Invoice Checker

What the invoice checker does

The invoice checker validates your nursery invoice against your government funding entitlement. You enter the line items your nursery has charged: session fees, top-up rates, consumables and any additional charges. The tool then calculates whether the total is consistent with what you should be paying after funded hours are deducted.

Many parents overpay without realising it. Common billing errors include nurseries applying a top-up rate to the funded hours themselves (which is not permitted under government rules), charging mandatory consumables fees that are effectively compulsory add-ons to a free entitlement, and failing to apply the full funded hours allocation in a given month. Nurseries are permitted to charge for meals, nappies and other consumables only if parents can opt out, making them genuinely optional. If your invoice bundles these into a single mandatory line item, that may breach the terms of the funded entitlement.

To use the tool, select your local authority, enter the number of hours in the invoice period, and add each line item from your bill. The checker compares the total against the funded rate for your area and flags any amounts that appear inconsistent. It does not connect to any nursery database. It uses your inputs and the published LA funded rates for 2026/27 to calculate the expected charge. See our glossary entry on top-up fees for more on what nurseries can and cannot charge.