SmartReads

Bad debts can run a business into the ground quicker than anything else. No one is immune, not even child care services: there’s currently around $1.2 billion of bad debt across Australia.

Bad debt is a three-pronged nightmare: 

1. The money you need isn’t there when you need it (to pay your own bills)
2. Chasing bad debt and pursuing legal action costs time and money
3. You may never recover the money you’re owed

All businesses suffer the problem of outstanding invoices. Late payments and non payments are a fact of life. There’s often a chain effect: where your customers can’t pay you because they haven’t been paid yet, and in turn you can’t pay your suppliers as a result.

These cash crunches can be deadly. Many good, viable businesses go broke because their customers couldn’t pay on time. So how do you know if your centre is behind the curve when it comes to outstanding invoices? How can you compare yourself against other centres to see how you are doing?

What you can do is try benchmarking. Benchmarking is nothing more complicated than having a consistent way to measure and something to compare it to.

Whether you run a "long day care" or not, your hours as a child care service operator are going to be extensive. It’s the same for any small business, because it’s all down to you, and you can’t afford to hire full time accountants and bookkeepers. 

Starting your own business is a dream for many Australians but it can be a tough one. A large number of small business fail within their first couple of years, and child care is a particularly challenging industry.

A major challenge for child care services in Australia is maintaining a strong and professional team as well as being able to up-skill their qualifications. Early childhood educators need to be able to handle caring for the educational, emotional, social and physical needs of infants and young children in various care settings. They need to create an environment where the children they service can bond with them and feel safe. This is no easy job so it’s understandable that it can be hard to find the right person, not only with the qualifications needed but also with the right attitude to help you provide the best child care service for your area. This blog will highlight tips drawn from the Recruitment & Selection Guide by Children’s Services Central on how to hire the most competent and suitable child care workers for your organisation.