Childminder Business and Finance Toolkit

As a self-employed childminder you will be required to submit your accounts to HMRC. You will need to manage your own Tax and National Insurance contributions, setting aside funds to pay the tax bill at the end of each financial year. We recommend you open a business account for your childminding business, paying yourself a salary and keeping funds in the business account for contingency, tax, NI contributions, training costs, resources etc.

Some childminders opt to employ and accountant, you can however manage the accounts yourself if you wish to, here you will find some tools and templates that will support you to do this.

If you require further support please seek advice from your Early Years Key Contact.

Employing Assistants

As a childminder you can employ up to a maximum of 3 assistants, there should be no more than 4 people caring for the children at any one time. Only assistants over the age of 17 years may be included in ratios for the Early Years Register and those over 18 for the Childcare Register. If assistants are under the required ages for the relevant registers they must always be supervised. Assistants can only be left alone with children for up to 2 hours a day, to leave an assistant alone they must have a full 12 hour Paediatric First Aid qualification and parental permission must be agreed. If you want to be able to leave children alone with assistants for longer periods of time, the assistants must register as childminders to work alongside you. For more information on employing assistants you can read the full guidance here.

Working from Non-Domestic Premises

Childminders can now operate under new flexibilities working for all or some of the time from non-domestic premises such as a village hall. For more information on how to change the premises you operate from please read this guidance.