Creating a funding form
View our video guide to creating a funding form
Creating a funding form
Funding forms can be created in two ways:
- From the child’s page: Navigate to the Children page, select the ‘More actions’ (…) button next to the child, and click “Create Funding Form”.
- From the Funding Forms page: Go to the Funding Forms page and click “Add Funding Form”.


Verifying and updating a form
After creation, you will see the funding form details page where you can review and update the following sections:
- Funding Details: Are they eligible for 2 year old funding? Have you seen their proof of DOB?
At this stage if you have seen the proof of DOB, input the DOB type and number. You don’t need to upload the DOB (although you can). Parents/Guardians won’t be asked to supply it when they submit the form for approval.
- Funded Hours: Review the funded hours that you are expecting the child to receive. The total hours across universal and extended hours can only be edited by the setting so its important to review these.
- Chargeable Hours and Costs: Verify the chargeable costs that have been pulled from the invoicing system are correct. This gives a breakdown of any private (chargeable) hours on top of funded hours and additional costs per day. The weekly summary also gives a breakdown of both the additional costs per week, segregated per chargeable item.
Chargeable hours and costs are prefilled from the child’s schedule and extra charges at the start of the term. This may need amending if the child’s charges or sessions change part way through the term. If any changes are missing, verify that the child has them set on the extra charges schedule.
- Terms: You can preselect the terms that you expect the child to be attending your nursery.

Sending to parents
Once verified, send the form to parents by clicking the Send to Parent/Guardian button at the bottom of the form, or on the funding form list page select ‘Send to Parent/Guardian’ in the more actions (…) button against the child’s form. Parents will receive an email with a link to complete their portion of the form.

Only one parent/guardian needs to fill out the form, but that parent needs to be registered and active in Pigeonhole. We therefore only send notifications to parents who are active.
Approving and rejecting forms
Once parents have submitted their form, you will be notified by email and the status in the funding form list will change to ‘Awaiting Approval’. From here you can click the ‘view’ (magnifying glass) icon on the form to view the form.

The view page allows you to either reject or accept the form:
- Approve: Finalize the funding form and sign for its completion.
- Reject: Return to parents with comments for corrections.

Once the form has been corrected and resubmitted by the parent, you will be notified by email and the form will be available for approval again.
The form data is used within our Chrome extension integration to provide live check data and also allow you to easily copy data into portals. It’s vital that the form data is correct to stop any issues submitting funding claims at a later stage.
Editing a form
To edit a form, navigate to the Funding Forms list, locate the form, and click Edit. Make your changes and click Save.

You can edit a form at any stage apart from when the form is in the ‘Awaiting Approval’ stage. Please note if the form is completed, amendments to the form will not show up in the PDF that has been signed by the parents. This will always show the original signed form.
Deleting a form
To delete a form, navigate to the Funding Forms list, locate the form, and click the Delete icon.

You can delete a form at any stage apart from when the form is in the ‘Approved’ stage. Please note this action cannot be undone.
Manually updating forms
For various reasons, some parents might not be able to complete and sign a form online. Pigeonhole makes this easy to manage by providing pre-filled forms for each child that a parent can sign, and you can then scan and upload the form to Pigeonhole.
In order to create a manual form:
- From the Funding Forms page: Go to the Funding Forms page and click “Add Funding Form”.
- Select the child and make sure ‘Manual Upload’ is selected.

- The form will now show in the list with the manual icon.

- Click the Edit (pencil) icon to edit the form
- Verify the funding hours and chargeable hours sections that have been pre-filled and click ‘Save’.
- You will now see a ‘Download Form for Completion’ button. This generates a personalised form for that child pre-filled with all the information.

- When you have received the signed form back, click ‘Upload Completed Form’ to upload the form that has been signed.
- You can also at this stage fill in any other information (Parents’ NI Numbers, DOBs, extended codes), and any proof of date of birth if required. This will then be pre-filled on any further form renewals.
For new forms, you only need to input the DOB type and number. You don’t need to upload the DOB if you have already seen it.
- Finally, submit the form for approval. You can then approve and sign for the form as you would on a normal funding application.
Renewing forms
When a funding form is due to expire, you can easily create a new form based on the previous data. Next to the approved form, select ‘Renew Funding Form’ under more actions (…).
This will create a new form pre-filled with all the child’s details, with everything copied from the previous form.

In the funding form list, you can use the ‘Expires’ filter to easily see which forms are expiring soon.
