Frequently asked questions about Childcare Sage™

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A: Whether you run a 6 child family daycare or a 500 child multi-building facility, Childcare Sage™ can easily automate most of the tasks you have to do to run your business.

To help with record keeping, it will store complete information for each child, their parents, and up to 4 additional pickup persons, including full contact information, photos, schedules, enroll dates, immunization histories, diets, allergies, and comments.

To help with attendance tracking, it includes a Timeclock program that lets parents and staff sign themselves in/out. The timeclock program also lets you leave messages for parents, leave general notes, and even allows parents to leave messages for you. To save you time and effort, the timeclock even lets you sign groups of children in and out all at once.

To help with billing and payroll, it automatically charges parent accounts for care, and automatically calculates staff pay, including addtional expenses for each child and expense reimbursements for staff. On billing day, it will print childcare bills for each child, and on payday it will print paysheets and tax forms for the staff.

To help with bookkeeping, it will track all center expenses, and can easily run accounting reports to show you which children owe a balance, which staff you haven't paid, and what your income is.

To help with menu planning and the USDA meals program, it includes meal counting and menu planning functionality. It will check for CACFP compliance, and it will print menu charts and cacfp reimbursement charts.

To help you stay in touch with parents, it includes an appointment scheduler and functions to automatically create emails and form letters, including emailing bills to parents. Plus, it also includes a Pocket PC PDA application that can keep all child contact records on your Pocket PC PDA.

Finally, it includes numerous daycare forms that you can print and give to parents.

The Childcare Sage is complete and includes all of the functions you will ever need to run your center.

Q: Why does your software come in 3 versions, and is there a difference between the versions in addition to the number of active children they can hold?

A: Childcare Sage™ comes in Family Center (up to 15 active children and 5 staff), Small Center (up to 30 active children and 10 staff), and Large Center (unlimited children and staff) versions. There are no differences in the versions except the number of children and staff they support, ensuring that you will get a professional program that has functionality and power to easily handle 500 children, even if you only have 6 children. We offer our software in different versions because we want every childcare center to use our software, regardless of budget.

Q: I am a novice at using the computer. Is your program easy to use?

A: Childcare Sage™ was designed to be easy to use. Our program doesn't have multi-layered menus or complex operating procedures. Each function is given a picture icon for easy reference. In addition, our timesheet screen is completely graphical and looks like a calendar for simplicity. Of course, Childcare Sage™ also comes with manuals, guides, and online and phone support.

Q: I own a small daycare business with a few kids. Will your program help me?

A: Even if you only use Childcare Sage™ to store child records and print bills to give to parents, it will quickly pay for itself in the time it will save you. Plus, you also get the built-in accounting functionality, menu planning, and even daycare forms to help you manage your business.

Q: I've seen other programs. How is yours different?

There are many Childcare/Daycare programs out there, ranging in price from $50 to over $3,000. We directly compare our software to competitors that start at $1,000.

Don't be deceived by some of our competitor's low "base" price. Their "base" price more than triples after you add in just a few of their modules, such as attendance tracking, menu planning, or accounting. Also, unlike many of our low priced competitors, our system is powerful enough to be used by large facilities, meaning that our software can grow with your center.

Childcare Sage™ is simple, comprehensive, and offers the most flexible billing options on the market. We believe that no matter how you bill at your center, the software you use should be able to accomodate you, not the other way around. However, since every center is different, in the unlikely event that our software cannot automate your center's billing, we are also the only package on the market that can customize the program's billing system to match any billing method at any center. (Custom billing functionality is available for a modest extra charge.)

By purchasing our software, you get all of these benefits at an unbeatable price. To show you the value of our software, we have put together comparison charts that compare Childcare Sage to other leading Childcare Management systems. To view the chart, click here.

Q: What do I need to run the Childcare Sage™ software program?

Childcare Sage™ only runs on Microsoft Windows based machines. Any computer from the last five years can run our program. Our software is compatible with all versions of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows Vista. We provide all the software you need to run our program. Minimally, you should have at least a Pentium III machine with at least Windows 98 and 128MB of RAM.

Q: What kind of support can I get?

We offer toll free phone support for installation issues and toll phone call and email support for any other issue. We also give you complete access to our user forums where you can find answers to most of your questions. We also provide you with full manuals and user's guides that explain how to use our program.

Q: How long have you been in business and how often do you release new versions?

We started in 2000. Our first Childcare Sage sold in August 2002. We are growing by 10-15 centers per week. We generally release new versions every 6 months incorporating the suggestions that we receive from our users and new features we design through our market research and development.

Q: I'm ready to buy. What do I need to do?

We've made the buying process easy. You can order Childcare Sage™ online from our homepage using a credit card. After your puchase, you can download Childcare Sage™ right from the Internet, and we will also mail you a CD-Rom package free of charge.