Childcare billing and sign-in software for Chicago home daycares and small centers

Every Chicago provider eventually has to decide what happens to tuition when the program closes unexpectedly. Some programs treat tuition as a fee for a reserved place and do not credit closed days. Some credit a day after a set number of closures per year. Some decide case by case. There is no single right answer, and DCare does not impose one.

Here is how the product behaves, so you can match your policy to it. A child's rate stays the rate until you change it. DCare does not automatically prorate or credit invoices when you close. If your policy is to credit a family, you can reflect that on the next invoice in the way your bookkeeping prefers, or adjust the payment you record. Whatever you choose, putting the rule in writing in your parent handbook before the first snow day does more for trust than any software feature.

Messages in DCare help on the morning itself. A short note to every family that the program is closed reaches parents in the portal, and the empty attendance record for that day matches what you told them.

Picture a provider running a home daycare from the first floor of a two-flat on the Northwest Side, caring for eight children with one assistant. Families pay monthly on the first. Three of the families are related, and two of them have siblings enrolled.

1. 1
   Monthly rates per child. Each child has a monthly rate; DCare drafts one invoice per family on the first of the month
2. 2
   Sibling discount on the family. Two families have a percentage discount that applies to every child except the one with the highest rate
3. 3
   Back door, front door. The tablet lives by the entrance families actually use. A QR card on a keyring is faster than a PIN for parents juggling a stroller in a vestibule
4. 4
   Year-end statements. At the end of the year the provider exports payments so families can request the records they need for dependent care accounts or tax filings

Start, at $49 per month for up to 25 enrolled children, fits a program like this. The provider does not pay for features built for multi-site chains, because DCare does not have them.

Now consider a center with two rooms, about thirty-five children, a director and four teachers. Most families pay monthly, but a handful prefer weekly billing because of how they are paid. Before-care starts at 7:00 a.m., and an optional after-care block runs until 6:00 p.m. for an additional monthly amount.

In DCare the after-care block can be built into the child's rate for families who take it, so the invoice shows one clear line per child rather than a base fee and a separate surcharge that parents have to add up. Weekly and monthly families run side by side; DCare drafts each on its own schedule and groups lines by family.

The kiosk at the door doubles as a live headcount. If the fire alarm goes off at 10 a.m., the director can see who is checked in on a phone, which is a better starting point than a paper sheet left on the front desk. DCare is not an emergency system and does not replace your own procedures, but accurate presence data helps.

Many Chicago families change arrangements when the school year ends or starts. A four-year-old moves to kindergarten, a school-age sibling joins for summer weeks, and a family that used after-care stops in June. Each of these is a small change in DCare: mark a child inactive when they leave so their history stays, add a new child with a weekly summer rate, or change a rate from the next period.

Inactive children are skipped on future invoice runs. Nothing is deleted, which matters when a parent asks in March for last summer's payments. If summer weeks are sold as a block, add them as one-off charges with due dates that match your enrollment agreement.

The most uncomfortable part of running a small program is asking a parent about money at pickup, in front of their child. DCare moves that conversation to the parent portal, where the family sees each invoice, its lines and its status. Overdue families are visible to you on the dashboard without scrolling through a sheet.

If the provider has a configured, eligible Stripe account, parents can pay by card through Stripe Checkout. Payments made by check, Zelle or cash can be recorded by staff so balances stay accurate. DCare does not process subsidy or voucher payments and does not submit claims to any agency.

Standard, at $99 per month, covers up to 60 enrolled children and suits the hypothetical center above.

For a hypothetical Chicago program trying DCare, the 14-day trial is long enough to run one full weekly cycle and prepare a monthly one. Create the account with the United States region, which fixes billing to USD and month-first dates. Add families, set rates and the billing day, and print QR cards.

Use the kiosk alongside paper for the first few days, then stop when you trust it. Draft invoices before you invite parents, check every total, and only then turn on parent access. If you decide not to continue, nothing is charged; the trial never authorizes a payment, and a subscription only starts after explicit confirmation in Stripe Checkout.

Chicago programs often bill a few things once a year: a registration fee in August, a supply fee in September, a field trip in spring. Each is a one-off charge in DCare with a description, an amount and a due date, and it appears on the family's next invoice and in the parent portal straight away.

Keep the description specific. "Annual supply fee, 2026-27 school year" answers the question before the parent asks it. If a family enrolls mid-year and you charge a reduced supply fee, change the amount on that family's charge rather than inventing a separate product.

Hypothetically, the two-flat provider described above would add the registration fee for a new family the day they sign the enrollment agreement, set the first monthly rate from the next billing day, and the family would see both lines in the portal before the child's first morning.

Snow, a stalled train on the L or a crash on the Kennedy can turn a punctual parent into a late one. Whether to charge in those situations is a judgment call that belongs to the provider. DCare stores your closing time and late pickup fee in Settings so the figure is consistent, and every sign-out at the kiosk is time-stamped.

Nothing is charged automatically. If you decide a fee applies, you add it as a one-off charge with the recorded time in the description. If you decide to waive it because the whole city was stuck that evening, you do nothing. Either way the attendance record shows what happened.

Questions about money tend to arrive months after the fact: a parent comparing bank statements, an accountant preparing a return, a former family asking for a statement for a dependent care account. DCare keeps sequentially numbered invoices, recorded payments and time-stamped attendance in one place, and owners can export data as CSV or JSON. It does not give tax advice or prepare tax forms; for that, speak to a qualified professional.

Confirm each child's rate and frequency, the monthly billing day, your closing time and late fee, and that the account time zone is Central. Decide your closure policy and write it in the handbook. Print QR cards for families who will scan at the door, and make sure the tablet has a charger within reach of the entrance.

Finally, draft the first invoices and read every one before inviting parents. A single wrong rate is easy to fix before a family sees it and awkward to fix afterwards. If you run weekly and monthly families side by side, check one of each so you have seen both schedules work.

If your program also offers a summer schedule, set up one hypothetical summer family during the trial as a test: a school-age child with a weekly rate, a field trip as a one-off charge, and the child marked inactive at the end. Walking through that cycle once, before June, shows you exactly how the invoices and the portal will look when the real summer arrives, and gives you time to adjust your handbook wording if anything surprises you.

US accounts are billed in dollars at list prices, not converted from euro: Start is $49 per month for up to 25 enrolled children and Standard is $99 per month for up to 60, excluding applicable taxes. Both begin with a 14-day trial that needs no card. Your account region and currency are fixed when you sign up; reading this Chicago page does not change an existing account.

DCare is deliberately narrow. It covers families, tuition invoices, attendance and parent access for one setting. It does not do lesson plans, photo sharing, multi-site management or subsidy claims, and it does not interpret Illinois or local rules.