Tired of chasing after unpaid invoices and juggling missed payments? Not sure what your enrollment pipeline looks like? Your childcare staff has better things to do than wrangle spreadsheets.
It's time to simplify your accounting process with child care accounting software that streamlines expense tracking and revenue monitoring. In this guide, we’ll share the top features to look for in order to find the best childcare bookkeeping for your business—no matter how many centers or programs you have.
What Is Childcare Accounting Software?
Childcare accounting software is a tool designed to help childcare centers and preschools manage their finances more easily. It handles things like automated tuition payments, billing, payroll, and expense tracking.
How to Track Expenses with Childcare Accounting Software
According to our research at LineLeader, 68% of childcare businesses say billing and payments is a key challenge. Whether you’re tracking payment plans or calculating wages, there are a lot of expenses to manage at each and every center in your network.
Trying to do it all manually leads to wasted time, extra work, and lots of unnecessary cash flow issues. Here’s how to use your child care expense tracker to streamline the process, saving time and money.
1. Automate Billing across Multiple Childcare Centers
Did you know that more than half (52%) of early learning organizations spend 7+ hours per week managing childcare billing? If you’re like most childcare organizations, you have your recurring payments and your one-time fees for specific childcare programs. Both are key for revenue, but neither are easy to juggle from an accounting point of view.
With automated billing and invoicing across multiple locations and programs—including OST and after-school programs—you can make sure no revenue is slipping through the cracks.
In LineLeader, billing across multiple childcare centers is easy with Plans vs. Items. Say goodbye to unsent invoices and free field trips. With the ability to bulk charge families and automate late payment reminders and notifications, you can save valuable time for directors while helping staff avoid awkward conversations about late payments.
2. Improve Enrollment Forecasting
How many revenue opportunities are currently in your pipeline? If you can’t name the number off the top of your head, it might be time to invest in a childcare billing system that includes enrollment forecasting.
With Enrollment Forecast Reporting, you can instantly estimate the revenue opportunities in your pipeline, forecast profits, and calculate your return to optimize marketing budgets for next year.
As the first and only unified childcare experience platform, LineLeader delivers full-featured customer relationship management (CRM) software, a family engagement app, and childcare management system (CMS) in one solution for a complete view of your current and future.
You can see where you’re losing leads in the enrollment funnel and create additional training to boost your enrollment ratios and profit across centers.
3. Digitize Bookkeeping at Every Location
Bookkeeping can get complicated at one center, let alone 5, 10, or 50. Make it easy for staff to track everything from sibling discounts to late fees with digital bookkeeping in the same place where they handle attendance tracking, parent communication, and enrollment forecasting.
For example, with seamless integrations with QuickBooks and similar bookkeeping platforms, LineLeader syncs your data in real-time for robust expense tracking.
4. Streamline Subsidy Reporting
Is your staff struggling to keep up with which discounts apply here? A child care accounting software platform that makes it easy to distribute registration links based on how you manage discounts and subsidies at each location will give you greater control.
You can create Coupon Codes for siblings, military families, school district employees, and more—no matter how many discounts or center locations you have. You can even set specific rules for overriding information and expiration date.
With LineLeader, it’s also easy to monitor subsidies and report on nutrition-related costs at each center so you can easily grant the right funds to families. And with all your financial data in one place, you can run reports for licensure and tax purposes in a matter of hours, not days.
5. Centralize Financial Reporting
Are your center admins losing hours per week reporting on performance? Or worse, operating in the dark?
The right child care accounting software makes it easy to calculate family lifetime value, see which campaigns and lost opportunities are affecting your revenue, and help you understand which lead sources are most effective so you can do more of what works at each and every one of your daycare centers.
Your staff no longer has to spend hour after hour preparing your financial data for year-end auditing reports and tax statements. LineLeader integrates with the tools you need to make reporting a breeze.
Childcare Billing Software that Does It All
Level up center management and stand out in the fast-changing world of early childhood education with automated childcare bookkeeping systems that take the guesswork out of expense and revenue management.
With the ability to enable families to autopay via direct deposit and mobile app, you can meet parents where they already are while increasing the bottom line at every center.
Find out how the right child care accounting software can help elevate the family journey, increase customer lifetime value, and create a culture of accountability in your team.
Ready to simplify your childcare finances?
