Childcare Tuition Sheet
The Sign-InWhat each family owes, on your rate card and your sibling rule.
Tuition is four of the center’s own decisions stacked on each other, so it lives in a spreadsheet somebody rebuilds whenever a family changes. Get the order wrong and a household is discounted on a place a voucher already paid for.
A week of places priced on the center’s own rate card, with the sibling discount coming off ONE enrollment rather than off the whole bill, a voucher covering a place up to what the place costs, and a late-pickup rate that is yours. It works out money and refuses to work out ratios.
About this tool
Childcare Tuition Sheet: what it solves
The obvious tool for a childcare center is a ratio calculator, and it is the wrong tool twice. Ratios are set by state rule, so they are the same for every center and belong to the trade rather than to the owner. Worse, a page telling an owner their staffing was fine would be making a compliance claim about a licensed operation from numbers typed into a browser, so this refuses to compute one out loud rather than quietly leaving it out. What is actually the center’s own is the money. A day rate is never the weekly rate divided by five, because a part-time place still holds a space. The sibling discount comes off one enrollment rather than the family’s whole bill, and which one — the cheapest place or the dearest — is a rule each center wrote, worth different money on the same week. A voucher covers a place up to what the place costs and never more, and whether the family is billed what it leaves is a decision rather than an accident, so it is a switch here rather than an assumption.
The obvious tool for a childcare center is the wrong tool, twice
Ask anybody what software a center needs and they will say a ratio calculator.
It is wrong the first time because ratios are not yours. They are set by state rule. They are identical for every center in your state, which means they belong to the trade rather than to you — and anything that belongs to the trade is something a platform can absorb and give away.
It is wrong the second time, and this one is serious. A page that told an owner their staffing was fine would be making a compliance claim about a licensed operation, from numbers typed into a browser, with no knowledge of your license, your rooms, or who walked out at two o’clock. That is a sentence somebody could quote in a very bad conversation.
So this refuses to compute one, and says so on the page rather than quietly leaving it out. What is actually yours is the money.
A day rate is not the week divided by five
A part-time place still holds a space. The space cannot be sold twice, and the child who is there Monday, Wednesday and Friday is occupying it all week as far as your capacity is concerned.
So a day rate is a decision, not a division. Every center sets it, most set it higher than a fifth of the week, and the reasoning is exactly the one above.
This holds a day rate and a weekly rate as separate numbers, because they are separate numbers.
The sibling discount comes off one enrollment, and which one is your rule
Not the family’s whole bill. One enrollment.
And whether it comes off the cheapest place or the dearest is a rule your center wrote — often without noticing it was a rule — and it is worth different money on the same week with the same two children. A family with an infant place and a preschool place pays two different amounts depending on which one the discount lands on.
This asks which, applies it, and shows it on the line. It does not pick a default, because the default would be invisible and would quietly become your policy.
The voucher covers the place, never more
A subsidy covers a place up to what the place costs. It does not overpay, and any gap between the voucher and your rate is either billed to the family or it is not.
That is a decision. Some centers bill the difference and some absorb it, and it is often not written down anywhere. So it is a switch here rather than an assumption, because an assumption in that spot either invoices a family who was not expecting it or quietly costs you the gap every week.
What it replaces
The tuition spreadsheet with the sibling rule living in a formula, or in the director’s head. Both work until a family enrolls a third child, or a rate changes mid-year, or the person who built it retires.
You set your rates, your sibling rule and your voucher handling once. Every billing run after that is the enrollment list.
Who it is for
Childcare centers, preschools and after-school programs — anywhere tuition is billed off a card you wrote, with discounts and subsidies that vary family by family.
What it will not do
It will not compute a ratio, and it will not tell you a room is compliant. Stated plainly on the page, deliberately.
It suggests no rate and no discount. What a place is worth in your town, and what a second child should save, are decisions about your business and your families.
It is not payroll and it is not your licensing file. It works out what families owe.
Nothing you type is sent anywhere. The arithmetic runs in your browser. Family names, enrollments and subsidy details are about as sensitive as small-business data gets, and none of it leaves the machine you typed it on. Close the tab and it is gone.
Yours would be built the same way.
This one runs on made-up data. The version built for your business runs on yours, and you own it outright. Builds start at $2,500. That is a floor, not a quote. What yours costs is agreed before any work begins. The first conversation is free.