Each child care center operates in a different way. Your policies are different, and the services you provide are different. You need to select the most flexible software system, so it can be tailored to meet your needs as closely as possible, without requiring you to change your policies and management style.  

What you need

You need management software that will best fit your needs in the areas of:

• Billing procedures and rate charts
• Scheduling procedures
• Attendance and security needs
• Enrollment process
• Record keeping needs
• Communications with parents
• Management of billing for funding agencies
• Integrated accounting
• Expandable database for children, contacts and staff
• Managerial checks
  

How iCare will help

Each of the iCare Child Care Management Software modules is richly developed to give you the flexibility and controls that you need to properly manage your accounting and the daily operations of the center.

Children, Family & Contacts Database: This module provides you with a great set of child enrollment management tools and a clean database that simplifies accounting. You will have better control on the child enrollment process while spending less time on the computer. Other useful features you will get are the children’s activities notepad and management by sites (SQL version). Also, you can have the parent’s self-register their children through iCareWeb.

Records Manager: With its standard – immunization, medical, permissions and family demographics – and user-definable features, the iCare records manager can completely eliminate your dependence on paperwork.  Furthermore, with the report-making features you will be able to manage these records in an excellent way.

Accounting: An accounting system integrated with the operations side will help you optimize your profitability. The system includes many automated posting procedures, single and batch posting processes, ledger management tools, parent-friendly statements and an integrated chart of account system.

Center and School Admin: These two modules will help you ‘formalize’ many of your routine and extraneous operations for better management – contract billing management, tuition or non-tuition related recurring billing, batch billing process based on almost any report, block hours and days billing, billing of payment plans. Also included is a formal procedure for handling children’s enrollment inquiries and waiting list and staff employment inquiries. Also included in the school admin is a complete system for managing classes, camps, field trips and special events.

Attendance and Scheduling: iCare includes the most extensively developed attendance and scheduling features in the market. And, these features are available in both time-based and type-based formats. You can maintain primary, temporary and future schedules for children and staff, so your data entry work will be done in a timely manner and true projections will be available. Several planning tools are provided, so you can achieve optimal scheduling and organize your staff in the most efficient way. Many methods for automated attendance entry are available – keypad, lobby interface for touch screen monitor, barcode scanner, PDA and signature capture tablet – which are supplemented with a rich set of features to suit your specific needs.

Communications: A wide range of available methods – messaging, email, mail merge, RSVP, and a teacher to parents web page – will help you keep in touch with parents and staff and finish your work in a timely manner.

Report Making: iCare provides you the most advanced report making tools in the industry – drill-down, ad hoc reports, exceptional tools for formatting, get all data, email link, Excel link and exporting. Both your users and managers will find marvelous tools in iCare for better control and functionality in less time.

Food Program: The iCare food program module provides a complete system for managing both the CACFP reimbursement program and the USDA nutrition management program. The reimbursement program is designed to let you administer the program in a very quick manner requiring the least amount of repeated data entry. The system will maximize your reimbursement and reduce your computer work.