Parenting time tracking sounds bureaucratic, but it's the single most important admin task for any separated parent in Australia. The percentage of nights you have the children directly determines your child support assessment and your Family Tax Benefit. Get it wrong — over or under — and you'll either lose money you were entitled to or get hit with a debt you didn't see coming.
Why nights of care matter
Services Australia uses care percentages in two systems:
Child support Care percentage decides which care bracket you fall into (nil, regular, shared, equal, primary, above primary, sole). Each bracket has a "cost percentage" used in the formula. Move across a bracket and your annual amount can shift by thousands.
Family Tax Benefit FTB Part A is split between parents based on their care percentage. Reporting the wrong percentage — or not updating when it changes — leads to overpayments and reconciliation debts at tax time.
How Services Australia counts care
The default measure is nights — which parent the children sleep with overnight. There are exceptions (daytime-only care, very young children) but for most families it comes down to "whose roof tonight".
Care percentage = (your nights ÷ total nights) × 100, usually averaged over a year.
Care brackets (child support) - 0–13% — nil care - 14–34% — regular care - 35–47% — shared care - 48–52% — equal shared care - 53–65% — primary care - 66–86% — above primary care - 87–100% — sole care
What a good log looks like
For each night, you only need to record one fact: which parent the children slept with. That's it.
Useful extras: - Whether the night was scheduled or a change - Who initiated any change ("Dad asked to swap Friday") - Handover time and place - Notes for anything unusual (sick child, holiday, refused handover)
Don't editorialise. The log is more credible when it's boring.
Common mistakes that distort care percentages
Counting daytime visits as care A Sunday afternoon visit isn't a night. Don't count it as one.
Counting split nights If you have the child for dinner but they sleep at the other parent's, the other parent has that night. The "midnight rule" is a good shorthand: whoever has them at midnight gets the night.
Not updating when the pattern changes School holidays, a new job, a teenager who decides where they're sleeping — all of these change percentages. Notify Services Australia in writing when the pattern changes.
Estimating instead of logging "It's basically 50/50" is not evidence. A daily log is. Estimates lose every time they're challenged.
Reconstructing from memory A log you wrote last week for the whole year is worth almost nothing in a review. Contemporaneous logs — written the day of, or within a day or two — are what count.
How often to update Services Australia
You're required to tell them when care arrangements change. In practice: - One-off swaps: log them but don't notify - A new ongoing pattern: notify within 28 days - A holiday block that changes the annual average significantly: notify
If you're not sure, notify. Underreporting can be treated as failure to disclose; overreporting hurts the other parent and gets corrected at reconciliation.
A simple tracking system
Paper or spreadsheet A calendar with M (mum) and D (dad) on every day works. At the end of each month, count the nights. At the end of the financial year, calculate the percentage.
A co-parenting app An app does the counting for you, timestamps each entry, and gives you a clean export when Services Australia asks. Bloom is built for this — a private nightly log with care percentages calculated automatically.
Calendar exports Whatever you use, make sure you can export it. PDF or CSV is fine. Screenshots are acceptable but messier.
Special situations
Shared care of multiple children with different arrangements Each child has their own care percentage. Log per child if their schedules differ.
Travel and holidays Count the nights as they actually happened. If a planned 7-night holiday became 5, log 5.
Refused handovers or no-shows Record the planned night, what happened, and what you did. Don't unilaterally rewrite the count — Services Australia handles disputes separately.
Children choosing where to sleep If a teenager changes the pattern, log reality, not the parenting plan. Notify Services Australia if it becomes a new ongoing pattern.
Tying it back to child support and FTB
Once a year (or whenever the pattern changes), open your log, count the nights, work out the percentage, and: 1. Update Services Australia (Child Support). 2. Update Services Australia (FTB). 3. Update your co-parenting app or shared record. 4. Keep the log — don't delete it.
A five-minute habit. The cost of skipping it is months of corrected payments and back-debts.