The impact of online billing and payments for parents

When a child is enrolled in a childcare center, they will inevitably have fees that go along with this. Managing those costs and ensuring they are paid can be tricky. 

For parents, it can be frustrating managing the payment of so many various bills in their lives. The last thing they need is to be manually keeping track of and remembering childcare payments, especially for multiple children! In some cases, many parents are purchasing their first cheques, not even knowing how to use them, just to meet the limited payment options of their childcare center.

For directors, when it comes to managing a childcare center (or multiple!), one of the biggest pain points we hear is managing the process of billing and receiving payments from parents. This process can easily take many hours of admin time from an already busy week, and involve lots of paperwork, chasing parents for overdue payments, using multiple service providers for different purposes, and storing cash/cheques on site until your weekly bank visit! Despite the familiarity and preference for online payments among Millennial parents, over half of the childcare centers still require parents to be physically present in order to pay their tuition fees.

25% of millennial parents have never written a cheque.

2020 childcare service satisfaction report

In the past, there were few digital solutions to these payment problems. However, we are now in a time where there are a large amount of childcare management apps that can assist with invoicing and processing payments online, as well as many other paperwork challenges! This can save directors hours and hours of administration time, while also elevating parent satisfaction at their childcare center. 

75% of parents think their childcare payment process could be made easier.

2020 childcare service satisfaction report

Millennial parents prefer the convenience of managing finances using their smartphones or computer. And it’s not just one or two bills that they generally pay online — 60% of parents pay at least half of their bills digitally. And, they prefer it that way! Implementing online payment options is a life changer for parents and directors alike! 

The benefits of online payment processing for parents include: 

• The ability to pay a child’s tuition invoices online using a credit card or bank transfer
• Enable automatic payments so you can set it and forget it, making sending a child to childcare easier than ever 
• Keep track of previous payments made and view past invoices 
• Have peace of mind that the payments processing partners handle your data at the highest level of compliance 
• Collect rewards/points on a preferred credit card 

As we know, parents’ lives are full to the brim with pick-ups, drop-offs, appointments, bath times, and bedtime routines. Not to mention a career of their own! The more childcare providers can take off of a parent’s plate the better. Allowing them to not have to manually remember childcare billing day and provide payment, but instead having automatic charge notifications that do not require any action, makes one less thing to think about in their day! 

75% of families still pay their childcare payments through cash or cheque

2022 Childcare Benchmark Report Survey

Also, providing parents with full visibility through their own login on their past payment history, any documents needed for tax purposes, etc, cuts down on emails back and forth for both the parent and center director. It is a win-win! 

On top of these benefits for parents, there are additional benefits for center directors.

The benefits of online payment processing for directors include:

• Parent satisfaction increases as they do not experience any billing or payment frustrations 
• Easy to track payments and co-payments all in one place 
• Hands-on tech support through onboarding and on an ongoing basis 
• No need to chase parents down for outstanding payments 
• All-in-one software tools to save you hours and hours of admin time 

HiMama offers all of these amazing features through our all-in-one software. Want to learn more about HiMama’s billing and payments feature? Request a demo today!