SmartReads

A major CCS software provider recently published a national survey of the childcare industry. Not surprisingly the section on software concludes that it’s software is the most awesome. Big surprise. However I discovered one statistic I do agree with – roughly one third of childcare centres changed their software due to poor or inadequate support. I’d say more than half of Smart Centrals customers came to us for the same reason. And stayed.

As a director of a child care service you’re busy dealing with day-to-day tasks and simply keeping the wheels turning. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do the stuff that you know you should do, never mind the stuff that you would like to do. Here are steps you can take to clear the decks and make room for those important tasks that are currently getting crowded out or just a bit of time out. 

Gowrie NSW has compiled a fantastic list of free fact sheets available to child care services to help improve their reach into their local community. Quality Area 6 of the National Quality Standard (NQS) focuses on collaborative partnerships with families and communities so it’s important that all child care services aim to truly connect with their community. By doing so child care services ensure:

If you’re suffering from slow payments, late payments and non-payments, the chances are your current invoice and payments system isn’t working as well as it could be. If this is the case, it could be time to develop a new structure. Change is always challenging, for everyone involved, so here’s how to implement things smoothly and keep everyone’s good will.

Your child care business provides an important community service. We all remember the panic when ABC Learning went into administration, as parents – many of them working full time – desperately needed to secure continued child care. Because of this, if your child care centre is struggling due to certain circumstances, there may be government help available. The Federal Government offers information and support to child care services, and this includes grants and financial assistance.

Avoiding late payments and bad debt in the first place is far better than getting stuck in a difficult situation. Creating a culture of prompt payment at your child care service will help avoid some of the issues. Bear in mind that you may be one of the lowest priorities for a family struggling financially, despite the important role you play in their life. After all, how can they go to work and earn an income if they don’t have child care? But the reality is that families tend to expect more time and understanding from a business such as a child care provider than from a bank or electricity provider.

Are you opening a new child care service? Have you thought about the Child Care Benefit (CCB) and Child Care Rebate (CCR)? Currently all parents are entitled to CCR, this can be paid directly to the parent instead of the service (as can CCB however not many parents request lump sum payments of CCB).  These schemes are definitely something every child care service should be a part of. In this blog I’ll explain what the benefits of being an approved CCB service are, what you need to do to become eligible and what other government funding opportunities are available to you.

Child care is an intensely customer-facing business and one built on trust. You are looking after people’s children, and you have extensive face-to-face contact with parents. This makes it all the more challenging when parents don’t pay. You still have to greet them each day in a friendly way, and discuss their child’s progress, while knowing that behind the scenes you’re having to escalate measures against them. No one wants to get to the stage of having bad debtors. You should of course do everything you can to avoid it. But at some point, you may have to call in your debts in a more formal way.

In a national strategic review the Australian Skills Quality Authority (ASQA) revealed that some registered training organisations (RTOs) offering early childhood education and care training are producing ‘graduates’ in 25 weeks. This is half the minimum length of time recommended in the Australian Qualifications Framework. Not only does this create a potentially unsafe environment for the children in their care, it leaves the ‘graduates’ heavily under-qualified and inexperienced, undermines other RTOs that are offering high-quality courses and places child care services in a compromising position for when they are hiring a child care worker. Child care training is competency-based training and certificate III courses should take one to two years to complete, not 25 weeks.

You’ve established that you have a slow payment problem at your child care service. While most of your parents pay eventually, a number of them pay so late that you’re struggling to pay your own bills. It feels like you’re always a step behind: you have just enough to pay your staff, then everything else has to wait until the fees finally trickle in. So how can you try and get paid faster?