Hours bought in advance

Some agencies sell hours up front: a family buys forty hours for a term and uses them as they go. It is good for both sides, and a family with hours in the bank tends to stay.

Selling one

Hour packages → Add a package. Who it is for, what to call it, how many hours, what they paid, and when it expires if it ever does. Leave the expiry empty and the hours never lapse, which is the usual arrangement.

How it comes off

Every completed visit draws from the balance automatically, at the hours actually worked rather than the hours booked. Somebody who clocks in late uses less of it.

If a family holds more than one package, the one expiring soonest is used first, and a package with no expiry is kept for last.

A late cancellation can come off it too. That happens when you cancel a booking and choose a charge.

The history

Open any package and every movement is listed: what came off, for which visit, when, and who recorded it. Nothing here is ever edited. Putting hours back is a new line rather than a deletion, so if a parent asks where their hours went, you can show them the whole thing.

Adjusting it by hand

On the package page. A positive number takes hours off, a negative number puts them back. Say why in the note: the whole value of the history is that each line explains itself a year later.

Running out

You set the level you want to be warned at, per package, which starts at 10 hours. When a balance falls to it you get one email, and only one, because a daily nag about the same balance is how an agency learns to ignore the email.

If they top up, the warning resets. Running low again next term is a new conversation.

If the balance goes negative

It is allowed. The visit happened, and refusing to record it would make your rota lie. You will see minus two hours rather than a missing booking, and you can invoice for them or ask the family to top up.