- Introduction
- Logging On and Password/Code Reset
- Home Screen
- Care Package Line Items
- Individual Placement Agreement (Contract Documents)
- Scheduled Payments
- VAT
- Checking & Confirming Payments
- Actions
- Multiple Contracts
- Remittance Advice
- Email Notifications
Introduction
Welcome to the Finance Provider Portal for Bradford Children and Families Trust.
The Finance Provider Portal allows you to communicate with us, download remittances and completed Individual Placement Agreements, as well as view your own payment information. This page contains key information, guidance and support that you will need.
Logging On and Password/Code Reset
To get started click the link below: financeproviderportal.bradford.gov.uk
You should now be greeted with a log-on screen:
- Please enter the email address you provided us with.
- Enter your password.
If you are logging on for the first time, or after a password reset, you will be prompted to change your password – please change it to something memorable.
Passwords must meet the following criteria:
- Minimum length: 9 characters
- Must have at least 1 alphabetic character
- Must have at least 2 non-alphabetic characters (numbers or special characters)
3. You will then be prompted to create a 6-digit code.
From thereon, every time you login – you will need to enter your email address, password and then you will be asked to enter two random digits from your 6-digit code.
If you have a new member of staff joining your organisation and you would like them to have access to the Provider Portal, please ask them to fill out this form: Bradford Children and Families Trust (BCFT) – Finance Provider Portal – Fill in form
Forgot your Password:
If you forget your password or it has expired, please click on the Request a new Password link, and fill out the form. Our System Support Team will email you with your password reset.
Users will have 3 attempts to correctly enter your password. After 3 incorrect attempts, you will be locked out and you will need to fill out the Request a new password form, using the link.
Within the Organisation Name field: enter your provider’s name and what the request is. In this case it is ‘Password Reset’.
Forgot your Security Code:
If you forget your 6-digit code, please click on the Request a new Password link, and fill out the form. Our System Support Team will email you with your reset.
Users will have 3 attempts to correctly enter your code. After 3 incorrect attempts, you will be locked out and you will need to fill out the Request a new password form, using the link.
Within the Organisation Name field: enter your provider’s name and what the request is. In this case it is ‘Security Code Reset’.
Please note – if you do not log in to the Provider Portal for 3 months, your account will become inactive.
Home Screen
Once you have logged in – you should see a series of icons in the body of the screen. You will also have the option to change either your password or 6-digit code using the links on the right.
Care Package Line Items
Care Package Line Items (CPLI) – these are service or cost provisions that our Finance Officers add in our finance system. The CPLI triggers the payment in our finance system. These provisions will be for the core placement costs, any retainer or blocked bed fees, additional support costs, education or health provisions and so forth.
The portal therefore allows you to view all the Children and Young People you are supporting and the payments associated with each person. The information you see in the portal is a direct copy of what is in our finance system. This screen confirms that we have set up your payments.
On the screen you will see the following:
- SSRef – this is the Young Person’s reference number, our identifier
- Client – the name of the Child or Young Person (unless we have to restrict it)
- Service – this would be you, the Provider
- Service Level – this will relate to what the payment is for, you can filter by service level as well
- Start Date – when the service or payment has been commissioned to start
- End Date – if applicable
- Cost – the weekly or one-off cost
- Care Package Ref – unique ID for that CPLI, automatically generated by our finance system
- Authorised – this shows if the CPLI has been authorised (in our finance system) and not still a draft provision
NB: you can click on any of the pink headings to order the data alphabetically or by value.
By default, the system will only show active or open placements (CPLIs), so if you want to view historical CPLIs, ensure you tick the Include Historical box.
If we commission multiple contracts or service types with you – there is the Service dropdown at the top, allowing you to select / filter which contract payments you can see.
You will likely have lots of CPLIs on screen and you may want to group them by home. You can click on any of the pink headings to order the data. In this case, click on the ‘Service’ heading to order by home.
We do not particularly recommend using the service level dropdown filter, as these are descriptions used internally.
Individual Placement Agreement (Contract Documents)
Contract Documents – we will publish completed and signed copies of Individual Placement Agreements to the Provider Portal so that you can access copies as and when needed.
IPAs will still be sent and signed in the same way. Publishing the signed copy to the Provider Portal just allows you to have them stored in one place.
Click on the Contract Documents icon. Remove any dates in the Updated Since filter, this allows you to view the full list of published IPAs, then click View. Click on the doc.type hyperlink to view or download the agreement.
Within this section, you will see the following:
- Doc. Type – the type of IPA contract
- Client – the name of the Child or Young Person (unless we have to restrict it)
- SSRef – this is the Young Person’s reference number, our identifier
- Service – this would be you, the Provider
- Notes – when the agreement was published to the Provider Portal
Scheduled Payments
This screen will give you total payments per young person within a set payment period – both payments which have already been made and any awaiting payment on the next pay run. You can find our payment schedules on our Support Page. Please note we pay on a four weekly cycle and costs are represented as weekly values.
Make sure to select the relevant Contract from the left dropdown.
In the example below, this provider has a block contract and a regular framework contract. You would select the contract you want to view the payment for:
You would need to select the payment period of interest from the left; it will select the current financial year by default:
VAT
The provision of care in a regulated children’s care home is generally VAT-exempt, meaning providers do not charge VAT to local authorities.
BCFT do not pay VAT on core placement costs. Core placement costs and placement costs containing embedded health or education elements therefore should not include VAT. However, VAT may be paid where health or education is a separately identified element of the care package. Providers would be expected to evidence the basis for any VAT claim.
Where VAT has been applied to a separately identified health or education element, you will be able to see this within the CPLI screen. The Service Level description will be suffixed with VAT, but the cost shown on that screen is exclusive of VAT.
The Scheduled Payments screen is where you will see the VAT amount has been added to the payment.
Weekly cost = £1250 * 4 weeks = £5000 + 20% VAT £1000 = £6,000
Checking & Confirming Payments
Providers are expected to check their payments before we are due to finalise them in our system. You can check our payment schedules on our Support Page.
Once you have reviewed your current payment period, you can confirm or reject the payment. Your confirmation/rejection status is then displayed in the Scheduled payments screen along with any comments you have added.
If you do not confirm your payment – we will assume the payment is correct and continue to process it so as not to delay the payment.
Having selected the current payment period, scroll to the bottom of the page – and click on the Confirm/Reject button:
Add any comments, particularly if there is an issue with the payment amount. Then either click Confirm or Reject.
Confirming or Rejecting the payment period does not stop or progress the payment, it simply acts as further information for our Finance Team to review before processing the payment.
For a finalised payment – if you scroll to the bottom of the page there is a button to download a remittance advice report in PDF format:
Our finance officers may add remittance notes, if it helps to explain certain payment items or payment adjustments. You can see these notes at the top of the screen:
Actions
This section allows our finance team and you – to raise queries and exchange information.
Under the Action heading – you will have a New Action button. Click on this to raise a new query or to send us information:
This will produce the following form. Most of the fields will be dropdown lists that you need to select from:
- Type: select the type of query it is from the defined list. You MUST only use those prefixed with Residential Care Home – otherwise your query will not route to the correct team:
Note types available to you:
- Residential Care Home – Notification re Placement
- Residential Care Home – Payment Query
- Residential Care Home – Rate Query
- Residential Care Home – Retainer
Related To: If the query is specific to a young person, then select Client. If the query is related to you the provider, select Contract or Service instead.
A. Entity: select the young person the query relates to or the contract/service.
B. Due Date: this is optional but could be set to 7 days from today’s date.
We aim to respond within that timeframe, but if we have to defer your query to another team there may be a delay.
- Assign to: Home Finding Team – Placements Coordination
- Title: enter a title
- Text: enter as much detail as possible regarding your query.
- Attachment: you can upload any documents – so long as it is saved to your device. Click Choose File and select the file.
Once you have filled out the form, click on the Create Action button:
You will be able to view all actions raised within this screen. The Assigned To column indicates whether the action is with us to respond or if we have sent a response back to you. In the status column:
- Amber megaphone = action due
- Red megaphone = overdue
- Green megaphone = complete
When we have responded, the Assigned To column will update to ‘Provider’.
You can then click on this action to view the response(s):
- Reply: if you need to continue the query, click Reply
- Request Closure: if you are satisfied with the response and are happy for us to close down the action, click Request Closure
Multiple Contracts
If we commission different contract types or services with you – you will be able to see payments and data for both.
Example: you are both on a Block Contract as well as a Framework Contract.
You will need to make sure you select the right contract/service in the portal when viewing payments, downloading remittances etc. You will see a dropdown on various screens. Some examples of where you will see these dropdowns, are below:
Remittance Advice
When you select ‘Reports’ from the portal home screen, you have the option of viewing or downloading the Remittance Advice report. You can also download the remittance report as a PDF from the Scheduled Payments icon, however this section gives you the option to view the remittance or download it as a CSV spreadsheet.
This screen will give you detailed breakdowns of payments made within a defined payment period. You can select a payment period using the Period dropdown.
For further historical payments made, you may need to select the Payment Method dropdown and then select an older payment start date:
If you receive more than one type of payment e.g., you are on a Framework contract as well as a Block contract, the Contract dropdown will allow you to view each type of payment separately.
- Excel: If you wish to download this data into a spreadsheet, click the ‘Download Data’ button.
- PDF: If you wish to download an electronic copy in a PDF format, click on the Floppy Disk Icon (save button) and this will allow you to save as a PDF file to your computer.
- View: Or you can simply click view, once you have selected the contract and period you wish to view – then you can review the remittance on screen.
PLEASE NOTE: If any of the reporting parameters are changed whilst looking at a different report e.g., changing the payment period, the portal WILL NOT update itself and you will need to click the ‘View’ button once again to refresh the report.
Our finance officers may add remittance notes, if it helps to explain certain payment items or payment adjustments. You can see these notes nearer the bottom of the remittance report.
At the bottom of the Remittance Advice, you will find details of the team to contact should you have any payment queries.
Email Notifications
This section allows you to decide what things you would like to be notified of by email. You can update this as and when you like. Your options are based on the icons you see on the home screen:
Tick the areas you would like to be notified of, when there is a change or something new to view – then click the Save button.