If you’re a child care provider, you know that running a successful daycare center requires reliable staff, engaged families, and an environment that fosters growth for children. But that alone isn’t enough — especially with the overwhelming administrative workload required just to keep the doors open.

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to run a daycare and suggest some tips and solutions to help you manage your center with ease. Whether you're just getting started with building a business plan for a childcare center or you're already established and looking to grow, the right tools—and mindset—are the building blocks to success.      

How to get started

Research on daycare around the globe reveals a growing market: child care is a lucrative and in-demand business, especially as many parents navigate return to office (RTO) policies. If you’re just getting started, there are some basic steps needed to get up and running:

1. Obtain your license

2. Acquire appropriate insurance coverage

3. Create a business plan

4. Hire staff

Requirements and regulations vary among states — what California mandates may be vastly different to what Iowa requires. That’s why it’s essential you research your state’s daycare license requirements. To protect yourself and your business, it’s also important to research and secure the following coverage: liability insurance, property insurance, and malpractice insurance. 

A business plan is the north star of your daycare, it lays out a framework for successful operations. Your business plan should explore things like logistics—where will your center be located? What hours will you operate?—along with pricing structure, center capacity, and what age range you plan to cater for. Above all, your business plan should ask and answer the question: what is my unique value proposition? 

Consider employment by deciding the kind of staff you want for your business, including preferred years of work experience. Writing up a detailed job description for job postings can help you begin identifying and interviewing hireable staff.

10 best practices for running a daycare

Building an established and trusted daycare takes time, but with a solid foundation, you’ll be on track to running a rewarding business. What makes a good daycare? Explore our suggested best practices for getting started:

1. Establish clear policies and business goals

To hit the ground running, ensure every decision—from staffing to curriculum—supports your vision and the values you wish to see in your daycare center. Staying dedicated to a single mission will help to unify staff and show parents the kind of environment they plan to send their children to. Create a handbook with clearly stated guidelines to help frame and communicate your expectations to staff. Include:

• Your mission statement

• Staff policies and procedures

• Health and safety expectations

• Professional conduct and a code of ethics

• Expectations and guidelines around family communication

When onboarding staff, ensure new team members understand these guidelines completely with a handbook assessment. Remember, your staff represent your business and will often serve as the sole point of contact for many families so it’s crucial to hire and train those who align with your vision. 

2. Invest in your staff

The child care landscape is a competitive one, and when you hire staff with growth and development in mind, you’ll likely attract and retain the best talent for your center. With the right people in place, your students will receive the best education possible.

Consider regular, ongoing professional development for staff to build on existing strengths and learn new skills. The right form of professional development will depend on your goals, but can come in synchronous or asynchronous forms: readings, courses, webinars, and more. Certain staff members may be working toward certain credentials or licenses, so tailor this development in line with each individual staff member. 

Investing in staff also means investing in the right staff management tools for tracking time and processing payroll. Playground’s Payroll feature offers the complete ability to schedule staff, track time, and completely process payroll. Playground will not only calculate your taxes, but file them with the right agencies. Employees will even receive the tax forms they need directly from Playground.

3. Go digital with your paperwork

Going paperless increases efficiency and in turn, supports success. Digital paperwork eliminates the time it takes for both you and families to print, organize, submit, and maintain documentation. It streamlines center operations with features like drag-and-drop file uploaders, autofill capabilities, and e-Signature requests, while providing an opportunity to adopt greener practices such as minimizing waste.

Looking to eliminate the work from paperwork? Playground's all-in-one system provides a platform that lets your parents easily submit important documents, minimizing the time you spend on organization and maximizing the time you spend interacting with and creating positive spaces for children, staff, and families. 

4. Streamline your enrollment process

Enrollment drives your business—without a clear enrollment process, you risk losing future students. Enrollment can be an overwhelming task for staff to manage, but for parents, it can feel like even more of a task. A straightforward enrollment process removes potential barriers for parents, allowing you to boost student count and scale quickly. 

Move from spreadsheets and manual processes toward a single dashboard solution as step one. Playground’s enrollment dashboard simplifies the process, providing a live overview of students in the pipeline, from initial application to waitlist to acceptance. Parents don’t need to wade through arduous admin processes to get started either—using Playground, help parents choose you from any device, pay any fees, and eSign any required paperwork. You can set up automated emails and notifications to keep parents informed during the process, and to ensure your class rosters are continually updated.

5. Showcase your center online

Your marketing efforts are the first impression parents and families will have of your daycare business. Your website especially serves as the first touchpoint for a parent to learn about your mission, credibility, and if your center caters to the needs of their child. If your website leaves them uncertain or raises questions, they may decide to explore other child care providers. 

Displaying photos and testimonials can help parents realize the value in your service, along with sign-up and contact information that’s visible and easy-to-access. Include information on cost, availability, and location too. 

6. Market yourself well, especially on social media

Flyers, newspaper ads, emails, and social media are key channels for marketing your business. Explore how neighboring centers market themselves too and consider how to work together to boost enrollment on both sides. When they’re at capacity, they can recommend you— and vice versa. 

Key takeaways

• A social media page dedicated to your daycare will allow friends, family, and the community to amplify your business.

• You can connect and network with others in the industry. Building connections is key to effective marketing.

• Social media also serves as a repository of photos from activities and events, reinforcing your authority as a daycare provider.

• If you have targets to meet, marketing can support enrollment KPIs.

7. Maintain a safe, clean, and friendly environment

Striking the right balance between safety, cleanliness, and a friendly atmosphere is essential. Safety is paramount for daycare providers who should have policies, procedures, and materials in place for potential emergencies. Part of safety also requires thinking about food allergies and implementing safeguards to prevent life threatening reactions. Educating students on the severity of certain food allergies can help contribute to an overall safer environment. 

Consider rug areas and open spaces to ensure the space is suitable for different activities that allow children to express themselves. Soft-colored posters and a dedicated quiet area can also assist kids who need to self-regulate or require more mental safety. To promote cleanliness, create organized systems that assist staff in maintaining the space. Students can even contribute to cleaning tasks, reinforcing the importance of considering others and teaching invaluable skills.

8. Prioritize regular parent communications

Earning and maintaining parent trust is easier to achieve when there’s regular communication. Parents need to know that their child is safe, tended to, eating properly, and engaging in positive social relationships. As a daycare provider, ease of communication is one path to success. 

Engaging in two-way communication with hard-pressed parents is no easy feat, but there are solutions. Playground allows you to easily communicate with parents 1-on-1 or in groups. You can send photos, videos, eating updates, and potty activities. You can even use Playground for school-wide announcements. Easily schedule these updates to be distributed through SMS, email, or in-app notifications. 

9. Supplement your daily child care services

Beyond regular day care services, you may offer other services to grow your business to new heights while serving families in a more comprehensive way. Drop-in child care is an as-needed service that allows parents who need last-minute child care to schedule care when it suits them—a competitive service that serves as a value-add for your business.

10. Manage your daycare finances effectively

As your business grows and reaches more families, having systems to manage billing, expenses, and payroll becomes essential. Digitized, automated payments simplify tracking and make payments more intuitive for parents. The easier it is for parents to pay, the fewer delinquent payments you’ll need to chase up.

Streamlined accounting ensures your resources are put to the best use. With expense tracking software, you can easily categorize expenses and never worry about losing a receipt. Some child care management platforms even offer payroll capabilities, reducing the workload for your HR team every payday. Playground offers billing, payroll, and expense tracking, helping you manage finances on all fronts in one user-friendly platform.

Solutions to streamline daycare management from Playground

A successful daycare requires attention across the board, including billing, attendance, registration, communication, paperwork, payroll, and more. When your day-to-day tasks are handled without strain, students, families, and teachers will all benefit.

Utilize daycare attendance software

Tracking attendance can be tedious and messy on paper, which is why many daycare providers opt for digital attendance solutions. These daycare attendance softwares allow you to record attendance using a tablet or mobile device — you can even let families sign themselves in using a QR code.

Playground’s attendance software allows parents to check their child in and out daily on a shared platform. Parent signatures are accepted virtually with dates and timestamps, and Playground allows you to generate full attendance reports within seconds.

Simplify food program reporting

Managing food service at a daycare can get complicated, especially with concerns like food safety, temperature checks, quality control, allergies, and staff training. Plus, there’s all the reporting involved.

Fortunately, Playground makes it easy to manage your food program. Playground automates CACFP reports, meal plans, and meal counts, and helps organize meals by free, reduced, or paid. Staff can also record what each child ate and how well they ate that day.

Playground — your new, personalized daycare management assistant

The administrative side of running a successful daycare can weigh heavy on many daycare owners, especially when bouncing between multiple different softwares. When every dollar—and second—counts, a central hub for child care management can be a lifesaver. 

Choosing the right software can help you replace other softwares, saving resources and hassles that stem from integration. Whatever your needs, a full-service platform like Playground can support your efforts in one online platform.

Book a free demo today to see how Playground can step in to help create a successful, safe, and productive daycare environment.