Child Care Enrollment Made Easy With Sandbox

As the center I led started to grow I knew that our current enrollment and billing system wasn’t going to cut it. This is when I finally took the time, sat down and did the research. Before this we were using an offline software system that was slow and frankly hard to use. I chose to switch over Sandbox Software for many reasons, but the main reason was how user friendly the enrollment process was.

What I have noticed after working on the Sandbox team is that each center executes the enrollment process very differently. This is one of the great features of Sandbox. You can use the software many ways, and still reach the same great result. Sandbox Software makes billing and enrollment easy for the center and the families too.

Today I am going to share with you the enrollment process I developed. This is based on years of experience in the child care industry and from using Sandbox for enrollment for about 5 years. This list will vary from center to center and licensing agent to licensing agent, but overall I do think that this process will work for most centers.

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Online Registration

The great thing about Sandbox is that not only do you have access to online registration, Sandbox will actually build your registration forms. Before I discovered this we were paying another program for our registration. This made for two seperate systems and two monthly payments.

The first thing I suggest in setting up a new account is always to get your registration forms created. Once your online registration form is created you will have access to a link that will direct straight to your registration forms. At our center, I posted this on our main website page with a big blue box that said “CLICK HERE TO ENROLL”. It was easy to read and access. The other benefit of having the link on your website is the benefits of drawing them to your website page and increasing your overall website views.

After a family filled out the form I would get a notification on my home screen. At this point in the process all you do is accept the enrollment, which tells the system that you want that child file to show up in the families tab. Really it’s that easy.

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Creating an Enrollment

When the child file is populated into the families tab the next step is to create an enrollment. Go down to the enrollment section and select the child’s class, schedule and start date. After the start date selected that child will now show up on all your attendance reports.

This is a very important step in the process. How often does your teaching staff come into your office mid task?! Well if you have added an enrollment for the child it is almost impossible for their enrollment to get lost in the shuffle of the day. Also, when teachers have access to their own class lists on the teacher app they will see their new student show up, which is great too.

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Invoice/Charge

It will depend on your centers policies, but I always try to invoice and charge the day of an enrollment. We run a custom invoice for new families because we include the registration fee, snack fee and last months tuition. This is all done in the billing tab in Sandbox. (link to billing tutorial)

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Paper File

Although I would love to say we didn’t have to maintain a paper file after switching to Sandbox, that was not the case. I did include our licensor when we made the switch and we decide together that much of our paperwork could be in the online enrollment, however we would still need to print it off with a few other items for the paper file.

Here is the check list for our paper file:

• Date of Enrollment:
• Grade/Program:‍
• ‍Online Registration Form
• Consent Form
• Emergency Kit Instructions
• Immunization Form

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Final Notes

Once you have added the enrollment, invoiced and charged, and completed a paper file you should be all set for the start date ahead. Although your center will have personal touches to this process I do hope that you use this list to help you streamline your enrollment process. Enrollment can be time consuming and a bulky process. Join the many centers who are making it easy with Sandbox Software. For a free 30 day trial click here!