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Paid childcare

Discuss everything related to paid childcare here, including childminders, nannies, nurseries and au pairs.

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45 replies

timeforanewnickname · 14/03/2010 17:59

Hi

has anyone any knowledge of www.childmindersoftware.com/index.html
is it worth the money?

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nannynick · 14/03/2010 23:13

No knowledge of this but from a quick glance it looks like it is a cut down version of ChildsPlayManager - nursery administration software which is in use by thousands of nurseries. According to this 2006 article the full single site version of Childsplay Manager costs £1195 plus VAT, so with Childsplay Manager lite costing under £30, it seems as though it may be quite good value for money - if it does what you need.
There are various videos on Youtube which show some of the things that ChildsPlay Manager Lite will do - example: Invoicing

nannynick · 14/03/2010 23:15

The software has been around quite a long time, so it has a good track record in the Nursery sector. Interesting that they are now doing a version for Childminders. Should be quite good given it's based on the Nursery version, though I've not used it.

Has anyone used it? Does it do everything you want or are there some limitations?

Shelmic · 18/03/2010 16:19

Hi timeforanewnickname Just noticed your post and thought I'd add my tuppence worth. I have recently started using nobleminder.co.uk and am so far finding it very useful. Not only does it have a bookkeeping/invoicing facility but you can do all your EYFS observations. And there are loads more bits and pieces that you might find useful. IMHO well worth having a go. Look at this pagefor more comments on Nobleminder.

BabysDays · 26/03/2010 03:12

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looneytune · 26/03/2010 09:03

I've looked at the babydays and wish I had the money as does look good but £99 per year is a lot to fork out I'm afraid. Never mind.

alibubbles · 26/03/2010 13:19

Great ideas, but a lot of money for most childminders. They have to earn a lot to make that amount as pure profit. Local authorities should standardise what is required for EYFS and roll it out to all providers.

I'm not sure about it being ' out there somewhere' and having to access it via a server. I would prefer a program that I could load onto my computer.

I think they are also over complicated, we don't need functions such as 'room' we only have one despite all age groups. I am sure there are some very clever computer genius childminders and partners who could come up with a simple solution

Tan1959 · 26/03/2010 13:33

Perhaps 'babydays' could consider offering an 'Introductory' price for the first year

I've just had a look at their website too and would love to take my interest further but £99.00 is alot to fork out.

nannynick · 26/03/2010 14:41

6 months Free Trial - get someone hooked, then charge a low monthly rate.

looneytune · 26/03/2010 19:00

That's definitely more like it! I can't see any childminder paying £99 upfront for something that has an annual cost without actually 'using' the system first. If I honestly felt it was saving me a lot of time, I WOULD pay that, but only after I'd used it for myself.

atworknotworking · 26/03/2010 19:47

This looks like a great site, especially the EYFS stuff, it would save me hours sitting with text books and profile stuff. I think its a good price at £99 + vat, I have sent them an email to ask if they will consider doing it monthly though.

I've been looking for software like this and have to say didn't come accross this one in searches so thanks for the post.

If you post on here again babysdays please dont out me

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 00:29

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BabysDays · 27/03/2010 01:04

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looneytune · 27/03/2010 07:58

Babydays, it does sound truly fab but I'm sure you can understand that seeing your site and having an actual demo to watch at a network is quite different If I saw the demo and was happy after that then great, I'd probably go for it.

For me to part with an annual fee, I'd want to see an example of this at work i.e. a video of data being entered so I could see what happens to that etc. Yes, maybe better screenshots would give more of an idea.

I've seen you've now added the £9.99 per month fee. Would this mean we could cancel if we didn't get on with it? I personally am having a nightmare with EYFS and DO really like the idea of your system, it was just parting with a lump sum before trying it that put me off

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 08:05

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looneytune · 27/03/2010 08:15

Ok well I'm interested in a demo and then if happy with that, a yearly contract wouldn't bother me. I'll contact you via your website.

nannynick · 27/03/2010 09:27

Mark, I would like to start by saying that I think it is great that you are responding favourably to the feedback you are getting. In today's online world, companies which respond quickly to consumers demands/wishes will get a long way in my view. It is also great that you are having this dialogue - again in today's world companies which talk to their users and potential users will get far (I frequently chat to a cosmetics supplier via Twitter for example and am now an investor in the company).

I will pick up on some things you have mentioned:

Our system concentrates on the key EYFS areas that NO other system anywhere can offer you, the screenshots on our system do not do the software justice and we will be adding some more videos to our site soon so you can get a clearer understanding just how amazing it is.

Video's would be great. I notice that in the Individual Learning Plan (Existing ILP Notes) screenshot it says "click to show Warnings, Advice and Video Demonstration on this section of the system"
Given that the video already therefore exists, could that video (and others within the system) be made available?

When you register with us the system is yours, it is on its own private domain, you do not login to the same site as everyone else, what 1 person does on 1 system does not cause your system to slow down or crash, your system is your unique system.

I'm not convinced that is the case. On your subscriptions page you are offering people a SubDomain www.yourname.babysdays.com That may in effect be a section of a server which has it's own database... so Yes is in it's own private section. However the way you have phrased it I feel implies that the system is fully separate... yet the cost of having a Dedicated Server Per User would be very high (Dedicated Server from £249 per month). I would have thought that you are not offering a Dedicated Server per user but have split the server into user specific sections (I'm trying to avoid jargon which non technical people wouldn't understand). Which means that an individual user would not have access to other sections of the server, yet the admin team (ie. you) will be able to carry out maintenance functions across all user accounts.

You then say later on that parents are able to login to the system. So there ARE other users of the same system. It is quite possible that the Childminder and One or More parents could be logged in at the same time. Would you agree?

Does any of this matter? Not really, today's servers can cope happily with many concurrent users accessing various parts of the server and other connected servers. It's the way the web works.

we setup your domain,

Subdomain. If it were a domain it would be more like www.yourname.co.uk
Easy enough to do that though I would have thought, using a domain pointer perhaps.

we do not limit you on traffic, bandwidth, photo uploads or users

These are some good selling points, so highlight those lots.

However I feel there is a potential limit to the number of users... From the Purchase page "the cost for a one year subscription is just £9.99 per month this will allow you to add up to 20 children to the system." So there is a limit to the number of children, though not the users specifically. This 20 children limit may have been introduced following you offering the Monthly Payment Plan, which was after your Mumsnet post.

A Question... When a child is removed from the system, can that place be filled with another child? So if a CM got to 20 children, then say 2 left the setting, CM took on 2 more children, would they still be within the 20 children limit, or is that considered to be 22 children... as it's 22 sets of child record setups?

we have done numerous demonstrations of the software to childminder networks across the country

These demonstrations must take quite some time for you to arrange and physically do. Have you considered videoing a session? Bit like the way Google video's their conferences (such as Google Wave Developer Preview).

Remember that your audience is mostly female. so presenter and any voiceover should in my view be done by a female... ideally by a Childminder who is already using the system and thus can add in little tips, how they have found the experience (pros and cons). The more 'human' you can make it the better I feel it will help in convincing a viewer to make the purchase decision.

Also remember to emphasise to CM's that the purchase of the system is writeable off against their tax bill - I'm assuming it is, as it is a legitimate business expense.

Pricing - Monthly fee I feel is good. Does that also mean it's a monthly rolling contract?

atworknotworking · 27/03/2010 12:11

Ok I missed the child limit thing, thanks for bringing it to my attention NannyNick I have quite a few mindees on roll, so does that mean if I added all mindees I would need to take out 2 subscriptions? Or really thinking about it I would use the system specifically for EYFS / Planning so in theory I could just put on the mindees in the EY group.

Also I'm presuming if I pay the monthly £9.99 + vat I would be signing a contract for 12mths, if I then decide not to use the system after say 6mths I would still be required to pay the rest until the contract ends. I feel this is fair though as you will have costs to cover etc.

I would also like to echo what NannyNick said re: responding quickly to the customer it goes a long way in customer care. Well done on a good product, finding a need in the market and excellent service.

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 16:08

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alibubbles · 27/03/2010 17:26

Mark,you have answered brilliantly. You and I have spoken, and you can probably guess my name from my mumsnet name, shh please.

I asked a few questions further down even though we had discussed some of them, as I thought that others would want to know some of the answers.

I am keen and like the idea, looking forward to April 1st ( is that a good date to launch a serious product!)

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 17:47

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looneytune · 27/03/2010 17:50

I've also contacted you via your enquiry page

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 18:19

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looneytune · 27/03/2010 18:57

Yes that is me . Yes I do get a lot of enquiries from it . Spent this afternoon updating the photo gallery, think I need to delete some pics though as there is such thing as too many!

BabysDays · 27/03/2010 19:10

No, pictures paint a thousands words, I think your site is great, colourful, informative and everything it should be.

Just 1 thing though, you have uploaded images without resizing, so each image is about 300k, 3 images makes 1mb and they are taking a long time to load, those photos should only be about 20k-30k each and load time would be so much quicker.

Apart from that I love it.

Regards

Mark.

looneytune · 27/03/2010 19:24

Thanks for pointing that out, I'll speak to the web design company (I have to be nice as this was done as a freebie for me ). I'm using a CMS (content management system) and today is the first time I've uploaded pics. I'll see if there is any way of me finding out via CMS if the originals they uploaded are also too big.

Thanks

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