Bookkeeping for Childcare Centres

A childcare centre has an income structure found almost nowhere else. The majority of your fee income does not come from the families you deal with daily. Child Care Subsidy is paid by the government directly to the provider on the family’s behalf, based on session reports you submit, and the family pays only the gap. That means your income depends on the accuracy of your attendance and session reporting as much as on your enrolments, and a reporting error does not simply delay payment, it changes the amount you receive.

Reconciling that properly is the central bookkeeping task in early learning. Subsidy payments arrive in bulk covering multiple children across multiple weeks, frequently including adjustments for prior periods where attendance was varied, absences were recorded, or entitlement changed after a family updated their activity or income details. Matching those payments back to individual enrolments is what tells you whether your income records are correct. Centres that accept the deposited amount without reconciling it accumulate a discrepancy that becomes very difficult to unwind later.

Gap fee arrears are the quiet cash flow problem underneath. Because the subsidy portion arrives reliably, a centre can appear to be collecting well while family accounts drift steadily behind. The gap is a smaller amount per family, which is exactly why it goes unchased, and across a full enrolment list it becomes significant. Knowing precisely who is behind and by how much, at any point, is what allows you to follow up while it is still recoverable.

Payroll in early learning is unusually intricate. Educator rates under the applicable award vary with qualification level and progression point, and your rostering is driven by legislated educator to child ratios rather than by what you would like to spend. That means your largest cost is substantially fixed by regulation. Casual loading, part time entitlements and qualification based progression all have to be applied correctly, and superannuation now needs to be funded in line with your pay cycle rather than caught up quarterly.

We reconcile subsidy against family accounts, track arrears so nothing accumulates unseen, run educator payroll against the applicable award, manage superannuation and entitlements, and prepare your BAS. Monthly reporting shows occupancy against staffing cost by room, which is the figure that tells you whether the centre is working.