Virtual Wallet reduces the hassle of dealing with direct payments for providers, as it gives them a way to deal with multiple individuals in a standardised way. Virtual Wallet enables providers to promote their services, manage the entire transaction process and - crucially - to get paid quickly and easily. Take a look at our 'short' intro for providers video.
Get paid faster and easier
Why should Care Providers use Virtual Wallet?
Direct payments are a great opportunity for providers, but they can also be a load of hassle. Virtual Wallet is an easy way for providers to deal with - and receive payments from - multiple direct payment holders. The benefits to providers include:
- Virtual Wallet is free of charge to care organisations and other providers and is accessed online, with an easy-to-use, web interface.
- As Virtual Wallet holds funds on behalf of the individual, payment is guaranteed, and invoices are typically paid within 5 days of approval.
- Your services are visible to all individuals who use Virtual Wallet locally, helping you build your customer base.
- Virtual Wallet reduces admin, as all bookings and invoices are managed digitally within Virtual Wallet.
Take a look at our short videos that answer many common queries
FAQs: About Virtual Wallet
Virtual Wallet is FREE for all end-users. Local councils or the NHS pays us to provide access to Virtual Wallet. This means that there is no cost to individuals, their family & friends or their carers & providers.
When we say there are no costs for providers, we mean it. There are NO commissions, subscriptions, transaction fees or listing fees. We don't do kickbacks either way and we don't sell the data to anyone. It is not a trial and there isn't a 'freemium' model with "optional" upgrades.
Providers are supplying services to the individual with the direct payment, and are contracting with them. Virtual Wallet is just facilitating the transaction process.
No. In fact, it is the total opposite, it is an end-to-end transactional solution. This means that it enables individuals and providers to manage the entire purchase-to-pay process.
No, you don't...but, Virtual Wallet is the preferred way of working for direct payments for most of the councils and integrated care boards that we work with.
Lots of providers have been reluctant to start using 'yet another new system', but the feedback from those that have embraced it is generally very good.
There are over 1,000 providers transacting every month on Virtual Wallet. They include homecare agencies, micro-enterprises, third-sector organisations, supported living providers, day opportunity providers, residential providers, therapists and equipment suppliers from within the social care & health sectors. There are also lots of businesses that don't traditionally identify as social care or health suppliers, but who offer services that people with a direct payment can buy (e.g. gym memberships, cleaners, dog walkers, transport companies).
No, Virtual Wallet sits alongside and complements them.
Once an individual has placed an order with you, you will just log in to the Virtual Wallet system to confirm what has been delivered. Most providers do this once a month for all of the Virtual Wallet individuals that they deal with.
The Virtual Wallet system then automatically generates an invoice on your behalf, so you don't need to physically send or email it to anyone. Once the invoice is paid, you will get a notification confirming the amounts.
Your finance team just updates your own internal finance system (Quickbooks, Xero, Sage etc) to reflect the invoice and the receipt of cash. They can even extract the information in bulk from Virtual Wallet and load it in to your system if they want.
Yes, it can and there are plenty of examples to show that it does. Once you are set up on Virtual Wallet for one individual, your services can be offered to other people that use Virtual Wallet. The amount of spend that comes through Virtual Wallet has more than doubled in the last 18 months, and is likely to continue growing at a similar rate. The sooner you are on board, the sooner some of that growth can come your way.
Virtual Wallet is operated by a company called People Places Lives Limited. We have been around since 2008 and our whole business is about personalisation in the health and social care sectors. We have 50 staff and are based in the North West of England. Local councils and NHS organisations go through lengthy procurement processes to decide who they will work with, so we have to meet lots of quality standards. All of this means that providers can trust Virtual Wallet and the company behind it.
FAQs: Getting paid
Providers typically receive payment with 5 days of their invoice being submitted. One of the benefits of the Virtual Wallet system is that providers are less reliant on the individual taking action. So, providers spend less time on admin, dealing with invoice queries and chasing debts - and ultimately have a much lower exposure to bad-debt risk.
You could, but it will be quicker and easier in the long-run if we set you up properly on the system. If you aren't set up on the system, you lose out on many of the benefits of Virtual Wallet for providers. This exposes you to the risks of dealing with direct payment recipients in an ad-hoc model such as bad debt risk, irregular payment cycles, payment delays, invoice queries, lack of standardisation, time spent chasing payments, etc etc.
So long as you are properly set-up on the Virtual Wallet system, payment is effectively guaranteed. This is because Virtual Wallet prevents individuals from raising an order if they don't have sufficient funds and pays invoices automatically. This gives providers much more assurance compared to dealing with people using a pre-paid card,
FAQs: Getting set up
We need you to give us some basic information at the outset - such as company name, address, contact details and bank details, along with which individuals you support, what you provide and your prices. It normally takes about 5-10 minutes.
The Virtual Wallet team will get you setup, and you should be ready to receive orders within a few days. We have to get the individual setup at the same time (and get their funding from the council or the NHS), so whilst we try and make everything happen at the same time, sometimes there is a short delay.
Take a look at our 'short' provider setup video for more info.
Care and support organisations play a crucial role in the PHB process, and Virtual Wallet can help ensure payments for support are made quickly and accurately.
The registration process for care providers is simple, and if you only need to complete the process once, regardless of the number of individuals you support.
- We send a Virtual Wallet registration request to any organisations that provide services to individuals who receive personal care funding. If you haven’t received a registration request, please contact the Virtual Wallet support team.
- Click on the link in the registration request email – it will take you to a registration page where you will need tell us about your organisation and provide an overview of the services you offer. You will also need to enter details of the bank account you would like any payments to be made into.
- When you click ‘submit’ your form will be sent to the Virtual Wallet support team for processing.
- The Virtual Wallet support team will review your form and create your Virtual Wallet account.
- At this point, you will be sent a username and password via email – this will enable to you to log into Virtual Wallet and manage all elements of your account, including product listings, pricing and responding to requests from individuals.
- You are then live on the marketplace, meaning individuals are able to view your listings and book with you directly using Virtual Wallet.