days elsewhere, you can now add in the previously used holiday days.
This can also be done for multiple children at once, making it easier to set up accurate starting balances.
To do so, head into Attendance > Children Holiday Register > Leave Balances tab > Add New
View Remaining Holiday Balances
The Leave Balances tab within the Children Holiday Register makes it easy to see each child’s holiday allowance at a glance, including:
- Entitlement – Total annual allowance
- Brought Forward Used Days
- Current Used Days – Holiday days already used within the current year
- Total – Sum of Brought forward & Current used days
- Remaining – Holiday days still available
- Brought Forward Days Reason – explanation for Brought Forward Used Days (if added)
⚠️ A few important things to know
- First come, first served – The allowance is used in the order holidays are added.
- Pricing is locked in – Once a holiday is saved, its discount won’t change later, even if the discount within settings or future holidays are updated.
- Allowance resets automatically – A new allowance is automatically provided when the next holiday year begins.
- Providing Additional Discounted Holiday Days – If you wish to provide a child with more discounted holiday days than their annual allowance, any additional days beyond the allowance should be recorded using the absence code “Absence” instead of “Annual Holiday.”
📄 Enrolment Form: Proof of Identity
As part of the licensing criteria changes by the Ministry, the Proof of Identity section within the printed Enrolment form has now been separated from the Child Details section. It will now appear as a separate section after the Address sections.
If you wish to update the text within this section, head into Settings > Edit Centre > Enquiry & Enrolment > Child Identification.
