Can we charge for a meal if a student is absent?

If you still need to charge for a meal when a student is absent, this can be done by adding a price to the Absent provision category.

By default, the Absent category is set to £0.00. If you wish to charge for meals of absent students, you can set a price against the 'Absent' provision in the meal setup. 

Please note: Setting a price to the default Absent category will charge any student marked 'Absent', regardless of whether they have school-provided meals or packed lunches from home. See information below on how to charge absent students with school meals only.

Permissions

• Meals: Administer All Students - Add meal provisions
• Finance: Administer - Set prices for provisions

If you don't have the relevant permission, ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.

1. Add an absent provision 

Go to School > Meals and select 'Setup' on the left. 

Once you have created a meal, click into 'Provisions' to ensure an 'Absent' provision category has been added. 

If this has not been added, select the green 'Add Provision' button. Assign the Absent meal provision a name, and select 'Absent (no meal)' from the meal type dropdown.

For additional guidance on setting up Provisions, see the following article: Step 2 - Adding Provisions

2. How to add an absent meal price

Once the Absent provision has been created, click into it in order to set the price. 

From the Meal Provision Prices table, select the green +Add button. Enter the relevant pricing details in the slide over (as shown in the image below).

For additional guidance on setting up your Pricing, see the following article: Step 3 - Adding Prices

3. How to charge absent students with school meals only

In order to only charge absent students who booked a school meal and who still need to be charged, you must add a second absent meal provision. When you create this provision, select a meal type that requires pricing to be set e.g. 'A hot meal prepared by the school'. This will automatically prompt you to add pricing. Ensure that you name this absent provision differently to the default one, such as 'Absent - charge incurred'.

Staff taking the meal register would manually need to switch the absent students who have pre-booked a meal via the Parent Portal or App to this new provision.