Preschool & Childcare Edition

Bill a whole month of tuition in one click — one invoice per family, sibling discounts applied, subsidy portions billed to the agency, and last month's late-pickup fees included. Watch classroom capacity and staff ratios, chase what's owed, and hand parents the statement they need at tax time.

Turning On the Edition

Included on the Pro tier and above and on every Nonprofit plan, with no per-child fee. The 🧸 Preschool entry appears in the top navigation when your license qualifies, and in the sidebar once you've enrolled your first child.

Set up in this order and everything after it is quick: Classrooms & Plans, then Settings, then children.

Classrooms and Ratios

Under Classrooms & Plans → + Classroom, give each room:

• Name and age group — "Butterflies", "3–4 years".
• Licensed capacity — the maximum children your license allows in that room.
• Children per staff member — your state's required ratio for that age group.
• Staff assigned — how many teachers are in the room today.

The Overview tab then shows enrolment against capacity, open seats, and whether each room has enough staff for the children in it. A room that's over capacity or short-staffed is flagged at the top of the screen.

Tuition Plans

A plan is a monthly rate with a name: "Full Day 5 — $1,100", "Half Day 3 — $520". Add them under + Plan, with an optional schedule description ("Mon–Fri 7:30am–5:30pm") for your own reference.

Any child can also carry a custom monthly rate that overrides their plan — for the family with the unusual arrangement, a staff discount, or a scholarship. Changing a plan's rate applies from the next tuition run; invoices already created keep their amounts.

Enrolling Children

Click + Enroll Child and fill in:

• Name and date of birth.
• Family — who gets billed. Pick an existing family or click + New family to create one on the spot. The family is a normal customer record, so siblings share one family and one invoice.
• Classroom and tuition plan (or a custom rate).
• Start date — billing begins with the month this falls in.
• Subsidy, if an agency pays part of the tuition — see below.
• Registration fee — leave the box ticked to add your standard fee to the family's next invoice.

A child can also go on the waitlist instead of being enrolled. Waitlisted children aren't billed; when a space opens, click enroll and they start today.

When a child leaves, click withdraw and give their last day. They're billed through the month that date falls in and dropped from the next run.

Subsidies and Vouchers

When a state or county programme (CCAP, a voucher scheme, an employer benefit) pays part of the tuition:

1. Add the agency as a customer — the + beside the subsidy field does it.
2. Set the subsidy per month on the child.

Each tuition run then takes the subsidy off the family's invoice and puts it on a single consolidated invoice to the agency, posted to Childcare Subsidy Income. You can see at any time what the family owes and what the agency owes, separately, and the aging report shows which agency is slow to pay.

Late Pickup and Other Fees

Click + Charge, choose the child and the type:

• Late pickup — enter the minutes late and the fee computes from your grace period and per-minute rate. Inside the grace period, BizBooks tells you there's no fee rather than billing one.
• Registration, activity / field trip, supply fee or other — enter a description and amount.

Charges wait in Pending charges on the Tuition Billing tab until the next run, then land on that family's invoice with the date they happened. Anything not yet billed can be removed.

The Monthly Tuition Run

Open Tuition Billing, choose the month, and click Preview invoices. Nothing is created yet — you see exactly what each family will be charged, line by line:

The sibling discount applies to every child after the one with the highest tuition, and posts to a Tuition Discounts account so the full tuition and the discount are both visible on your income statement.

Then choose:

• Create & post — invoices go onto the books immediately, ready to email from the Invoice Center.
• Create as drafts — nothing posts until you review and finalise each one.

Children who start or leave mid-month are billed for the full month, which matches how most schools charge. For a different first month, give that child a custom rate for the month, then set it back.

Getting Paid

Families are ordinary customers, so the rest of BizBooks Pro applies: email the invoice with an online payment link, take card or ACH, record cheques, send statements and automatic reminders, and reconcile the bank.

Reports → Tuition aging shows what each family and each agency owes, bucketed by how late it is, with anything past 90 days in red. The Families tab shows each family's children and their open balance.

Year-End Tax Statements

In January, open Reports and pick the year. Every family that paid you appears with the total they actually paid during the calendar year — not what was billed, because the IRS counts expenses paid.

Each statement carries your name, address, EIN and child care licence number, the children's names, and the total — everything a parent needs for IRS Form 2441 or a dependent-care FSA claim. Amounts paid by a subsidy programme are excluded.

Settings

The Settings tab holds the numbers the billing run uses:

• Sibling discount % — applied to every child after the highest tuition in a family.
• Registration fee — the default offered when you enrol a child.
• Late pickup grace minutes and fee per minute.
• Tuition due day — the day of the month invoices are due.
• Child care licence number — printed on year-end statements.