Nursery management software has become integral to the smooth running of operations in recent years, particularly since the pandemic when so many nurseries adopted or upgraded their systems in order to stay open.
The roll-out of the Government’s expanded childcare offer for working parents, which will see two-year-olds offered 15 hours from April, and nine-month-olds from September, creates new administrative pressures for nurseries, and new opportunities for software developers.
Parents have already battled administration headaches. At the beginning of the year, Nursery World reported on the difficulties many parents were experiencing when it came to accessing the code they need to secure a funded place.
While the Government responded with a ‘temporary fix’, the National Day Nurseries Association said this added another layer of potential confusion ‘on an already baffling system’. From the providers’ side, as well as supporting parents with their ‘free’ places, they now face additional complexities in managing their funded and non-funded places and optimising occupancy.
NAVIGATING THE NEW FUNDING
At Blossom Educational, content manager Stuart Thomas says, ‘Demand for software that can cope with funded and paid-for places in the same breath has steadily been rising since the Government’s announcement in 2023, and we’re already dealing with an uplift in queries from customers about how to set up their funding.
‘The whole Blossom team had a day’s worth of external training to learn more on the funding challenges nurseries have to deal with now and in the future, and how to better help our customers set their funding up.
‘We recently launched a new finance system to deal with funding and invoicing complexities, and we’re developing features that will connect with Funding Loop, one of the most popular ways nurseries deal with their funding claims.
‘A lot of nurseries do their invoices in different ways, sometimes their funding is wrapped into a package, and our new finance system allows users to do just that, along with our new automatic allocation feature speeding up the process of funding application.’
EVERYTHING IN ONE PLACE
Toby Burns, development manager at Tapestry, believes that this year, flexibility is going to be key.
‘It is a very demanding time for settings in terms of offering new places and ensuring there is adequate funding,’ he says.
‘Tapestry’s management functionality has been designed to be used in a range of ways, so that nurseries can set up their pricing and bookings to best fit their way of working, whatever the funding scenarios. Although our management functions have been developed significantly in the past 12 months, we decided to keep the same subscription rate for all settings, as we understand the challenges they face with their costs.
‘Settings also need expert customer support, especially at a time of change. Our product support team ensure they are up to date on funding policy so they can advise nurseries on their use of Tapestry’s functionality.’
Toby emphasises that reliable and efficient management software can support building positive relationships with parents and carers. ‘Providing accurate and transparent communication about booking and invoicing for children’s sessions means parents know what to expect and when. Software that offers an all-round solution, including management tools and learning journals, keeps things simple for families, so they can access everything in one place.’
VITAL INFO
A good management software platform should be equipped to help maximise occupancy, allowing managers to make decisions around allocating spaces, as well as managing fees and funding. It also has to provide parents with all the relevant information about what they need to know when it comes to accessing their offer.
‘When it comes to managing and maximising occupancy, more and more customers are relying on the staff rotas and ensuring their childcare ratios are optimal,’ says Blossom’s Stuart Thomas. ‘We’re developing our reports to make it even easier to determine at a glance if there are the right number of children and staff, both by setting and by room.’
Like many other software companies, the changes in funding are an important focus for Blossom this year.
‘We’re already speaking to a leading funding expert in the nursery sector to see what we can do for our current customers, as well as the wider market,’ Stuart says. ‘At the heart of it is the intention to do as much as we can to support nurseries through the labyrinth of funding and every local council’s individual processes, which can involve things like “stretched weeks”.’
MEETING DEMAND
At Famly, the priority is to ensure that its software can support providers as they plan for an increase in registrations on the back of the expanded childcare offer.
Matt Arnerich, director, brands and communications, says, ‘Right now, the main thing we’re hearing from our customers is a “fear of the unknown”. With limited transparency and advice from the Government and LAs, many nurseries just can’t predict how these changes are going to fundamentally change the finances of their setting.
‘At Famly, we’re super-flexible with how you apply funding, and have loads of help centre articles detailing different funding scenarios, and dedicated phone support from our special customer advisors. We have an integration with the amazing team at Funding Loop which saves you hours of manual work – and customers can keep track of it all in our simple funding report.’
He points out that the main thing is that with this increased complexity, it is more important than ever that nurseries take their finances seriously and get everything in one place.
‘There’s a reason why all of the big groups have a dedicated system like Famly in place,’ he says. ‘When you can match your attendance, to your availability, to your staffing, to your funding allowances, it makes calculating all of your finances and finding your break-even and profit points so much easier.
‘Beyond that, we’ve totally re-imagined our staffing tools recently – so that understanding and communicating shifts, reducing overtime, and reducing your reliance on those emergency bank staff, is easier than ever.
‘We’re definitely hearing that all nurseries have parents coming to them, expecting the new funding to be in place already – unfortunately another miss-step of Government communication. However, this is also a golden opportunity for nurseries to make sure their places are filled, and whether they use an enquiries system such as Famly’s or not, it’s so important not to let all of this increased interest fall between the gaps.’
Famly says its tools allow nurseries to offer parents online registration through their websites, enabling them to automatically manage those enquiries, monitor the stage they are at and gauge place availability without poring over spreadsheets and notes.
He says, ‘Plus, if you’re ready to accept them, you can then just fire all that information you’ve already collected straight into your system with a click, reducing a bunch of admin time.’
Working with parents will become more important than ever as the expanded offer ramps up and parents take up the places for children as young as nine months. Increased parent anxiety is inevitable, believes Matt.
‘We all know that sometimes children have a cry when parents leave them, and might be sad again at pick-up time, but it doesn’t mean they had a miserable day,’ he says.
‘Just a few photos or updates can massively help parents with this separation anxiety, especially parents of young children, to build confidence they’ve made the right choice. Tools we’ve developed like Sidekick are designed to build community and trust with parents, but at the same time, they don’t necessitate practitioners spending hours in front of a tablet’.
What should you look for in a management software system today?
Research is key. Although an online search will bring up so many options, you may well feel overwhelmed by choice, with many of the facilities on offer sounding much the same across all platforms. But, it can be the small differences that create a big impact on the running of your setting, so it’s important it caters to your requirements. For example, some providers offer more home learning features, while others focus more on the business side of nursery management. Ask yourself how the software will improve your business. Think about the real benefits of shifting from a paper-based system to digital. How will it save on admin? Help you deal with occupancy? Improve parent and staff relationships? How does it deal with children’s learning journeys? And how is it streamlining the changes in the government funding process – is it easy for parents to navigate? For example, is it Funding Loop compatible?
Other points to consider:
- One of the most important areas to look at will be data security. Study the provider’s website to find out if the provider uses an encrypted database, and if they hold ISO accreditation – the international standard in information security management.
- Always get a demonstration of the product before you commit. Don’t underestimate ease of use for staff and families – a great system in theory is little use if it’s tricky to use.
- Will you get free training to keep you up to date with system upgrades?
- Are there video walk-throughs available should staff need to refresh their knowledge of the system?
- Are there penalty charges if you want to leave early, or are you locked in a contract? And, do you have to pay more to upgrade from the basic offer?
- Check out help centre information and response times before you commit – don’t underestimate the importance of customer support. Can you phone for support, or is it email only? There is quite a bit of difference between suppliers here.
CASE STUDY: ‘No one comes into early years for the paperwork’
Charlene George is deputy manager at Abeona, a privately run day nursery in Kettering, Northamptonshire.
Charlene has been using Funding Loop since 2017, and hers was the first nursery to use the software. Funding Loop was originally built by a group of IT innovators that included the owner of Abeona nursery, who, discovering how arduous the process of applying for funding can be, saw there was a need for a way to simplify the process. Charlene says it has drastically cut time spent on form-chasing.
She says, ‘Funding Loop makes my job 100 per cent easier. It literally takes me a matter of seconds to connect all the relevant data with an individual child.
‘Software systems only work if they are quick and easy to use, and Funding Loop is very easy to navigate, even for someone using it for the first time. You simply use a drop-down menu, put in the term/month and the name of the child and it chases up everything you need, all the information.
‘Parents also connect to the portal to receive documents such as contracts, which come back to us for a check before being sent off to the local authority funding portal. It’s all done for us – it’s that easy. Before we were using Funding Loop, we would spend ages chasing forms, checking what we had received and what was outstanding. It was extremely time consuming, but now we can monitor progress and review all documents in a single space, which, especially with the extra documentation around the upcoming changes to two-year-olds’ funding, is very welcomed.
‘The form validation feature means we never receive incomplete forms, which saves time for both us and our parents, and as data can be saved to the system, it’s so much quicker for those parents claiming for more than one term, making it simpler to process the claim again, and of course, this all frees up time we can spend with our children, which is what we’re really here for.
‘It’s actually the only software we’re using at Abeona, but it has stopped the administrative side of nursery life, the paperwork side, taking us away from our children. Too much of your time can get used up on these tasks, so any way of giving you more child contact time is very much appreciated. And we also realise that parents are so busy, the last thing they want to spend their time on is filling in forms.
‘No one comes into early years for the paperwork, and a good online platform should enable you to spend more time in the nursery and less time in the office.’
FURTHER INFORMATION
