Adding a seasonal meal (e.g. Christmas lunch)

There are several options to manage payments and bookings for a seasonal meal using our Meals or Trips functionality, depending on your needs and the services your school has purchased. Examples of seasonal meals include Christmas Lunches and other one-off special meal offerings.

Permissions

• Extra Curricular: Administer - Set up the Christmas meal as a trip
• Meals: Administer All Students - Set up the Christmas meal as a meal provision (you must also have the permission below to set up prices)
• Finance: Administer - Set a price for the meal provision and manage payments for meals or trips

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

We use Rotating Meal Menus

Before setting this up, please note that:

• Although Meal Menus always require you to create a menu for a whole week, it’s the menu's availability dates that control which dates the menu is available for. 
• You cannot create meal menus for just one day. You always need to at least include the day after or before the seasonal meal too.

This means that, for the week of the seasonal meal, you are best off:

1. Creating a copy of the standard menu for the whole week, with a special set of choices for the day of the seasonal meal

2. Setting the menu to be available for the whole week (from Monday to Friday) instead of the standard menu that would have run that week. 

   In essence, you create a replacement menu for the week of the seasonal meal, not just the seasonal meal. The menu will be the same as the menu during a standard week, but with one day changed.

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The steps

1. Add the provisions  

Make sure you've added provisions and prices for your seasonal meal. You can see how to add more provisions here: Setting Up Meals - Step 2 - Adding Provisions

2. Adjust the old menu availability 

In the Meal Menus section of the Setup (School > Meals > [Setup from the left-hand menu]), adjust the end date for the current Meal Menu to the day before your seasonal meal menu is scheduled to start.

• Click Edit Availability
• Change the Menu Available to date
• Click Save Changes
  • Tip: If you set up your seasonal menu to cover the whole week, set the end date of the previous menu to the Sunday before the seasonal menu starts.

3. Add the new menu 

Add a new Meal Menu for the seasonal meal with the green Add Meal Menu button in the top right corner, set the rotation to 1 Week and click Save Changes.

4. Create the new menu  

Click View meal menu to create the menu for the week of the seasonal meal. Add the meal provisions and labels in, using the standard provisions for the days without a seasonal meal option and the provisions you created in step one for the day of the seasonal meal.

For example, your Christmas meal might be on the Thursday of week B, so:

• The menu you create for that meal is the standard menu for week B
• Except for on Thursday, when you set the special Christmas provisions and labels instead 
• The number of rows you need for the menu equals the number of Christmas provisions or the number of provisions you offer on the standard week B menu (whichever is larger)

Top Tip: Copy and paste using Ctrl + C/V (Windows) or Cmd + C/V (Mac) from your old Meal Menu in one window to the new Meal menu in the other to save yourself time.

5. Set the seasonal week's availability 

Now that you have added the menu, click Edit availability to make the Christmas menu available. Set the availability from date to the first day you want the entire seasonal menu available from.

• It is recommended to start the seasonal menu the day after the original menu ends. For example, if your previous menu was set to end on Sunday in step 2 above, set the seasonal menu to start on the next day (Monday)
• Set the availability to date to the last day the menu with the seasonal meal is available. If you copied your original menu for this week and just replaced one day with the seasonal options, you can set the end date to Friday.

Note: It is not possible to make a meal menu available for one day (i.e. the available from and to dates cannot be the same), so at the very least you must set the menu to be available on the day of the seasonal meal and the day before or after.

6. Create a menu for after your seasonal meal 

Add a new Meal Menu for the weeks after your seasonal meal menu to return to regular meals using the green Add Meal Menu button in the Meal Menu section of the meal's setup. 

• Set the availability so the new menu starts after the one for the seasonal meal finishes
• Menus rotate on Mondays, so ensure that if you have multiple weeks per menu, your weeks line up correctly. For example, if you have a Week A and Week B, if the menu starts on Saturday, the menu will rotate on Monday, so the first day the meal can be chosen will be Week B's menu.

Top Tip: Copy and paste using Ctrl + C/V (Windows) or Cmd + C/V (Mac) from your old Meal Menu in one window to the new Meal menu in the other to save yourself time.

We use Standard Meals

If you use standard meals, you have two basic options. You can either set up a meal provision for your seasonal meal within your register or set this up as a trip.

Meal Provisions pros & cons

These are best if you would like teachers to be able to record the students' meal choices on the day

Pros

• Parents top up their child's account in advance through the Parent Portal or Parent App
• The cost is automatically deducted from their balance at the end of the meal sitting.
• Staff can have a meal logged

Cons

• You may need to set students as absent manually or have a different lunch option on the day of the meal
• Parents can't book a specific meal through the Parent Portal or Parent App in advance.
• You can't track the number of students having the meal until the day of the meal
• Once you set up the meal provision, it will be available to select in Meal Registers until the end of the year.

Trips Meal provisions pros & cons

These are best if you want parents to be able to book and/or pay for the meal through the Parent Portal or Parent App

Pros

• Parents can book their child for the meal in advance
• Parents can pay for the meal through the Parent Portal or Parent App

Cons

• Teachers will need to mark students as not having a meal in Meal Registers on the day of the meal to prevent students from being charged twice
• If a student doesn't attend, you will need to refund the meal through the trip manually area
• If a student chooses to have a different meal than the one they have paid for, you may need to manage refunds and change the meal choice in the registers
• Payments will not be deducted from a student's meals account, and payments will be paid out to the account linked to trips (but you can set an accounting code)
• Staff cannot have a meal logged

Setting it up as a meal

If you want to accept payments through Arbor for meals, you must already have card payments enabled on your site (go to School > Payments > Initial Setup to verify that all steps are ticked).

You must also have set up your Lunch meal as a standard - click here to see how to set it up to ensure your teachers can take Meal Registers. 

This means you will already have meal sittings (including the time the meal will take place), have added the attendees (identifying which student groups attend each sitting), or have meal choices so that they will appear in the meal registers. Therefore, you won't need to do this again. 

Step 1 - Setting up your meal provision

• To set up your seasonal meal, navigate to School > Meals and select "Setup" from the left-hand menu.
• To add a seasonal meal, we'll be adding a new Provision to the existing Lunch meal, so click Provisions.

• Click the Add Provision button in the top-right corner

• On the slide-over, add the meal name and the meal type, then click Add Provision.

You'll be taken to the Provision overview, where you can add pricing details.

Step 2 - Adding meal prices

Please note that if you can't complete these actions, you may not have the necessary permissions (the Finance: Administer permission). Please contact your Admin staff to help with this.

In this step, you can add a price for a specific meal to set the dates for which this meal choice will generate invoices. For instance, if your Christmas lunch is charged at a different rate to your other meals, and only on one day of the year, set the applicable dates as the day the meal takes place.

• Enter a price by clicking '+Add' in the prices table. This will mean that students and staff can be automatically charged for the food taken. Ensure that you set the dates to reflect the actual dates the meal is served.

• Add the meal price for each user group with a unique price, then click Set Price & Add Another. Find more on the best order to use when adding prices here:  Adding prices to your provisions

• Once you've added all the prices for your different groups, your page will resemble the screenshot below.

If you need to edit the price or dates and the seasonal meal begins in the future, you won't be able to edit it, as it is not Active. You'll need to delete it by clicking the red button, then add a new one.

Step 3 - Adding students

Please note: It is not possible to pre-book meals through the Parent Portal, or to add students to a meal on future dates, as the meal register is generated on the day. So, you'll need to wait until the day of the meal to input meal choices.

On the day of the meal, you or your teachers can access the morning registration register (see here for teachers or here for administrators). Go to the Meal Choices option on the left-hand side.

You'll be able to select which students are taking the seasonal meal provision for the day individually, or by using the bulk actions on the left-hand side.

If you use payments in Arbor and there is an active price, students who have been designated as taking the seasonal meal option will be invoiced. The cost of the meal is taken away from their Meals account balance at the end of the meal.

Need to issue a refund? Take a look at this article.

Setting it up as a trip

Step 1 - Add your trip

• Go to School > Activities > Trips. This will bring you to the Trips overview page. From here, you can view the trips you have already created in school and set up new trips here as well.
• Click +Add to create a new trip and select whether your Christmas meal is free for all students or whether parents may have to pay for their child to have the meal.

• You can then choose the name, location and when the meal will take place. If all students can have the meal, you can add them here - you can add a different price for different student groups later.

• If you allow parents to sign up for this through the Parent Portal, it will determine when parents will be able to view, sign up, and pay.

Step 2 - Add your prices

Next, you will need to create prices that can be booked. If the meal is free, you won't need to add a price.

• Click +Add in this section.
• Add in the prices. More on adding trip prices here: Setting up Trips - 3. Adding Prices

When adding the prices, set up a price for FSM students and a price for other students. Then choose whether parents will be able to pay any amount they like (Voluntary contribution) and whether they can pay in instalments (please note that the minimum payment allowed for trips is £1).

Step 3a - Signing a child up on the school side

• Go to School > Activities > Trips and select the meal.
• Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click into the Eligible tab to see students who have not yet been confirmed as attending the meal.
• Tick the box next to the student's meal and click 'Confirm Participants' to sign them up pending later payment, or click 'Add Payment' to log a payment.

• Add in the payment method (cash, cheque or bank transfer - card payments can only be made through the Parent Portal or Parent App) and the amount paid, then log the payment.

The student will then move to the Confirmed tab. Find the full process for manually signing students up to trips here: Manually signing students up to a trip

Step 3b - How guardians can sign up their children

Parents will be able to sign up for the meal using the Parent Portal or Parent App until the Signup Closes date and time. They will need to click into the Trips section and select the upcoming meal.

If they need to pay for the meal, they can click the green button and add the payment to the basket or proceed with payment.

If they don't need to pay for the meal, they can click the green button to sign the child up for the meal. 

Step 4 - On the day of the meal

On the day of the meal, ensure that teachers record the students in the Meals Register as absent so they are not charged twice.

Need to issue a refund and/or cancel participation? Take a look at this article.