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My name is Noah Beach, and I am a software developer. I want to produce affordable daycare software(CareConnect) targeted at smaller daycares and home daycares. The goal is to produce a solution that is simple and not so cluttered. Therefore, I need everyone's help and opinions on what you would like to see in this software. The membership will be around $30 / year to use the program. This is your chance to get daycare software that gives you what you need and not a bunch of other fluff. The more detailed the better down to the fields in the database. So if someone wants to start with Categories -> Features I would appreciate it. I would be glad to grant lifetime access for free to those willing to help.
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Software that does WHAT exactly?
Track attendance?
Billing and invoices?
Child Documentation?
Meals and meal counts?
Daily kid reports?
Immunization records?
Enrollment?
Daily lesson plans?
Similar to Baby Connect, Minute Menu Kids, Sandbox Child Care software, Child Care Office Pro, EZ Care Pro?Last edited by Blackcat31; 03-12-2013, 09:04 AM. -
Everything you just mentioned. It is a complete solution. Unlike other companies I won't charge for each module used. I am banking on volume to make money instead of high pricing. Plus I want it to be affordable to the small daycare provider.Comment
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The point of this is to produce software which features you actually use and leave out what you don't use. Yes there are other software solutions, but do you use everything in those programs? Going through your day as a provider what would help you manage your business without having a lot of clutter on the screen?Comment
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I think that is a great idea! I am sure you will probably get a lot of interest but in my honest opinion, it isnt something I would really be interested in as I currently use Minute Menu Kids Pro and it is provided for me free of charge by my food program.
I know there are several members of the forum who also get it free from their food program as well and several providers who pay for it themselves.
There does seem to be several child care software programs already available on the market and one of them even did a trial run (with free lifetime membership to those who helped with development/feedback) with providers on this forum board.
Please don't be discourage though as I am sure each software designer has it's own market or something that sets them aside from others...whether it be user-friendliness, cost, areas it covers etc.
So far for me personally Minute Menu Kids Pro does the job and does it well.
I do NOT mean this in an unsupportive way but another software would almost have to change diapers for me before I would consider changing and use something else.
I will still happily answer any questions you have though and am willing to be as helpful as I can.Comment
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I really am not targeting existing providers as much as new providers. It is very hard to get people to change software when they have all their records in existing software. Not everyone likes the same things in software, and the needs are different for different providers.Comment
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I don't know if this will help you or not but a very popular software program that many of us here on the forum use and very popular nationwide is Minute Menu Kids Pro (USDA food program sponsors often use the program for family child care providers that are on the food program). It has a lot of features for record keeping that we all love.
It keeps track of children's information:- Name
- Age
- DOB
- Address
- Home Phone
- Gender
- Physical appearance
- Parent/guardian information
- Emergency contacts
- Medical information
- Doctor's Info
- Dentist Info
- Immunizations
- Allergies/medical conditions
- Insurance info
- Authorized people who can pick up
- Child's daycare schedule
- School info and schedule
- Billing info (rates)
It also:- Keeps track of Attendance
- Keeps track of meal counts
- Has a meal planner
- Has an activity planner
- Allows you to create daily reports (activities, books they read, meals served are automatically entered here, naps)
- Has a chart maker
- Has a certificate maker
- The ability to create invoices
- Clients can login to their accounts to review, print and pay their invoices
- Clients can login to their accounts to print receipts
- Keeps track of payments
- Keeps track of other income (food program, subsidy)
- Keeps track of expenses and categorizes them like schedule C does in tax paperwork
- Allows expenses to be marked as either 100% business or time/space %
- Records vehicle mileage or actual car expenses
- Calculates your time/space% for you
- Allows you to enter time doing business related things in your home and automatically updates your time/space %
And it creates TONS of reports (mostly tax reports):- Actual food expenses
- Create and print receipts for clients
- Depreaciation worksheet
- Form 8829 detailed expenses
- Form 8829 house worksheet
- Form W-10 (automatically inserts the YTD total amount of payments)
- Blank W-10
- Prints invoices
- Other income report
- Schedule C detailed expenses
- Schedule C worksheet
- Standard meal allowance report
- Statement of account report (report with all payments from a certain client or from all clients)
- Time/Space report (hours children present)
- Time/Space report (other business activities)
- Time/Space calculation
- Vehicle deduction comparison report
- Vehicle mileage report
- Address book
- Birthday list by age
- Birthday list by date
- Emergency contact report
- general information report for children
- Hours by child (schedule)
- Hours by day (weekly schedule)
- Immunization report
- Daily reports for children
- Facility info/profile
- Medication administration report
- Field trip permission slip
- Travel and activity report
- Home visit reports
- Commonly served foods
- Commonly served ingredients
- Monthly meal counts
- Monthly menus
- Newly created foods
- Hours child actually in care
- actual hours per child
- Claim notes report
- Meal count checkoff (daily)
- Meal count check off (weekly)
- Meal count report
- Meal count for parents
- Meal counts by child
- Meal counts by meal
- Sign-in sign-out sheet
- Commonly served foods
- Meal analysis
- Meal pattern reports
- Pre-planned menus
And yes I use all of the above features (well maybe except for the actual food and vehicle expenses since I use the standard rate)
All of this is included in the MMK Pro online software and they charge $69.95 a year (totally worth it). These guys are your competition so you should probably check them out (you can get a free 30 day trial offer).
The one thing that they don't have that is in high demand is the ability to invoice clients, keep track of payments, attendance and meals through the use of a phone app for both Android and Apple smartphones which is integrated with the online program. We've been asking for this feature for a while now so if you can do all of the above plus a phone app that lets you do as mentioned or more and can keep the rate the same or close to the $70 a year you and I can talk business
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Oh and also a feature that allows clients to log-in and out by a personal code or something that is also integrated with the software so that we don't have to keep paper sign-in/out sheets anymore would be great. If this could automatically keep track of attendance for us AWESOME!! No one has something like this that is also integrated into their software, they only offer it as a separate attendance program.
I would switch if I could find a program that did all of the above or more and cost about the same price.Comment
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I don't use minute menu because I don't file my food program electronically. IMO MMK is largely made around the whole menu planning, meals.
I would want to track everything needed for the business. But would alow me to turn off features that I don't want.
I would want it to keep track of enrollment, billing, etc., but also expenes: mileage, ins. cost, bills paid.
I would also want it to have a daily tracker for infants to put in their diapers, naps, feedings. and have the parents be able to see the info I put in. Similar to the babyconnect app.
It also should have an app.Comment
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Oh yeah and I don't use the menu planning part of the program. I have pre-planned weekly meals that I rotate every 6 weeks.
I use MMK mainly for attendance tracking, meal counts and for accounting (payments, expenses etc.)
I like being able to enter all of my income and expenses and then being able to print out all of the Tax reports and having it ALL done for me.Comment
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Does the app for MMK pro not allow you to do any of that?
The one thing that they don't have that is in high demand is the ability to invoice clients, keep track of payments, attendance and meals through the use of a phone app for both Android and Apple smartphones which is integrated with the online program. We've been asking for this feature for a while now so if you can do all of the above plus a phone app that lets you do as mentioned or more and can keep the rate the same or close to the $70 a year you and I can talk business.Comment
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Well I was thinking a while ago that when I start my business it would be great if there was one of those log in (like those punch-in clock things) they have at some work places where when the parent come in they swipe their child's card so it is marked what time the child arrived/left (if it is early or late or on time) so that way parents cannot argue with late fees because the time would be according to the time on the clock of the computer used. Or maybe if it had a list of the children enrolled and the parents just find their child's name and click on it and the time starts from when they click on it. maybe have 2 lists on the screen like one for logged in and logged out. It should be able to hold up to 30 enrolled kids and make it were you can delete children and add children when ever needed.
Just make it easy where the provider has control over the default rates (hourly, daily, weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and can also include early drop off/ late pick up fees) and where it can be different for every family- especually if they have more than one child. It should be easy for the provider to be able to adjust it everyday if needed but still have it set on default of the agreed upon schedule hours (which may very from day to day) for the child's regular days but can change it if the schedule changes or if you agree to 1 day of extended hours for a flat fee- It should just be for attendence purposes and have a setting where if you charge when they do not attend that you can adjust it and make sure that the absents/ paid holidays doesn't affect what it says on the bill- they only thing that affects it is if they pay hourly or if they leave their child off early/ pick them up late. The late fees should have an OPTION (not default) of a small grace period like 1 to 5 minutes before starting the early drop off/ late pick up fee. a late drop off and early pick up should NOT affect the default payment unless the provider wavers it on their own. The rates should be able to be adjusted every so often for when the provider decides to increase her rates but also have a small section for where she can make different rates for new families that don't effect the old families- if she charges new families a higher rate. It should have an option where you can see the layout of what they attended daily, weekly, and monthly. It would be great if it had a feature where the provider can e-mail a weekly or monthly report to themselves so that they can print it out and save it in a folder on their email account so they don't lose it or have to worry about computer memery. And also have a setting for swipes for after hours care/parent's night specials on certain days the provider picks (can be at night or on weekends) for a flat rate for a few hours and another for overnight care and an option of a late fee or switching the child from few hours to overnight if the paren't pick up their child late.
It would also be nice to have one file for when you have substitutes or a part-time/full time assistants that they can have another swipe in system connected to that but only for the assistants so that way you can make sure they aren't arriving late and trying to pass off as being on time or so they cannot say that they stayed later than they really did to try to fudge the times to make a little extra money (when I worked for one provider, one of my co-workers would do that all the time). It can have their regular pay as a default but also maybe an OPTIONAL (not default) bonus for holidays/birthdays/ or for filling in for the full day alone. It should have an option where you can see the layout of what they worked daily, weekly, and monthly. This should also be able to send a weekly or monthly report to your e-mail (if they have internet) or print out for records. Maybe a feature were you include a 2 hour 1/2 paid or non paid lunch option since a provider may need them for the ratio but cannot afford to pay them a full amount to not do anything. It will also come in handy to have another folder for volunteers (like high schoolers or people who want work expierince) with no payment features just for record keeping. It should also be an option to beable to switch a volunteer back and forth into a paid assistant if needed on some days- maybe as an option for regular assistants/subs too if they decide or need to volunteer for school or something.It should be able to hold up to 5 volunteers or assistants at a time.
The provider should be able to log out and the log ins should still stay logged in when opening a new window or when the computer is off. All of this information should only be available to the provider through E-mail or they have to provider their screen name and phone number, a safety question, or a password on the computer softwear- but they should be able to change it at anytime if they want. It should NOT need regular internet to run normally all day and the provider should be able to move the information to another computer with the same softwear either by typing in the E-mail account (with internet connection just to transfer) or by saving the information using a USB drive or ****; if needed due to viruses or the computer breaking (that is where an E-mail acount access would come in handy).Comment
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Nope not on the app part anyway. The app is only for the regular version of MMK (that the USDA food program uses in my area) and that version doesn't let you accept electronic payments (which is why I choose to pay extra for the Pro version) and the Pro version doesn't work on the app.
The app doesn't even let you do anything other than mark the meal counts and attendance. It doesn't let you invoice or do anything else.Comment
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I need a new check-in solution! I am using checkin kids but there are no master controls. The provider cannot set each child up to have their own "overtime". Each client I have is contracted differently and I can only set up a general overtime rate for all kids enrolled. I like MMK but I want the parents to be able to clock in and out.Comment
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Yeah me too!! Something that's similar to the way that MMK works but has a separate window (much like how MMK uses ChildCarePay so that clients can pay their invoices) just so that they can clock in. I'd like it if I could assign my clients a 4 digit code (like the last 4 digits of their phone number) to match the code that they use to get into my daycare on the keyless entry system (less to remember).
I could always just leave my laptop open to that page (like Chekin Kids) and they can just type in their code to sign in and out. Then the software would automatically update the child's attendance.Comment
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I know we discussed MMK previously and me waiting to sign up due to the food program. I finally found out it WON'T be the Pro version. How do you use both?? Do you enter food info and attendance only on one and billing/expenses on the other?? Curious before I purchase anything.
Also, for the developer. I agree that you should check out Minute Menu Kids Pro and read reviews to get more insight. We all use software differently depending on the # of children, the type of payments we take, etc. I think many of us would be interested in the clocking in/out feature as well as in-depth information being available for parents with their own log-in credentials. I would be willing to pay for something that put all of these together instead of forcing you to buy so many add-ons the prices are impossible for small businesses (i.e. ProCare Software @ http://procaresoftware.com/). I almost purchased ProCare by sacrificing and making the upfront investment, but once I saw how many separate fees there were for different pieces of the puzzle (i.e. tuition payments, attendance, menu planning, etc) and how some won't work without you purchasing the others, I became overwhelmed and completely loss interest. If you could find a more cost effective way to offer the services between those two companies, I'd be ALL IN!
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