As a Childcare Voucher provider, we took the decision not to provide a top-up facility because doing so would introduce a level of complexity which in our opinion was not required in order to operate a successful and efficient Childcare Voucher programme.

As you are probably aware there are situations where employees collect childcare vouchers and then seek for these to be refunded. In such cases, we simply remove the funds from a childcare account, return them to the employer who can then process a payment via the payroll so that tax and NI contributions can be applied to the amount (keeping in line with HMRC compliance).

Where part of the amount in a Childcare Voucher account is employee paid this simple process becomes more complex.

While we recognize the benefits of a top-up function for some employees, we have found that for the majority of employees using our childcare voucher program, setting up a standing order or direct debit directly with their carer is a suitable way of making payment for additional fees above their Childcare Voucher amount.

We appreciate that those that have been using this feature previously will be disappointed that this is no longer available. However, after considerable review and taking into account the above, this is not a feature that we plan to build into our platform.