This article provides instructions for setting up and managing staff meals in Arbor, including permissions needed, setting meal prices, topping up accounts, and managing meal patterns. It also covers how to add, remove, or change staff meal choices and addresses common FAQs regarding staff meal management.
If your school wants to use Meals for staff in Arbor, follow the instruction below to set this up on your site.
Permissions
- Staff Profile: Action: Meals: Administer - Set up meals for staff
- Finance: Administer - Set prices for the meals
- Student: Meal: Administer All Students - Choose meal provisions for staff
If you don't have permission, you'll need to ask your admin team to give you permission using these instructions.
Setting up staff meals
Step 1 - Set staff meal prices
First, check you have card payments enabled on your site. To be able to set prices for staff, make sure you have set up a Meal on your site from School > Meals > Setup. You can see how to complete these steps here: Setting up meals.
To set up staff meal options you can either:
Add a staff price to an existing meal provision
- Required option for schools who use Meal Menus to prevent parents from being abe to select staff meals
- Recommended for schools that have a simple meal setup e.g. only one provision for hot meals etc.
For schools who don't use Meal Menus and have complex setups where staff have different meal options to students, or if you want a free staff meal option. Please note: Any separate meal provisions set up will display in the Meal Register, so be sure to clearly name it so teachers don't select this option for students.
Step 2 - Topping up accounts
You can log cash or cheque top-ups from the Payments > Meals > Account Overview section on the staff profile.
Staff can also top up their own accounts by following these instructions.
Optional - Set staff meal patterns
You can add a staff meal pattern to automatically deduct the price of a staff member's meal from their account balance each day after the meal taken place.
Unlike with students, there isn't an area where you can add staff meal patterns in bulk. Instead, you'll need to add them from the Meals section of their staff profile.
First, add in which sitting they should be attending - this will mean you don't have to manually add the staff to the meal register. Click +Add in the Meal Patterns section.
The slide over will select every day by default, but if a staff member has lunch during a different sitting on certain days, you can untick the days.
You can then see a new section for Regular Meal Choices - this will mean you don't have to add in which meal they are having every day. Click +Add.
The slide over will select every day by default, but if a staff member has a different meal on certain days, you can untick the days.
Managing staff meals
Once you've set up staff meals, staff will be automatically given a meal (if you've given them a regular meal choice) or you can add staff to a meal manually each day. Teachers cannot select their meal choice from the Meal Register when selecting meal choices for their students.
How to add meal choices for staff
If you have set up staff meal sittings and meal choices as shown in the Optional - Set staff meal patterns section above, staff will automatically be included in meal registers and their meal prices will be automatically deducted.
If you are adding staff manually, go to School > Meals > Daily Summary. Select the tab of the sitting, and click Add Staff.
In the slide over, select the staff and the meal they are having today, then click Add Staff.
If you can't select a staff member here, they may have already been given a regular meal sitting. Click the View Register button and go to the Staff tab. Click the staff member without a meal choice to select their meal choice.
How to remove or change a staff member’s meal
If a staff member is no longer having the meal they have been booked onto, go to School > Meals > Daily Summary. Select the tab of the sitting, and click View Register.
Click on the Staff tab, click on the staff member to edit the meal or click Remove Staff.
FAQ
Can I set up different prices for staff meals?
Yes, you can set up different prices for different staff meals, but you must set them up as separate provisions with their own prices. If you go to School > Meals > Setup > Provisions, you can add another provision here for staff with your chosen meal and amount to pay (for example if you want a regular meal for £3.00 and a small meal for £2.00). If you instead add another price to an existing staff meal provision, the lower amount will retroactively apply to all recorded meals with that provision, severely impacting your meal records.
Can I choose staff meals for the term?
No, staff meals have to be added daily from School > Meals > Daily Summary. Just click the Add Staff button.
Can staff select their own meals?
No, staff cannot make their own meal choices. Only staff with the Staff Profile: Action: Meals: Administer permission can choose which meal staff will have, so most staff cannot add their own meal choices.
Can money be paid into a different bank account for staff meals and student meals?
By default, the Meals account will auto-create both student and staff meal accounts. This is one account that can't be split or edited.
If you want staff meal payments to be made into a different account, you'll need to:
- Rename this account to Student Meals
- Set up a new separate customer account type for Staff Meals, specifying the different bank account
- Choose to not show this account in the Parent Portal
- Create a new meal using this new account
- Add meal sittings and provisions as needed for the new meal, ensuring a price is set for staff
- Instruct your staff to make top ups to the Staff Meals account only
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