Help & Support for Individuals

You can do most of these things yourself, but the team at Virtual Wallet are here to help you if you need with: 

• Logging in to your Virtual Wallet account. 
• Adding a friend or family member (as an 'authorised representative') to your Virtual Wallet account so they view your account and help you with things.  
• Setting up a new PA or provider (once you have decided who you want to use) on Virtual Wallet. 
• Ordering care and support. 
• Making changes to your schedule of care and support. 
• Queries about timesheets, invoices and payments to PAs and providers. 
• Queries about payroll (if you utilise the Virtual Wallet payroll - if you use a third-party payroll provider you will probably need to contact them). 

Most other things to do with your direct payment need to be directed to the organisation that provides your funding.  See the FAQ: What can my council / the NHS help me with? 

You will need to contact the organisation that provides your funding (your local council or NHS) for things like: 

• Help with finding and employing a new PA. 
• Employment advice or issues with your current PA.
• Your direct payment not being enough to meet your needs. 
• Changes to the amount of your direct payment. 
• Changes in your circumstances. 
• Concerns about the safety or you or other people.  

Many councils and NHS organisations have arrangements with a local 'direct payments support service', who may be responsible for some of the above.  See the FAQ: What can a direct payments support service help me with?  

You should also take a look at the FAQ: What can the Virtual Wallet support team help me with?

This is an advice service that helps people with their direct payment.  It can be provided:

• In-house: Some councils have an in-house team. 
• External: Many councils and NHS organisations have arrangements with an external organisation to deliver the service. It might be another public-sector organisation, a charity or a private company.  

The staff are sometimes called 'Independent Living Advisors' or 'Support Brokers'. 

Each local service is different, but most direct payments support services help people with: 

• Understanding what a direct payment is and if it is right for them. 
• Completing all the paperwork for a direct payment. 
• Developing a 'Support Plan' that sets out how you will spend your direct payment. 
• Finding providers or recruiting a PA. 
• Advice on becoming an employer of a PA. 
• Employment queries and issues with your PA.  

They don't normally get to decide how much your direct payment will be - that is the job of the people at your local council or the NHS. 

You should be able to find the contact details for your local direct payments support service in the 'in your area' drop-down menu on the right hand side of this page.  

You should get in touch with your normal contact at the council (e.g. your social worker or care manager) or the NHS (e.g. the nurse or the Personal Health Budget coordinator). 

If you don't know who this person is, contact the direct payments support team at your council or the personal health budgets support team at your local NHS organisation.  You should be able to find their contact details in the 'in your area' drop-down menu on the right hand side of this page.  

PA stands for 'personal assistant'.  It has a different meaning in the health & social care sector (where it means someone that supports you with your health & social care needs) compared to a typical office setting (where it means someone that does secretarial work).  

Most PAs are employed by the person receiving the care or support.   This means that you (as the employer) are responsible for calculating the tax and other deductions to be made before they are paid.  PAs are paid via the submission of timesheets and a payslip being produced.  Most people use the Virtual Wallet payroll service to manage timesheets and payroll calculations, but you can use a third-party payroll provider if you prefer.  

It is possible for a PA to be self-employed.  This means that they are not formally employed by you, and that they are responsible for their own tax affairs.  Community and micro-provider organisations are often examples of self-employed PAs.  Whilst they may still submit timesheets, there are no payroll calculations to be done, and they are ultimately getting paid via an invoice (like a care provider organisation does).  

The term 'provider' covers any organisation that provides care and support.  It includes homecare agencies, domiciliary care companies and pretty much any other type of organisation that might provide services to you. Depending on the type of work that they do, some providers have to be registered with the CQC (Care Quality Commission), but some don't.  Providers are paid via invoices.  They could just post or email invoices to you, but it is much better if this is managed via Virtual Wallet (via what we call schedules and orders) as it gives you much greater protection and visibility.  

If you are new to Virtual Wallet, the setup of your PAs or providers will be covered by the 'online enrolment' process.  Either you or the person making the referral will need to give us some basic information about your PAs or providers (name, contact details, email address) and Virtual Wallet does the rest.  

If you already have a Virtual Wallet account and you want to add a new PA or provider, the best way to do it is to contact the Virtual Wallet support team (webchat is the fastest way).  

This depends on whether your PA is paid on a four-weekly basis, or on a monthly basis.

For those on a four-weekly basis, the typical timings are:

• Timesheets until Sunday are submitted by the deadline of Monday 12 noon.
• Calculations are processed during the next few days.
• Payments are sent out on the Thursday and may arrive in the PA’s bank account on Thursday afternoon or anytime on the Friday up to 5pm.

For those on a monthly basis, the typical timings are:

• Timesheets until the last day of the month are submitted by the deadline of 12 noon on the first working day or the month.
• Calculations are processed during the next few days.
• Payments are sent out on the Thursday and may arrive in the PA’s bank account on Thursday afternoon or anytime on the Friday up to 5pm.

Payroll schedules (with the cut-off times) can be found above in the resources section.  

If we become aware of a delay for any reason, we will always try and let you know. 

If you use a third party payroll company (instead of Virtual Wallet payroll), we are reliant on them doing the calculations and sending them to us promptly. 

You can easily check if your PA (or provider) has been paid by logging in to your Virtual Wallet account and looking at my statement, which shows all payments that have gone out. 

If there isn't a recent payment showing, it means that your PA has not been paid.    

There could be a few reasons for this.

The first thing to check is when your PA should be paid (see FAQ: When should my PA be paid?).

Next up, check that the PA has submitted their timesheet and that it has been approved (see FAQ: How do I check if my PA's timesheet has been approved?).  The deadlines are really tight as we try to get everyone paid as quickly as possible.  If their timesheet was submitted late, or approved late, then they have missed the pay run.  They will still be paid, but the payment will be late.  This is why we encourage everyone to submit timesheets every week so there is less of an impact if the last timesheet of the four-week period is late for some reason.  

Other reasons could be:

• Late calculations - If you use a third party payroll company (instead of Virtual Wallet payroll), we are reliant on them doing the calculations and sending them to us promptly. We have agreed deadlines with all the payroll companies that people use.  If the payroll company sends the information to us after the deadline, we do try to make the payment as soon as we can, but sometimes there is a delay of a few days.  Where this is the case, we normally try to let you know so that you can ask the payroll company to be more prompt in the future. 

• Insufficient funds – If there is insufficient funds in your Virtual Wallet account, we will not be able to process payments.  You can check this by logging in to your Virtual Wallet account and looking at my statement to see your balance.  

You can ask your PA to check that their timesheet has been submitted. 

Alternatively, you can check yourself by:

• Logging in to your Virtual Wallet account
• Go to Personal Assistants
• Look at the Timesheets tab and find the timesheet that you are interested in. 
• If it says 'approved', then you don't need to do anything else. 
• If you can see a blue 'awaiting approval' button, it means the timesheet needs to be approved before we can do the payroll calculations. 
• If you can't see a timesheet (or it is blank), it means your PA has not submitted  their timesheet.  You should contact them and encourage them to submit a timesheet ASAP. 

We have no control over how quickly the payment clearing system operates.  Some payments take a few minutes to be processed, others can take a most of the day.  Please wait until after close of business (generally 5pm) on the day that payment is due to be received before contacting us. 

It depends.  Lots of people use our in-house Virtual Wallet payroll service.  However, some people use a third-party payroll provider.  This is normally because they used them before they got a Virtual Wallet account and wanted to carry on. 

It is important because any payroll-related queries need to be directed to your payroll provider.  If you use the Virtual Wallet payroll service, then the support team at Virtual Wallet will be able to answer payroll-related queries.  If you use a third-party payroll provider, then the Virtual Wallet support team will only be able to help you with payment queries - they cannot help you with any queries about the payroll calculations themselves (e.g. holiday pay, tax queries, missing timesheets etc) as they do not have any visibility of the payroll calculations.  

Generally speaking, your payroll provider will be whoever you or your PA submits timesheets to, or whoever produces the PA's payslip.  You can also check on your Virtual Wallet statement to see if you are making any recurring payments to a payroll provider for a payroll service.  

These are set by whoever does your payroll calculations for you.

If you use a third-party payroll provider, you should check your correspondence with them, or their website.  

If you use the Virtual Wallet payroll service, we operate four schedules (called A, B, C and M).  The schedules (with the cut-off times) can be found above in the resources section.  

You can check by looking at the most recent payslip. 

PAs are paid via the submission of timesheets and payroll.  

Care providers (e.g home care agencies) are paid via invoices.  The invoice contains all the details of what you are being charged for.  

If you see an invoice in Virtual Wallet from a care provider that you want to query, click on the Dispute Invoice button and our team will investigate your query.  

If you receive regular support from a homecare agency, it is best to get them properly set up on the Virtual Wallet system so that schedules and orders can be created, which means that invoices can be automatically generated.  This gives you greater protection and visibility and reduces the risk of duplicate payments, invoice queries and disputes.  

However, you can process ad-hoc or one-off invoices (that are emailed or posted to you) by logging in to your Virtual Wallet account and selecting payment.  You can then snap a photo of the invoice (or upload a copy) and make an instant payment to the provider from your Virtual Wallet account.  You should make sure that everything on the invoice is 100% right before you make a payment and you should be sure that it is for something covered by the support plan that you agreed with your local council or the NHS at the outset otherwise they may query it at a later time.  

Not everyone has this permission switched on by default, so you may need to contact the Virtual Wallet support team for them 

We've recently launched what we call 'online enrolment'.  This is how it works:

• Someone at your funding authority (your local council on the NHS) initiates the Virtual Wallet setup process by completing a referral.   
• The team here at Virtual Wallet quickly review it. 
• You should then get a 'welcome email' from Virtual Wallet asking you to complete your account setup.  
• Similar messages will also be sent to any PAs or providers that need setting up.  
• Your dashboard should show you the progress and mean that you can see any outstanding actions that need completing.  

If you have a question or are stuck, the best thing to do is open a webchat conversation with us via the webchat box on the bottom right of the screen (if there is no-one online the webchat option won't appear). 

Alternatively you can call us on 03300 582692 or email us at info@myvirtualwallet.co.uk

If you can't remember your password, click on 'Forgot your password'.  This should then send you an email that enables you to reset your password without needing to contact us.  

If you have more than three failed login attempts, your account will be disabled for 24 hours.  If you can't wait that long, get in touch with the Virtual Wallet support team on 03300 582692.  

An 'authorised representative' is normally a family member or friend that helps the individual with their Virtual Wallet account.  They have their own login details, which then links to the individual's account.  

As an authorised representative, you see exactly the same as you would if you were the individual, so all of the support & guidance is the same.  

You can add a friend or family member to your Virtual Wallet account so they view your account and help you with things. 

We call this an 'authorised representative'.  Each council and NHS organisation has their own process about adding one, so you will need to contact the Virtual Wallet support team (webchat is the fastest way) to set this in motion.  

Each local council and NHS organisation works to slightly different dates.  However, most of them send us regular funding either every four weeks or monthly.  

If you are totally new to Virtual Wallet, the first funding payment might be delayed until the next main payment run, or your council / NHS organisation may make special arrangements to get you setup more quickly. 

Note that the first funding payment is normally only made once you have signed off all the paperwork with your council / NHS organisation. 

One of the biggest reasons that the first funding payment from a council gets delayed is that they need to have fully completed their 'financial assessment' process (i.e. working out whether you will need to pay towards the cost of your care).  

We add whatever funding to your Virtual Wallet account that your funding authority (your local council or the NHS) tells us to. 

If it has changed and you want to query it, you should get in touch with your contact at your local council (e.g. your social worker or care manager) or the NHS (e.g. the nurse or the Personal Health Budget coordinator). 

If you don't know who this person is, contact the direct payments support team at your council or the personal health budgets support team at your local NHS organisation.   You should be able to find their contact details in the 'in your area' drop-down menu on the right hand side of this page.  

The amount of your direct payment isn't determined by us, it is set by whoever provides your funding (your local council or NHS organisation).  

If you feel that your direct payment is not enough to meet your needs, you should get in touch with your contact at your local council (e.g. your social worker or care manager) or the NHS (e.g. the nurse or the Personal Health Budget coordinator) and ask for a re-assessment of your needs. 

If you don't know who this person is, contact the direct payments support team at your council or the personal health budgets support team at your local NHS organisation.  You should be able to find their contact details in the 'in your area' drop-down menu on the right hand side of this page.  

You can check the balance in your Virtual Wallet account at any time.  When you login, you will see your Current Balance is the amount of money within your Virtual Wallet account right now.

It doesn’t reflect any ‘pending transactions’ - within My Statement you can see two balances:

• The Current Balance is the amount of money within your
  Virtual Wallet account right now.
• The Available Balance also includes money waiting to be paid in or out that hasn’t yet been processed.

The Transactions tab shows all recent transactions that are reflected in your Current Balance.  The Pending transactions tab displays money waiting to be paid in or out that hasn’t yet been processed, which are reflected in your Available Balance.