Children's Home Accountants for London, Essex and the South East
Two moments decide whether a children's home works financially: the registration application, where Ofsted needs to see the numbers hold together, and everything after it, where a single home can turn over close to a million pounds and still lose money quietly. We handle both.
Two moments where the finances actually matter
Most providers we speak to are standing at one of these two points. The work is different in each, so we have built a different answer for each.
You are applying to register
Ofsted has to be satisfied that the home is financially viable before children are placed in it. That means showing where the money comes from, what it costs to run the home safely, and what happens if occupancy takes longer to build than you hope.
Applications to open children's homes have almost doubled year on year, and the registration teams are working through record volumes. Decisions can take three to six months where an application is prioritised, and considerably longer where it is not. Every round of questions on the financial section adds to that.
- The usual problem is not a missing document. It is a pack where the occupancy in the forecast does not match the staffing rota, or where the fee rate assumed is not one a local authority is likely to pay.
- We build the three documents as one model so the numbers agree with each other and can be defended when someone asks.
You are already running homes
At an average placement fee of around £6,100 per week, even a three bed home is approaching a million pounds of annual turnover. That is a real business with a real finance function behind it, whether or not anyone has been given the job.
Rota payroll with sleep-ins and unsocial hours. Invoicing several local authorities on different terms. Remittances that never quite match the invoices. Management accounts that arrive too late to change anything. Meanwhile Ofsted and Parliament are both looking more closely at how children's homes are financed and how much they earn.
- Clean books are no longer just a compliance matter. They are part of how you demonstrate a stable, well run service.
- Per-placement visibility changes decisions. Knowing which placements carry the home and which drain it is the difference between growing and guessing.
The Ofsted Registration Financial Pack
Everything the financial side of your application needs, built as one connected model, delivered as three documents you can attach and explain.
Ofsted Registration Financial Pack
For new children's homes and supported accommodation, first home or fifth.
Cash flow forecast
Month by month from pre-opening costs through to steady occupancy, with the ramp-up modelled honestly rather than optimistically.
Financial viability statement
A written statement explaining how the home is funded, what reserves sit behind it, and how it stays solvent if placements build slowly.
Assumptions document
Every figure in the model traced back to its source: fee rates, occupancy, staffing ratios, wage rates, property and running costs.
A conversation about the home
Beds, placement type, the local authorities you expect to work with, the property, and the rota you intend to run. Roughly forty five minutes.
We build the model
Income, staffing, property and running costs in one workbook, with the April 2026 wage and employer National Insurance position built in rather than bolted on.
Draft pack and a walkthrough
We take you through the three documents so you can explain them in your own words, because you may well be asked to.
Your revision round
Plans change and registration teams ask questions. One full round of amendments is included in the fixed fee.
Final pack, ready to attach
Delivered in a format you can submit and keep using afterwards as your opening budget.
Why a three bed home is a million pound business
People are often surprised by the scale of a small home once it is written down. This is why the finance function needs to exist from day one rather than being retrofitted in year two.
A three bed home at the sector average fee
This is an illustration built from published sector averages, not the figures of any client. Real fee rates vary substantially by placement type, complexity of need, local authority and region, and no home runs at full occupancy every week of the year. The point is the order of magnitude: a small home is a substantial business, and the largest cost inside it is people. From April 2026 the National Living Wage rises to £12.71, employer National Insurance sits at 15% with a £5,000 threshold, and statutory sick pay rules change too. On a rota with sleep-ins and waking nights, those three things move the cost base together.
The Children's Home Finance Department
A monthly service rather than a year end visit. We run the finance function week by week so you can run the home, with the tier matched to the size and shape of what you operate.
Payroll and Compliance
Up to 25 staff
per month
- Rota payroll including sleep-ins, waking nights and unsocial hours
- PAYE, pensions and auto-enrolment administration
- Bookkeeping and Xero setup with bank feeds
- VAT where it applies to your structure
- Year end accounts and corporation tax return
- Wage and employer National Insurance cost modelling as rates change
Finance Department
Up to 50 staff
per month
- Everything in Payroll and Compliance
- Local authority invoicing on a fixed weekly rhythm
- Remittance reconciliation, line by line against each placement
- Credit control with documented chasing of short and late payments
- Quarterly management accounts you can actually act on
- A named point of contact who knows your homes
Finance Department Plus
Multi-home groups
per month
- Everything in Finance Department
- Multi-home consolidation, each home separately and the group as a whole
- Per-placement margin analysis, so you can see which placements carry the home
- Funder and lender reporting packs to an agreed monthly date
- Board-ready reporting for growth, refinancing or new registrations
- Scenario modelling for opening the next home
Real engagements, anonymised
We do not publish client names or invented outcome figures. What follows is a plain description of work we currently run, told without identifying anyone.
A London children's care group
We produced the cash flow forecast and the financial viability work for an Ofsted registration application. That application has now been submitted. The model was built so the group could explain every assumption in it themselves, and so it could keep working afterwards as an opening budget rather than being filed away.
A London domiciliary care provider
We run their finance department every week: payroll for carers including travel time, all local authority and NHS ICB invoicing, credit control, monthly lender reporting for their invoice financing, Xero feeds and quarterly management accounts. The rhythm is fixed, so nothing depends on anyone remembering. The same machinery runs a children's home, with placement billing in place of visit billing.
What is moving underneath the sector this year
None of this is cause for alarm. It is simply the operating environment, and providers who can see it clearly make better decisions than those who cannot.
Wage and employer costs, April 2026
The National Living Wage rises to £12.71, employer National Insurance sits at 15% with a £5,000 threshold, and statutory sick pay rules change. On a rota with sleep-ins and waking nights, these compound rather than sit side by side.
Registration under pressure
Applications have almost doubled year on year against a base of more than 4,000 registered homes. Decisions run to three to six months where prioritised and can extend considerably further where they are not.
Greater financial scrutiny
Both Ofsted and Parliament have been examining how children's homes are financed and what they earn. Providers with clear, current, well evidenced numbers are in a straightforwardly better position than those without.
Workforce supply
The overseas care visa route closed in July 2025 with sponsored workers transitioning through to July 2028. Recruitment and retention costs are structurally higher than they were, and rotas need to be modelled on that basis.
If you also operate in adult care
A number of the groups we work with run more than one regulated service. These two pages cover the rest of what we do in care.
Care Agency Accountants
Payroll including travel time, local authority and NHS ICB invoicing, credit control and management accounts for domiciliary and supported living providers.
Case study: a London care agency finance department
What running a weekly finance function for a care provider actually looks like, described properly and anonymised throughout.
Questions providers ask us first
Ofsted needs to be satisfied that the home is financially viable and that you can sustain safe, consistent care for the children placed there. In practice that means a cash flow forecast covering the opening period and beyond, a clear statement of how the home is funded, and assumptions a reader can follow and test.
The most common weakness we see is not a missing document but an inconsistent one, where the occupancy assumed in the forecast does not match the staffing model, or the fee rate quoted is not the rate a local authority is likely to pay. We build the three documents as one connected model so the numbers agree with each other. Requirements should always be checked against the current Ofsted guidance for your application type.
The fee is fixed at £950 and the pack is delivered within 10 working days of us receiving your information. It covers three documents: a cash flow forecast, a financial viability statement and an assumptions document, all formatted so they can be attached to the application.
One revision round is included, so if your plans change or the registration team asks a question, you are not paying again to have the model adjusted. If the home is unusual, for example a solo placement at a very high fee rate or a group opening several homes at once, we will say so before you commit rather than after.
Yes, and it is the most common situation we work in. A first home has no accounts to draw on, so the forecast is built from the ground up: the fee rate you expect to achieve, realistic occupancy across the first year rather than from day one, the rota the home genuinely needs to run safely, and the property, insurance, food, transport and registration costs that follow.
We work from published sector benchmarks and from what you already know about your local authority relationships. The result is a model you can explain in your own words, which matters, because you may be asked to.
We invoice on a fixed rhythm rather than when someone remembers, matching each invoice to the placement, the agreed weekly rate and the period covered. Remittances from local authorities rarely arrive in a form that matches the invoices, so we reconcile them line by line, identify short payments and part payments, and chase the difference through a documented credit control process.
You get a weekly picture of what has been billed, what has been received and what is outstanding. That is also precisely the information a funder or lender will ask you for, so it does double duty.
Yes. Supported accommodation providers face their own registration process and similar questions about financial sustainability, and the day to day finance work is closely related: rota based staffing, local authority billing, and the need to show a clear view of income and cost per placement.
The registration financial pack is built the same way, with the content adjusted for the model you are running. If you operate both children's homes and supported accommodation, the Finance Department Plus tier consolidates them so you can see each service on its own and the group as a whole.
Let's look at your numbers properly
A free Children's Home Finance Health Check is a straight conversation about where you are: registering, opening, or running homes already. No pitch, no obligation, and a clear view of what needs doing either way.