This case study will show you the impact that billing automation can have on your bottom line and on your staffing.
Workshop is a childcare center located in a prominent shopping mall within a local commuter route. But because of the nature of the local work, parents needed flexible childcare Children’s schedules and requested that the childcare center bill them accordingly.
Originally, this meant having a staff member go in and review attendance for each of the 180 children enrolled to evaluate late pickup times for billing use. The process was heavily labor-intensive, nearly canceling out the advantages of offering flexible schedules.
The Challenge
Allowing for flexible billing created two large challenges for the center.
- Flexible scheduling meant billing differently based on discounts, schedules and several other complicated factors that no standard accounting system could account for. That meant calculating each family’s bill manually, including fees for when a child was picked up late.
- Staffing the center was challenging because the center’s staffing and attendance schedules were in disparate locations. They needed it all in one place to make informed decisions to optimize the most expensive aspect of their budgets: staffing. Scheduling becomes more complicated in a center that allows for flexible attendance schedules and Children’s Workshop was experiencing this challenge in their bottom line.
Children’s Workshop Solution
Children’s Workshop brought their challenge to iCare Software. Our team of childcare experts helped the center optimize their digital resources to save time and automate billing – including billing for children who were picked up late.
- The center had 180 active children, with 140 students scheduled daily.
- 15 of these children were picked up late every day by an average of 20 mins.
- For each child, the center had been calculating the extra hours bill by comparing the attendance and the schedule.
- Once implemented, iCare automatically billed the overage charges. This came out to an average of $2.50 per child that parents picked up late. That is about $37.50 per day or $8,250 per year.
The Financial Impact from This Case Study on a Childcare Center
The obvious financial impact for Children’s Workshop was that they were able to bill the $8,250 per year in late pickup fees. But the center also went from having a complicated billing process that required two full-time office employees down to just one part-time person thanks to automatic childcare billing.
Children’s Workshop was able to schedule teachers appropriately based on the attendance data they knew about when parents generally pick up their children.
Schedule a free demo of iCare Software to discuss the operational challenges you’re facing with your childcare center. We’ll work with you to tailor a solution that will transform your business and its finances.