If you have decided to become a stay-at-home parent and operate an in-home daycare, that is a pretty big decision. It is not quite as easy as you might think, especially given the licensing fees, licensing process, insurance and added expenses of food and cleaning supplies. However, it can also be very rewarding since you are available to help your children with their needs in the evening. If you want to make the whole business operate smoother and easier, here are some items that can really help you get started and keep organized.  

Childcare Software for Management

Now you will have to manage the daily expenses, billing, invoices and progress reports for every child you take into your center. To do that, you will either have to be extremely organized (which, with children is not always easy) or you will need childcare software for management support. The childcare management software keeps track of everything for you; you only have to plug the numbers and information in in the correct tabs and columns. At the end of each month, you can get a summary of how your childcare business is doing, and where you need to make up for shortfalls. As it becomes more successful, you can keep track of your profits, self-employment taxes, and business taxes and only have to see them with a quick glance.

Childcare Software for Education

While some of the best daycares and schools only rely on software for education in short bursts during the day, you may need it more often if you take in home-schooled children. Some of the home schooling programs provide some of their own software, but may expect parents and childcare providers to support the curriculum with additional software programs. If you do not have these programs on your computer, you may need to purchase (from an outlet such as I Care) and install them before you begin taking in home-schooled children into your daycare.

Curriculum-Generating Software and Ideas Generators

A very big part of a good daycare are the activities you do with the kids. Every activity has to teach them something, and it has to be planned out well in advance. If you would rather keep your activities calendar and curriculum on your computer rather than in paper form on your desk, there are some good software programs that help you generate a curriculum for just about any age group. Idea generators are additional programs that help you find and create age-appropriate activities to fill in your calendar every week and month that you are in operation. Both are very useful for anyone that is not especially crafty or does not know where to look for project ideas and activities for kids.