Tuition and attendance software for Los Angeles family child care and small centers

A large share of small programs in a city like Los Angeles sell more than one schedule: full-time, a Monday-Wednesday-Friday option, a Tuesday-Thursday option, and sometimes mornings only. In a spreadsheet, each of these becomes a column, and the moment a child moves from three days to five in the middle of a month someone has to rewrite a formula.

DCare keeps it simpler. Each child has a rate and a frequency, weekly or monthly. The rate is whatever you charge for that child's schedule. When a family upgrades from three days to five, you change the rate from the next period, and future invoices follow. Past invoices stay exactly as they were sent, which is what you want when a parent asks about last month.

DCare does not automatically prorate a partial month. If a child starts mid-month, many providers either bill a set starting fee as a one-off charge or start the monthly rate from the next billing day. Decide which you prefer and write it in your enrollment agreement.

Imagine a licensed family child care home in the Valley run by one provider and an assistant, with eleven children on the roster but never more than eight present on the same day because so many attend part-time. Families pay weekly. Two children are school-age and come only after school and on school holidays.

1. 1
   Rates that match schedules. Each child gets the weekly rate for their schedule, so the three-day toddler and the five-day preschooler sit on the same invoice run without special handling
2. 2
   After-school children as their own rate. The school-age children have a lower weekly rate for after-school care, and holiday weeks are added as one-off charges with their own due dates
3. 3
   Daily headcount at a glance. The kiosk shows who is checked in right now, which is what the provider actually needs at 3:15 p.m. when the school-age children arrive
4. 4
   Invoices on Monday. DCare drafts the week's invoices, she reviews them, and parents see their balance in the portal without a separate text message

Start, at $49 per month, covers up to 25 enrolled children. Enrolled is the number that counts, not the number present on a given day, which matters for part-time-heavy programs like this one.

Any Los Angeles provider knows that pickup time is partly a traffic forecast. A parent who left work on time can still arrive twenty minutes late after an accident on the 405. How a program handles that is a policy decision, and DCare deliberately leaves it to you.

What DCare provides is consistency. Your closing time and late pickup fee are stored in Settings so the closing staff member applies the same rule as the owner would. Every sign-out at the kiosk is time-stamped, and when you decide a fee applies you add it as a one-off charge that the parent sees on the next invoice. If you choose grace on a bad traffic night, you just do not add the charge; there is no automatic fee that fires behind your back.

Some providers find it helps to send a short message through DCare when a late fee is added, explaining the recorded time. It keeps the conversation factual and avoids an awkward talk at the door.

Consider a small center serving roughly forty families, many working shifts at a nearby hospital. Opening is early, some children arrive at 6:30 a.m., and pickup can stretch until 6:30 p.m. Tuition is monthly, due on the 25th for the following month.

Here the kiosk earns its place at both ends of the day. Staff rotate across a long day, and the person who opened is not the person who closes. Time-stamped sign-in and sign-out mean the closing teacher can see who is still due without asking the morning team. On the billing side, setting the billing day to the 25th lets DCare draft next month's invoices on schedule, and families who have paid see that instantly in the parent portal.

If the center has a configured, eligible Stripe account, parents can pay by card through Stripe Checkout. DCare does not handle subsidy programs or voucher reimbursements, so a center that serves subsidized families should keep using whatever process its agency requires for those.

Split custody and shared care between relatives are common everywhere, and providers in a city as spread out as Los Angeles often see pickups from adults who live far apart. In DCare a family has one record, the children belong to that family, and the invoice goes to that family. Guardians you add can sign in and out at the kiosk.

If two parents pay separately, record each payment against the family's invoice as it arrives. DCare does not split one invoice into two bills automatically, and it is better to know that up front than to discover it in month two.

On language: DCare's interface is available in English and German. Many Los Angeles families speak Spanish, Korean, Armenian, Tagalog or another language at home, and the parent portal is not translated into those languages today. If that matters for your families, test the portal with a parent during the trial.

Switching tools is the part providers dread, so it helps to keep the first week small. A sensible order for a hypothetical Los Angeles program: create the account with the United States region, enter families and children with their current rates, set the billing day, and print QR codes for families who would rather scan than type a PIN.

Run paper sign-in in parallel for a few days if that makes you more comfortable, then stop when the kiosk records match. Draft your first invoices, compare them against what you would have charged, and only then let parents into the portal. The 14-day trial requires no card, so you can stop at any point without being charged.

Keep your previous records. DCare does not import historical paper sign-in sheets, and older records may still matter for your own files.

Many Los Angeles programs ask for a registration fee or a deposit before a child starts, partly because waitlists are long and a held place has real value. In DCare these are one-off charges on the family, each with a description, an amount and a due date. A parent who receives an enrollment confirmation can see the registration line in the portal before the first tuition invoice is drafted.

How you treat a deposit later, whether it is applied to the last month or refunded when a family leaves, is a matter for your enrollment agreement. DCare will not apply it automatically. A simple habit helps: describe the charge in the same words your agreement uses, such as "Enrollment deposit, applied to final month", so that a year later nobody has to remember what it was for.

Hypothetically, a program in Long Beach that collects a deposit and a supplies fee in August would add both as one-off charges with due dates before the start date, then let the monthly rate begin on the September billing day. The family sees three clear lines rather than one unexplained total.

Programs that open early and close late rarely have the same adult at the door for the whole day. The opening assistant knows who arrived; the closing teacher needs to know who is still there. When that information lives on a clipboard, it travels badly. The kiosk record is the same for everyone with access to the account, so the person closing can check who has not been signed out yet without a phone call.

This is an administrative convenience, not a ratio or supervision tool. DCare does not calculate staffing ratios or alert you about them, and it should not replace whatever headcount procedure your program follows.

Before parents receive their portal invitation, check four things: every child has the rate for the schedule you actually sold, the billing day matches your enrollment agreement, your closing time and late fee are entered in Settings, and the account time zone is Pacific. Getting those right once saves a round of corrected invoices later.

Then send a short message explaining what parents will see: invoices with one line per child, balances, and any one-off charges. Families who know what to expect ask fewer questions at the door.

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 Los Angeles 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 California or local rules.