Hours of Operation VS. Time Children are in Care

[magsgma]

Which is correct to use?
I am open from 7:30am - 4:30pm. I have a parent that is chronically late so I have been using my sign in book and was going to use actual hours. But when I calculate and compare my hours of operation are higher. Which set of hours am I SUPPOSED to use? Her contract says she will drop off at 7:30 but she is anywhere from 5 - to 25 minutes late on a regular basis. :confused:

[Michael]

Pushing this back up for a new member.

[TomCopeland]

Hours of operation

As a general rule you should count hours you are caring for children, not hours you are open. If you are not caring for children you can count hours spent on other business activities in your home (cleaning, record keeping, etc.). You don't have to track every minute of every day. So, if you sometimes work a little longer than your operating hours and sometimes a little less, don't worry about accounting for this minor change. But, if a parent is always, or regularly late in dropping off her child, I would count hours the child is actually in your home. But, if you are doing business activities while waiting for the parent to show up, you can count this time as well.

[magsgma]

As a general rule you should count hours you are caring for children, not hours you are open. If you are not caring for children you can count hours spent on other business activities in your home (cleaning, record keeping, etc.). You don't have to track every minute of every day. So, if you sometimes work a little longer than your operating hours and sometimes a little less, don't worry about accounting for this minor change. But, if a parent is always, or regularly late in dropping off her child, I would count hours the child is actually in your home. But, if you are doing business activities while waiting for the parent to show up, you can count this time as well.

Thanks for your reply Tom.
So what I believe you are saying is don't use the hours of operations but rather to count those times that she is late as "other activities"
Because I am usually making coffee for the mom & breakfast for her daughter.:confused:
Then I putz around waiting for her usually on the internet (daycare related of course!)

[TomCopeland]

Hours of operation

Yes. Count the hours she is late as business time since you are conducting business activities during that time (meal preparation, coffee making, Internet).