Excerpt from Childcare Information Exchange Magazine

By Chris Luz – Personalized Software

“A decade or so ago, the idea of managing an early childhood program using management software was an alien concept.  After all, caring for children is a nurturing, high touch business.

Today, all that has changed.  Nearly all centers accept, as a matter of course, that management software is a necessary tool for making their operations more effective.  In this decade, the power and flexibility of software available to centers has increased dramatically.

To provide our readers with insights into what they can now expect from the software sector, we surveyed providers of management software to the early childhood world and asked them for their perspectives on the critical needs that you should expect your software to address today.”

                                                                                                                PUBLISHER: Roger Neugebauer

The basic needs of center Administrators today have not changed much from the needs they had five, ten, or 15 years ago.  Administrators want the ability to quickly and easily post tuition fees/payments, track their accounts receivable, track their parent/child and employee files, schedules, attendance, time sheets, and immunizations.  Centers also need to provide parents with receipts, year-end tax statements, late payment notices, and other correspondence.  As the number of agency-subsidized families has increased, there has been a growing need for more effective ways to track tuition and payments associated with agency-subsidized families.  As more families use e-mail, centers need to communicate with parents by e-mailing statements and other correspondence directly through their management software.  More centers are installing secured, electric door locks in order to regulate who can enter their center.  The center’s software needs to integrate with the door lock by allowing parents and others entrance to the center only if they have a valid PIN number.  In today’s fast paced world, center administrators want to use high tech support and training tools such as training videos, remote access, and e-mail as well as have access to a live trainer or technical support personnel.

Many child care center owners and directors have expressed a high level of disenchantment with the need to purchase add-on modules in order to piece together a system that meets their changing needs.  Many for profit centers, not to mention non-profits, don’t have unlimited funds available for purchasing module after module to meet their current and future administrative demands.  They also find the modular process confusing.  The largest supplier of business management software, QuickBooks, shed the modular software concept about 10 years ago in lieu of a modern all-in-one (non-modular) concept.  As needs change, business administrators simply utilize features already imbedded in QuickBooks instead of having to purchase module after module.

Most of the child care management software industry still provides software in a modular format.  A recent example of a “future need” that administrators wanted were the ability to display the pictures of children, parents, employees, and authorized pick-ups for the children (a nice safety feature).  If a center was using a software package that had this feature imbedded into their program, they simply started to snap in the pictures.  Many centers are forced to purchase an additional module to meet this as well as other needs.  The question is:  Will centers have to purchase additional modules to meet future critical needs or will their software have the features they need already imbedded into their system or available through regular updates?

Exchange Magazine  www.ChildCareExchange.com

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Chris Luz
Personalized Software ∙ SINCE 1985
Director of Marketing & Sales
1-800-553-2312