In ChildFriendly Pro's December 2024 webinar, founder Laura Bancroft showed Alberta operators how to prepare the monthly claim from two reports, the Alberta 100 hour report for the Affordability Grant (which she said counts registered, not attended, hours) and a subsidy claim report, then reconcile the government deposit child by child, sending any shortfall back to Alberta subsidy as an adjustment or to the family as a recovery invoice.
What the session covered
The webinar was hosted by Wayne Chen of ChildFriendly Pro and presented by Laura Bancroft, founder of ChildFriendly Pro, who said she grew from one 100-child center to over 2,500 licensed spaces in Alberta. Bancroft said that under the $10-a-day program the government pays roughly 80 to 90% of fees on behalf of families, so centers need an accountable system to confirm they are paid accurately, make adjustments with the government quickly, and pull any information requested in the annual audit or in on-the-spot audits. She described the monthly claim cycle in three steps: submit the claim for the month through the Alberta claims portal, receive the government's payment and payment report, then reconcile what was received against what was invoiced. According to Bancroft, the claim requires separate figures for children with and without Alberta subsidy, grouped by age and by hours band, along with per-child subsidy details. She said that when her centers adopted ChildFriendly Pro, government claim requirements were increasing, yet their administrative time went down.
What information does an Alberta child care subsidy claim ask for?
The Alberta 100 hour report groups children by age and by less than 50 hours, 50 to 100 hours, and 100 or more hours, run separately for children with and without Alberta subsidy. She said these counts are based on registered hours, as per government policy, not hours actually attended. The subsidy claim report lists, for each subsidized child, the date of birth, age, program, registration type (regular, extended or overnight care), any withdrawal date, regular hours, extended hours, total hours, the previous month's gross tuition before the Affordability Grant and subsidy, the current month's charge, the amount Alberta subsidy pays, and the subsidy expiry date. At the time of recording the portal had no API connection, so staff copied figures in by hand; Bancroft said Alberta was developing a secure API. She estimated a 100-child center might spend about 20 minutes a month entering the claim from these reports. For audits, she said operators can reopen any month and export the children counted in each category to CSV.
How do centers reconcile a government subsidy payment against their claim?
After the government deposit arrives, staff filter invoices to the Alberta subsidy sponsor for the claim month; in her example the total invoiced was $4,500 across about 23 payments. Staff record a bulk payment for the full invoiced amount with the deposit date, then open the settle step and compare each child against the government's payment report in the claims portal. Bancroft said Alberta subsidy often pays a different amount from what was invoiced, for example when a child was short hours. In her example one child was invoiced $200 but only $150 was received, so she entered $150 and selected reconcile. The system then asked who owes the remaining $50: Alberta subsidy, recorded as a subsidy adjustment to submit through the portal, or the family, which creates a recovery invoice for the parent. Once every child is checked and the total matches the deposit, staff create the deposit, which then appears as a single amount matching the bank statement. Bancroft said deposits sync to QuickBooks; other accounting software can import a transaction report.
How do centers keep subsidy expiries, ratios and wage top-up hours audit-ready?
Bancroft recommended that office staff check next month's subsidy expiries once a month; in her demo three children had subsidy expiring on December 1. If a family has renewed, staff update the expiry date on the third-party sponsor line in the child's ledger. Bancroft said that once the expiry date passes, the sponsor stops being billed and the parent is billed the full amount, which avoids telling a family weeks later that they owe more. She also showed an attendance records log that stamps every sign-in, sign-out and room move with the staff count, child count, required ratio and actual ratio, which can be filtered by room, date and time for a licensing officer. For the ECE wage top-up, staff select a task, such as child care, kitchen or transport, when signing in, so hours are tracked by task. Bancroft said dedicated kitchen staff did not currently qualify for the wage top-up, so task tracking separates eligible from ineligible hours for staff who work in more than one role.
Alberta monthly claim and reconciliation steps from the webinar
| Time | Key point | What centers should do |
|---|---|---|
| 08:16 | Bancroft: under the $10-a-day program the government pays roughly 80 to 90% of fees; centers face an annual audit and on-the-spot audits. | Keep claim records retrievable by month and child, ready for any audit request. |
| 13:44 | Bancroft: the Alberta 100 hour report groups children by age and under 50, 50 to 100, and 100 or more hours, based on registered hours, not attendance. | Run the report separately for children with and without Alberta subsidy. |
| 15:03 | Bancroft: auditors may ask exactly which children were claimed in a given month. | Keep the per-category child list for every claim month and export it to CSV when asked. |
| 16:01 | Bancroft: at the time the Alberta portal had no API, so figures were copied in by hand; a secure API was in development. | Check the claims portal for changes before each month's submission. |
| 17:23 | Bancroft: the subsidy claim needs date of birth, program, registration type, withdrawal date, regular and extended hours, previous and current month fees and the subsidy amount. | Verify each field per child before entering it in the portal. |
| 20:32 | Bancroft: subsidy approvals expire like first aid and criminal record checks. | Each month, filter for subsidies expiring next month and contact families before they lapse. |
| 23:20 | Bancroft: with an expiry date on the sponsor line, billing to Alberta subsidy stops after expiry and the parent is billed the full amount. | Enter an expiry date on every third-party sponsor in the family ledger. |
| 25:16 | The attendance records log stores staff count, child count, required and actual ratio at each sign-in (1 to 4 in the demo). | Filter by room, date and time to answer a licensing officer's incident question. |
| 29:47 | Bancroft: hours can be tracked by task; dedicated kitchen staff did not currently qualify for the wage top-up. | Have staff select a task at each sign-in so wage top-up claims use eligible hours only. |
| 36:18 | Bancroft: when subsidy pays less than invoiced, the shortfall goes back to Alberta subsidy as an adjustment or to the family as a recovery invoice. | Reconcile each child against the payment report before recording the deposit. |
How ChildFriendly Pro automates this
Bancroft contrasted gathering several attendance, birthday and fee reports by hand with the ChildFriendly Pro demo, which showed Alberta region reports for the 100 hour and subsidy claims (13:20), subsidy expiry filters (20:32), ledger split-billing that stops billing the sponsor after the expiry date (23:20), a ratio-stamped attendance log (25:16), task-based hours for wage top-up claims in the payroll report (29:47), and a settle-and-reconcile step for government deposits (35:18), as shown in the December 2024 recording. ChildFriendly Pro syncs these transactions to QuickBooks; payroll itself is exported to a separate payroll system.
Next steps
- Webinars and events for child care operators: all session recordings
- Licensing logs, attendance records and audit-ready report exports
- Alberta child care software for CWELCC split-billing, Affordability Grant and wage top-up claims
- Book a demo of ChildFriendly Pro Alberta claims reporting
