Add a home

A home is the operational unit in ARC: its own staff, its own young people, its own records. Adding one takes a minute; when it opens depends on where your account is with billing.

If your company is new and has not paid yet, you add homes in the setup wizard instead, one question at a time — see Set up your company with the setup wizard. The rest of this page covers the Create Home form you use once you are in the admin area.

Create the home

1. Open the homes list. From the sidebar, Company Admin, then the Homes tile — "Create homes, assign staff and name each home's DSLs". The list is headed Homes — "Manage homes in your company" — with columns for Name, Status and DSLs.

2. Select Create Home.

3. Fill in the details.

   Field	Required	Notes
   Home Name	Yes
   Registered beds	Yes	1 to 100. "The number of places this home is registered for with Ofsted. It sets the home's pricing band."
   Address	No
   Notes	No

4. Select Create Home.

Is the home registered with Ofsted yet?

The form asks. If the home is not registered yet, you can put it on the Prepare plan (£29 a month) instead of a band price, and agree to the Prepare plan terms. A Prepare home has no child features, and moves to the Full plan when you are ready or after 12 months. If you say it is registered, or enter an Ofsted URN, Prepare is not offered. See The Prepare plan.

What happens next depends on billing

If your account is already paying, ARC charges for the home straight away, for the rest of the current month or year, at its band price. The home goes live as soon as that payment is through:

• Usually the card on file is charged there and then, and the home is live at once — "Home added."
• If the card needs you (a bank check, or it was declined), ARC sends you to Stripe's page to pay. Until it's paid the home shows as Awaiting payment in your homes list, with Retry payment.

You add one home at a time: while one is awaiting payment, another can't be added — "Another home is waiting on payment. Finish or retry that one first."

If your company is still setting up, the home is saved as a draft. It goes live with your first payment, along with every other home — see Getting set up and paying. Nobody at ARC has to activate it for you. In the wizard, Remove takes a draft home back out before you pay (unless a child has been recorded against it).

Changing the bed count later

Open the home and change Registered beds. If that moves it into a different band on a paying account, moving up adds the difference for the rest of the period to your next invoice; moving down takes effect without a mid-cycle credit.

Home statuses

The status shows as a badge on the homes list and on the home's own page.

Only an active home can be opened. Anyone who tries a draft home sees "This home will be ready as soon as your subscription is active."; a suspended one says "This home has been suspended." and an archived one "This home has been archived." This applies to every role, including you.

After it's active

A new home has nobody in it. Two things to do next:

• Assign people to homes — a home with no members is a home nobody can work in.
• Designate a DSL — the homes list shows No DSLs until you do, and no safeguarding record can be read without one.