How much of your day is eaten up by recordkeeping and administrative tasks?
Three hours? Four hours? More?
Whatever the number is, it's probably too high.
Time was, these tasks were a tedious but necessary use of a child care provider's precious time and energy. Nowadays, however, child care management software exists to help you solve this exact problem. This digital solution will save you time and energy, and it will give you the freedom to be truly present with the children in your care.
Read on to discover seven outstanding benefits of using child care management software for your child care business.
1. Automatic completion of your pen and paper tasks
With pen and paper forms of recordkeeping, you're likely spending more time than necessary making sure you have all the information you need. Across various folders and files, you may also be keeping duplicate records without even knowing.
It just makes sense to let the software do this work for you.
The right child care management software can assist you with many essential processes, including getting signatures, recording infant feedings and diaper checks, filling out daily report forms, logging incident reports, printing tuition bills and receipts, and much more.
In addition to these essential features, the benefit of using child care management software is that it's incredibly easy to securely share essential documents with parents and staff, and all of your records are stored in an easy-to-navigate digital format.
2. Efficient attendance tracking
Pick-up and drop-off times are hectic.
Some parents want to get in and out as quickly as possible so that they can move on with their days. Other parents want to stick around and talk about their children. The kids may be tired or cranky.
Amidst all of this chaos, you also have to make sure that you accurately record attendance times for each child. Luckily, your child care management software provides a precise record of time, as all parents are required to check-in via the system when they drop off and pick up their child.
3. More time to spend with children
A key benefit of all these powerful tools is that you get to spend more time doing what you love: being with the children!
Studies show that spending quality time with children leads to fewer behavioral issues, improved health outcomes, and a host of other benefits.
4. Gain deeper insights
Utilizing child care management software enables better documentation of a child's growth and progress than pen and paper recordkeeping alone. With child care software, you can take photos and record videos. You can also record notes about a child's progress and development in the moment, allowing for more accurate and timely feedback than ever before.
Through your child care management software, you can also share these photos, videos, and notes with parents, giving them the opportunity to check in on their child's growth in real-time.
5. Stronger home-school connection
Research has indicated that a strong connection between home and school results in better learning outcomes for the child. The more integrated these parts of a child's life are, the better their learning outcomes will be.
All of the recordkeeping tools found in your child care management software give parents a complete and accurate picture of their child's day-to-day progress. This makes sure that you and your families are on the same page, letting you communicate more rapidly and accurately with each other.
As an added benefit, your parents will also feel like they can visualize what their children are doing on a daily basis. This will give them ease of mind and more assurance that their children are receiving the best care possible.
6. Automatic billing and payments
One of the most frustrating aspects of child care, for both providers and parents, is coordinating billing and payments. A million things can come up: a parent forgets to bring their checkbook with them to pick up, a grandparent picks up a child and doesn't have a form of payment with them, parents request a discount for shorter hours in a certain week, and the list goes on.
This doesn't even cover the things that come up on the recordkeeping side, including tracking payments, collecting checks, reminding parents about overdue payments, and managing late fees.
With child care management software, all these issues disappear. These digital services calculate exactly how much parents owe and can withdraw automatic payments from parents' accounts. The software also automates communications around payments, including notifying when a payment is due.
7. Improved quality of child care service
All the features listed above add up to a better overall quality of child care for your children and their families. Your staff will feel more supported in their work than ever before. The tools lead to more efficient and in-depth communication between you and your families.
By utilizing child care management software, you are able to act in true partnership with your parents. This leads to the most important benefit of all: the best possible learning environment for the children.
Discover the Benefits of Child Care Management Software
As you can see, there are many benefits of child care management software that likely apply directly to your child care business.
Want to see how this software works for yourself? Schedule a demo to see how our software can help you take your business to the next level.
Are you a newly licensed child care provider? Be sure to review our detailed Common Licensing Violations Revealed to ensure that your business is on the right track!
Are you looking for more child care management information? Check out our Ultimate Guide to Child Care Management.
Our child care management system makes running your child care program simple and efficient. Get back to what's most important. You shouldn't have to spend more time on the administrative tasks than you do with children and staff.
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Or schedule a demo with us to learn more about how our child care management system, Alliance Core, can streamline your administrative processes.
Do you run an early childhood association made up of child care providers? If so, check out our Ultimate Guide to Shared Service Alliance.
Header image courtesy of Jumpstory.
