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Daycare.com Forum

My Support Group




I just had to talk about this great website that I found that has helped me out tremendously.  Daycare.com is in itself a great resource and has articles about a huge variety of daycare subjects but what I personally enjoy most about the site is its Daycare Forum.  

If you have a question about anything relating to daycare someone there will be willing to share their experiences and recommendations.  An absolutely awesome thing about the forum is its' tax section.  Tom Copeland himself often chimes in with his own professional opinion!  Who doesn't want his help for free???  (if you don't know who Tom is: he's the guru of daycare taxes).  

If you ever need business support check the forum out.  

Record Keeping Program for Daycare

MMK Pro-Love It

So maybe you're a new provider that is just getting started or maybe you're a veteran that has been in the business for many years.  Either way Minute Menu Kids Pro is, in my opinion, the best program out there that can meet the record keeping needs of a family child care provider (child care in the child care provider's home).  

What is Minute Menu Kids Pro?

"It is the premier child care management software for home-based family child care businesses"
It is a full accounting system that is specifically made for family child care.  

What does it do?

Oh wow, it literally almost does everything when it comes to record keeping.  Once you set it all up, add your daycare info (such as hours and square footage), add all of your daycare children's and parent information you can:
  • Keep track of meals
  • Keep track of attendance
  • Create invoices
  • Record payments
  • Record food program, subsidy and other payments
  • Record your expenses
  • Record your mileage
  • Keep track of your time doing business related things when daycare children aren't present
  • Print out reports
  • Print end of year statements and W-2's for clients
  • Accept electronic payments from clients through ChildCarePay.com ($1 per transaction, well worth it.  Trust me.).
It really does make my life much easier.  The list above is what I love and use most about the program but there are a few other things that it also has that I either don't use ever or don't use much:
  • Create certificates: Personally I just don't use this feature unless it's someone birthday.  
  • Create charts:  I've never used this but you can make charts for attendance, perfect clean up, terrific taster, sharing club, taking turns, washing hands, taking turns or create your own custom chart. 
  • Plan your meals:  Personally for me it was just faster to write my meal plans out in Excel. 
  • Plan activities:  I plan my weeks a little funny by using a lesson plan book a whole bunch of stickies.  That's just how my creative process works so that's the reason I don't use MMK Pro's activity planner.  

What I wish it did:

Accepted Credit/Debit:  Although it's pretty neat that parent's can go online to view and pay their invoices payments are in the form of electronic payments which are transferred from their bank to yours.  That's great and I love the convenience and all but I just wish that it gave my clients the option to pay with a credit or debit card too.  

Also, if you ever run into a problem when using MMK Pro and you need customer support it is EXTREMELY difficult to get someone to pick up the phone and return your call.  You're better off going to the Daycare.com forum and asking your questions there, the members there are extremely helpful and many have been using this program for years.  MMK should be paying those gals for tech support.  

The Verdict:

All in all even with the cons I listed this is a great product.  It is well worth the money.  It is a yearly subscription that you'll end of paying but in the end you'll be thankful.  Oh and your tax preparer will love you for it since all you'll have to do is print off the tax reports and hand them over ... everyone knows that family child care has a lot of deductions and if you don't have a good tax preparer it's still pretty hard to goof things up if you use MMK Pro.