Administrative costs are a significant burden for providers in almost all aspects of nursery life.
Research by nursery management software company Connect Childcare estimated that a nursery manager will spend 1,900 hours on admin per annum. In contrast, those who use software to help with administrative tasks will spend just 100 hours a year.
Using software
‘If you’re doing anything in business, you need software rather than a bajillion spreadsheets,’ says Brónagh McGeary, senior copywriter for nursery management system Famly. ‘It is so important to understand exactly what is coming in and going out.’
Tom Richardson, operations director at Naturally Learning, a group of seven settings in Cornwall that uses Famly, agrees. ‘To control costs, you have to understand them, and having a platform that shows you everything about your turnover is the first step towards that. There’s no point trying to reduce costs if you don’t know what they are.’
‘The childcare sector has been quite slow to adopt technology in general, and there are still quite a few providers working on paper,’ says John Pickup, head of commercial at Connect Childcare. ‘Private investment has certainly seen a surge, though, as big groups want to see growth, but efficiencies too.’
Pickup adds that groups are usually in a better position to adopt technologyto reduce admin costs.
‘The facilities for reporting are a massive plus point for groups as they get instant access to their own data, and can optimise occupancy and view forecasts. They have their whole business at the click of a button.’
With 40 settings and almost 900 members of staff, London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) uses a nursery management system to help central office teams process invoices and child and staff information, while payroll and payslips are managed on an in-house system.
Chloe Johnston, LEYF’s financial controller, explains, ‘Of course a nursery management system is an upfront investment, but it saves time and ensures many elements of compliance and safeguarding are in one place and easily tracked. It wouldn’t be manageable otherwise – you couldn’t hold it all in your head.’
Processing funding
The expansion of funded hours has increased the administrative burden on many settings.
‘Managing funded hours and consumable charges is a meticulous and time-consuming process,’ admits Naeve Dancer, sales and marketing manager at Kingwood Childcare in Devon, a two-setting group that adds a £1 consumables fee for every funded hour.
Staff at Kingwood manage funding through a combination of spreadsheets, a nursery management system and manual input. ‘We upload the information to the county portal, a process that demands considerable time given the number of children and increased funding accessibility for parents,’ Dancer adds.
Rebecca Swindells, owner-manager of Blue Door Nursery in East Sussex, says before the 30 hours were introduced, she would pay an admin assistant for three mornings a week to keep on top of childcare vouchers, invoices and fees. Now, she uses an office manager for 30 hours a week.
At least 80 per cent of the 25 largest nursery groups in the country now use Funding Loop, software that pre-populates funding forms for parents and nurseries and helps them enter information onto council websites.
‘Filling in funding forms and typing all the information into a council portal every term are low-value tasks that do not make a nursery better off,’ says Khayam Ezzat, co-founder of Funding Loop and owner of Abeona nursery in Kettering. He believes automation cuts costs by reducing the potential for errors.
To further reduce time lost on governmental admin processes, Famly is working with HMRC to help parents and nurseries manage Tax-Free Childcare payments automatically within its app.
Purging paper
As more settings strive to go paper-free for environmental reasons, there are also cost benefits to reducing physical documentation; cutting printing expenses, reducing time spent compiling lengthy documents and lessening the risk of papers being mislaid.
A recent acquisition had been sending out printed invoices in envelopes to parents when Naturally Learning took it over. ‘It seemed very antiquated,’ says Richardson. ‘It was a selling point for us to show parents it could be so much easier.’
At Naturally Learning, staff sign in and out on the management system while a local accountancy firm manages payroll.
‘We used to have a sheet of paper for sign-in, but it would inevitably have coffee spilled on it or get lost down the back of something,’ Richardson continues. ‘Our accountant comes at a cost but means the team can refocus on things in the nurseries.’
Nursery management system Tapestry mainly works with smaller providers, where there are typically fewer people available to cope with administration. ‘We often visit our users to find out what is making their job difficult and how we can build in support,’ says co-founder Dr Helen Edwards. ‘One setting asked us to help them with printing name labels to stick onto drawers. It was a nightmare for them, changing fonts, colours and sizes, but it was totally possible for us to make things easier and quicker.’
Marketing
With advertising another significant administrative drain on time and money, many settings prefer to rely on recommendations.
Parents can also help cut costs with their own expertise. Blue Door’s website was built by a parent who owned a website company.
Kingwood Childcare uses artificial intelligence to help with social media content planning, reducing the time spent on posts, and Famly offers an AI tool to help correct spelling, grammar and register.
People first
However, despite the financial benefits of automation, there is something to be said for the personal, if sometimes pricier, approach.
Johnston says that alongside a nursery management system, LEYF is still keen to invest in its people for admin tasks.
‘Our biggest administrative cost is the expertise of our central office team,’ she explains. ‘They take on the admin so managers can focus on what is important. We have a lot that is still done by people, just with the help of systems.’
CASE STUDY: Little Frogs Daycare
Sharon Watson, owner of Little Frogs Daycare in Winterton, was a bank manager before moving into childcare.
But even with her financial background, as her childminding setting expanded to become a nursery with 14 staff members, she found she needed help to manage the administration of a growing business, turning to management system Nursery in a Box.
‘It’s been a godsend for me,’ she says of the software. ‘Suddenly, I didn’t have to do all the admin myself. I used to spend days invoicing, but now I press a button and send 104 emails in seconds. If someone wants extra hours, I can check on the system the spaces I have available.
‘I pay about £180 a month for Nursery in a Box. That would be like someone coming in for 15 hours, but they couldn’t do all the things the software does in that time. Even if the price went up, I’d pay it because it would still be cheaper than bringing someone in, especially after the National Insurance rise.
‘We recently got planning permission to extend, and I’ll look for a bookkeeper because there will be more to manage. I make sure I know the skillset of my parents, and they help where they can. One parent is an accountant, which is very helpful for advice.
‘Most things that were so time-consuming get done. It means I have freedom for myself. I play golf, I have a life now.’
