Daycare fees, arrears and wages — the money side, not a register

Three late families and the month stops working

With thirty children on the books, one family going two months without paying is not a rounding error — it can be a fifth of everything you had left over. A supermarket absorbs a bad debt in the noise of a thousand daily sales. A daycare has no noise to hide it in.

It also means the arrears are invisible in the way that hurts. You know Musa's mother is behind, because you see her every morning at the gate. What you do not know, unless it is written down, is that four other families are behind too, and the total between them is bigger than last month's profit.

PesaScope keeps a balance per parent. Record the fee as it is paid and anything unpaid stays on that account until it clears. Nobody works the arrears out; they are what is left once the payments are recorded.

How a daycare runs it, month to month

1. Record the fee when the parent paysCash, mobile money or bank, against that family's account. A part payment leaves the remainder on the account instead of becoming something you meant to mention.
2. Look at the arrears list once a weekThe debtors page lists every family with a balance, largest first. Five minutes on a Friday is what stops a one-month slip becoming a three-month write-off.
3. Pay wages from the payroll pageEach carer's salary sits on their record with an effective date. The month's row shows salary, any transport or lunch allowance, less any advance taken, and the net due.
4. Record the small things you actually buyNappies, wipes, soap, milk, gas, cleaning materials. Individually trivial, together usually the second-largest cost in the building after the people.

The fee lines a daycare sets up

Pick "Daycare centre" at sign-up and this list is already there. Fees go in as services; anything you physically hand over, like a packed meal, goes in as a product.

Keep the late-collection charge as its own line even if you rarely enforce it. Once recorded, you see how often it happens — and how often is what decides whether to enforce it.

One month, 34 children

Six families at UGX 180,000 are behind, and that UGX 1,080,000 is more than the whole month kept. The daycare was not unprofitable — it was unpaid, and those are two different problems with two different fixes.

What PesaScope will not do for you

There is no attendance register here, no child record, no sign-in and sign-out sheet, no allergy or medical notes, no nap or feeding log, no photo sharing. PesaScope is not childcare software and should not be signed up for as though it were.

It records what was charged and what was paid, which family owes what, what your staff are owed and have been paid, and what the month cost to run. That is the whole of it.

Your register can stay on the wall by the door, where parents see it anyway. The one record worth moving off paper is the fee book, because it has to be right at the end of every month and is the hardest to rebuild once a term has gone by.

Where a daycare's money goes quietly

1. Fees that were nearly paidA parent handing over UGX 150,000 against a UGX 180,000 fee has, in the moment, paid. The missing UGX 30,000 only exists if someone records it — by month three it is UGX 90,000 and awkward to raise.
2. Staff taken on for a busy termAn extra carer hired when numbers rose rarely leaves when they fall. Payroll for a month is one page, so the drift is at least somewhere you will see it.
3. Consumables bought in ones and twosNappies from the shop next door, gas when it runs out, bleach on the way in. Filed under a category, the month's total becomes a figure you can argue with.
4. The holiday monthsFees drop in December and rent does not. Recording the thin months too means you can check last year's December before committing to anything in this one.

Read further

Questions daycare owners ask