Managing your afterschool programs via a paper form and an excel spreadsheet is a hassle. It takes time away from you and your staff to manage and it’s just a pain! Trying to decipher information written by a parent can lead to typos, missed communication opportunities, and more.
It’s time to graduate from spreadsheets to a dedicated after school software to help streamline your operations and cash flow.
Jump to a Solution
What are the most important features in afterschool software?
Benefits of Using Smarter Afterschool Software
What is the best after school software?
After School Software Best Practices
Conclusion
What are the most important features in afterschool software?
Payment processing + automatic billing
The ability to process payments online is key for any business, including afterschool programs. You want the process for parents to view your offerings, select what they want to sign-up for, and paying to be as easy as possible!
An afterschool software that can integrate the payments into the registration process is key for form and payment completion. Plus, integrated payment ensure you will have accurate and comprehensive payment reporting for your team to manage outstanding balances, and other payment statistics.
Child database
A database with all of your student’s information that your entire can access for reference, check-in/check-out, payment processing, and more will help to streamline many day to day tasks you need to do.
A powerful search and filter tool in your afterschool software will allow you to find the information on any child you need quickly.
A software with internal form options and a comments feature will make it a breeze to log notes and information you’d like attached to the child record as well.
Reporting tools
The ability to see your data in an easy to understand way, and get the lists you need is crucial when running your programs.
Filter and search tools to grab the information you want – like emergency contact information or a roster for the day or all allergies for the kitchen – makes program operations easy.
Additionally – payment reporting for accounts receivables and your director or accounting team makes it easy to get an overview of program revenue, balance due and more.
Group registration for families
It’s not enough to just create a database with all of your family information, you need it organized in a way that makes sense for your family registration flow and how you view the information in the backend.
Allowing families to register as one main account with children underneath the family so you can view family registration trends, a family balance, and complete 1 set of family forms. This will make registration quick for families, and allow your data to be automatically grouped together the way you need it.
Conditional logic forms
To create a process that meets your needs is crucial. You want to ask for the information you need, in the order and flow you want.
Conditional logic allows you to create a custom path for every family who registers, including adding or removing forms and products from selection based on how they answer questions or what they qualify for.
Benefits of Using Smarter Afterschool Software
For Parents
An easy way to view, sign-up, and pay for programs for their kids! Doesn’t get any better than this.
For Staff
An afterschool software that allows for access for your entire team, including the ability to control which staff members can access which data, will make your life a lot easier!
Staff can login to view their students, financial information, or whatever they need so they don’t need to come to you to get what they are looking for.
Internal logging features like comments and forms, allow for information sharing between the team, while keeping your data and notes organized in one place for all child records.
For Your Bottom Line
Software clients say they save on average 60 hours per month on operations tasks when they move to an online solution. That is 1 part time employee! Think about the cost for another body to perform manual tasks that a software can take care for a fraction of the cost. You can hire more staff that you need to execute your programs and save the paperwork for the software!
What is the best afterschool software?
Regpack
Regpack offers an affordable solution that allows you to create custom forms, collect payments online including payment plans and automated billing, and report on all of your data in one place.
Regpack also offers Purchase Protection, a one of a kind offering in the market, that allows parents to purchase a plan that provides a refund to them directly when claim terms are met (illness, death in family, etc). This allows you to keep the investment they’ve made in your program especially for last minute cancellations, while parents are paid back when they can’t attend.
Capterra
Capterra is a great software comparison resource to view other child care and class registration software options, and see what works best for you!
Afterschool Software Best Practices
Set up automated emails
A great afterschool software will allow you to manage the onboarding process easily by sending automated emails that are triggered when parents perform an action – like signing up for a program, make a payment, or complete a specific form.
Use the filter tool to send reminders to parents for specific program updates, and use tokens in the emails to populate personalized information into the email so it’s relevant for the parent and includes their personal information.
Offer discounts or promos for repeat customers
Reward loyal families and make marketing campaigns integrate seamlessly with registration.
A good software will allow for discount codes to automatically update a family balance. A great software, will automatically apply discounts either through a code, or based on information in the system, like registering for multiple sessions or sibling discounts.
Use your software to help with marketing efforts
Your afterschool software should let you send unlimited emails to your users. This is great for marketing! Filter and find families who registered for specific programs to let them know about similar upcoming programs! You can also filter based on location or other data points that allow you to craft customized messaging for different groups.
Conclusion
Finding a great afterschool software doesn’t have to be hard.
Find a few options that work with your needs and budget, and request a demo! Seeing the software in action and having a live person to ask questions will be helpful in narrowing down and ultimately choosing the right software for your program.