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About us · Our story & purpose

Built by Child Care Operators, for the Centers We Know

Our founder built ChildFriendly Pro when legacy software couldn't keep up with her centers, growing them from one location to over 3,000 licensed spaces.

Talk to Our Team Meet the people behind it
ChildFriendly Pro founder story
Aerial view of an Active Start Child Care center and its playground

Our track record

From One Center to 3,000+ Licensed Spaces

ChildFriendly Pro was not designed in a boardroom. It was built inside a working child care organization, by the people responsible for its licensing visits, payroll and parent conversations. Every workflow was tested on real classrooms before it was offered to anyone else.

As that organization grew from 90 spaces to more than 3,000, the software had to keep up: more rooms, more subsidies to reconcile, more staff to schedule and more families to keep informed. The tools that survived that growth are the ones centers use today.

90 → 3,000+
licensed spaces run on the platform as our own operations grew
11
modules built from daily center operations
3–5
business days to go live, with migration handled by our own team

Local roots

Built in North America, for North American Child Care

We're a North American team of former center directors and ECE specialists, based in Airdrie, Alberta.

Every province's and state's rules come pre-loaded: live in Alberta now, across Canada by December 2026 and US states from 2027.

  • A North American company, home base in Airdrie, Alberta
  • Built and supported by former directors and ECE specialists
  • Province- and state-specific compliance, pre-loaded region by region
  • Free monthly Lunch & Learns and Learning Labs for the child care community
Find your province or state Explore free training
Children sitting on a carpet for circle time with their educators

Our mission

The Principles Behind Every Feature

Expertise-Driven Innovation

Leveraging firsthand industry experience to create solutions tailored to the real needs of child care providers and children.

Innovative Technology for Efficient Management

Using cutting-edge technology to simplify operations, optimize center revenue, and elevate the quality of early childhood care.

Empowering Educators and Directors

Automating administrative tasks to allow more focus on providing quality, child-centered care.

Leadership

Led by People Who Have Run Centers

The people who designed ChildFriendly Pro, support you and host your learning sessions have worked in child care themselves.

Laura Bancroft

Laura Bancroft

Founder, ChildFriendly Pro

Laura founded ChildFriendly Pro out of firsthand frustration. While trying to expand beyond her first child care location, she kept running into the limits of legacy software: inflexible workflows, endless manual tracking, and tools built for single sites, not growth.

Partnering with enterprise developers, she built the platform her own centers desperately needed—and used it to scale her operations from a single location to over 3,000 licensed spaces. Today, ChildFriendly Pro brings that same enterprise-grade power to providers everywhere.

Krystal Churcher

Krystal Churcher

Host, Lunch & Learns and ECE Learning Labs

Krystal Churcher is a seasoned child care operator, advocate, and entrepreneur with over a decade of hands-on experience and policy insight. As the founder of award-winning rural child care centers and Chair of the Association of Child Care Entrepreneurs, Krystal is a trusted voice in Alberta and across Canada.

Krystal co-leads the National Committee on Child Care Reform, and supports operators through the Churcher Group with licensing, grants, staffing, and programming. Her sessions blend empathy, expertise, and real-world strategies—perfect for anyone leading in today’s child care landscape.

What operators say

Trusted by directors running 75 to 2,000+ children

★★★★★Active Start Child Care
“As our organization grew, managing vacancies and staffing across multiple programs became a massive headache. ChildFriendly gave us total visibility into our capacity and waitlists in real time. We’re filling spots faster, keeping our classrooms properly staffed, and saving hours on administration every week.”
CJCorina JeppesenCOO · Active Start Child Care · ~2,000 children
★★★★★Footprints 4 Learning Preschool
“It’s user-friendly, keeps our parents informed with detailed progress reports, and makes scheduling parent-teacher conferences effortless. Plus, integrating with QuickBooks saved me hours of manual data entry every month.”
DRDebbie RauschAccounts Manager · Footprints for Learning Preschool · ~75 children
★★★★★Magic Mountain Child Development Centers
“We went completely paperless, fee collection became automated and stress-free, and our parents love the instant updates. The system is intuitive, reliable, and has streamlined our daily operations across all locations.”
LBLeah BevanArea Director · Magic Mountain Child Development Centers · ~900 children
★★★★★Kids Connect
“Using ChildFriendly has transformed how we run our centers. The daily journals keep parents connected, the notification bell ensures important updates aren’t missed, and tracking attendance—even when teachers take children on walks—is completely seamless. It’s simplified everything for our staff and improved parent satisfaction across the board.”
JJocelynDirector · Kids Connect · 232 children across 2 locations

All-in-one child care management software & app

Everything your center runs on — 11 feature engines, one platform

Billing & Online Payments

Billing & Online Payments

Automate tuition, subsidies and NSF recovery with $0 in monthly software fees.

Bill families daily, weekly or monthly, split subsidies like CWELCC from parent copays, and collect by ACH or PAD with automatic NSF notices and tax receipts.

Explore Billing & Payments
Subsidy split billing screen

Proof in practice

17 Operational Blind Spots Competitors Ignored—And How We Solved Them

When software isn't built by people who run centers, it misses the friction points that cost you time, revenue, and quality. Here are the operator-designed solutions other platforms overlooked.

Revenue protection

AI Capacity Forecasting & Aging-Up Timeline Engine

🚨 The daily nightmare

Front-office staff rely on static spreadsheet based software to track who ages out when. An infant ages up or leaves, but nobody catches it in time, leaving a high-value infant crib or toddler spot unbilled for 4–6 weeks ($1,800–$2,400 in unrecoverable revenue).

📍 A 120-space center in Calgary lost $8,000 in a single quarter because infant-to-toddler transitions were managed retroactively instead of proactively.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

AI analyzes birthdates, aging-up thresholds, departure notices, and scheduled start dates to forecast room capacity 30, 60, and 90+ days in advance. When parents apply online, the engine dynamically reveals open slots or routes them to targeted waitlists based on their requested date.

⚡ Impact: Eliminates transition vacancy gaps, protecting $15,000–$30,000 in annual recurring tuition.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Audit & licensing

Physical Zone Tracking & Room-Level Ratio Badges

🚨 The daily nightmare

Standard apps only record whether a child or educator walked into the building. When groups move to playgrounds, gyms, or buses using paper clipboards, centers fall out of ratio during surprise licensing inspections.

📍 An Alberta facility received a licensing citation when a floater educator stepped out for a break while two rooms were combined outdoors.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Signs staff and children into physical rooms and zones (classrooms, playgrounds, office prep spaces, buses). Live dashboards show color-coded alerts for staff-to-child ratios, room capacities, and maximum group sizes in real time.

⚡ Impact: Delivers continuous audit readiness and eliminates licensing ratio citations.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Revenue protection

Dynamic Part-Time Schedule Pairing & Yield Optimization

🚨 The daily nightmare

One family needs Mon/Wed/Fri while another wants Tue/Thu. Administrative staff fail to pair them manually, leaving isolated days unfilled and blocking full-time tuition intake.

📍 A center had 8 part-time toddlers on disconnected schedules, leaving 35% of their licensed capacity unpaid each week.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

When a parent selects a custom part-time schedule (e.g., Mon/Wed/Fri), the engine instantly identifies open complementary days (Tue/Thu) and presents them to upcoming applicants, dynamically merging split schedules into one 100% occupied full-time spot.

⚡ Impact: Maximizes room yield by up to 35% without adding staff or administrative overhead.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Labor & efficiency

Child Check-In Heatmaps & Shift Overtime Guardrails

🚨 The daily nightmare

Scheduling staff based on static registration counts rather than when children physically arrive can burn 15–20 hours of payroll a week during slow mornings or late afternoons.

📍 A 200-child center was overspending $2,400/month by scheduling full staff at 8:00 AM, even though 40% of children arrive at staggered times all morning.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Analyzes individual child registrations, along with their historical check-in and checkout timestamps to build precision staff schedules that mirror real-world arrival patterns, staff availability, and time-off requests. Built-in payroll guardrails track actual hours against scheduled shifts, instantly flagging unlogged breaks and shift overages for administrator approval.

⚡ Impact: Helps cut unneeded payroll hours on slow mornings and late afternoons while keeping ratios compliant.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Revenue protection

Automated Birthday Tuition Adjustments & Rate Scaling

🚨 The daily nightmare

A child turns two and graduates to a lower toddler tuition rate, but staff forget to adjust the recurring ledger. Parents eventually spot the error, creating ledger disputes, refund recalculations, and lost trust.

📍 A director lost six hours recalculating months of retroactive billing credits after an unadjusted rates were discovered by a number of upset parent.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Evaluates child birthdates against center rate rules, automatically updating tuition fees and billing frequencies on the exact effective transition date.

⚡ Impact: Eliminates manual recalculations, prevents billing disputes, and protects parent relationships.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Audit & licensing

Digital Incident Logs & Automated Dosage Escalation

🚨 The daily nightmare

Paper medication logs and incident sheets get lost in cubbies or miss required parent signatures, while busy educators risk missing strict medication administration times.

📍 A center was cited during a licensing audit for a missing medication authorization signature and undocumented dosage administration on an asthma inhaler log.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Digital medical permissions with mandatory regulatory fields are submitted by parents through the app. Real-time alerts notify staff when a dose is due, and automatically escalate warnings to administrators if a dosage becomes past due.

⚡ Impact: Completely eliminates paper medical logs and medical binders while generating timestamped, audit ready records.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Parent & enrollment

Drag-and-Drop Digital Forms & Ledger-Synced Payments

🚨 The daily nightmare

Collecting paper field trip slips, summer camp registrations, and special event fees forces directors to chase forms manually and balance cash envelopes against paper rosters.

📍 A center lost $450 in uncollected field trip fees due to misplaced paper slips and untracked sibling submissions.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

A drag-and-drop digital form builder with required e-signatures, automated reminder pushes, and integrated payments. When a parent pays on the form, the system automatically posts the invoice and payment directly to the child’s ledger, compiling signatures and receipts into a single point of record.

⚡ Impact: Achieves 100% form completion, eliminates manual fee collection, and keeps student files audit-ready.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Revenue protection

Third-Party Subsidy Settlement & 1-Click Variance Balancing

🚨 The daily nightmare

Reconciling government subsidies (CWELCC, CCFRI, ACCB, CCDF) against parent ledgers is a bookkeeping nightmare. When government payout checks don't match submitted claims, directors spend days manually adjusting family accounts.

📍 An Ontario center spent 15 hours every month untangling CWELCC fee reductions, agency shortfalls, and parent copay balances across multiple spreadsheets.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

A dedicated subsidy settlement engine that flags variances between submitted claims and agency payouts. In one click, directors can charge or credit underpayments/overpayments to family accounts, or collect and credit directly with the third-party agency.

⚡ Impact: Reduces complex monthly grant and subsidy reconciliation from days to a few minutes.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Labor & efficiency

Digital Self-Assessments & Watermarked Evidence Vault

🚨 The daily nightmare

Preparing for third-party accreditations (like NECPA USA and NECPA Canada) requires 100+ hours spent each year compiling physical binders of evidence, teacher training logs, and safety records.

📍 An accredited center experienced panic when an assessor renewal visit coincided with peak enrollment season, leaving no time to collect, print and organize physical documentation.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Digitizes self-assessments directly in the platform and automatically watermarks all uploaded photos and documents with your Program Site Number. Provides secure, inspector links and automatically audits staff continuing education hours to generate pre-filled Professional Development Plans and more.

⚡ Impact: Cuts accreditation preparation time by 80% and eliminates physical binder storage.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Revenue protection

1-Click Recurring Billing & Exact Lump-Sum Bank Matching

🚨 The daily nightmare

Generating invoices each month takes days, and reconciling merchant lump-sum deposits (PAD, ACH, credit card) against individual student ledger entries creates an accounting nightmare.

📍 A single site operator spent two full days every month manually invoicing parents and reconciling batch bank deposits line-by-line.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Generates recurring tuition for all families in one click based on ledger setups, instantly flagging missed billings or failed payments. Automatically groups PAD, ACH, and card transactions into lump deposits that match your bank statement line-for-line.

⚡ Impact: Reduces monthly billing to minutes and turns multi-day bank reconciliation into a seamless 1-click verification.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Labor & efficiency

50-State/Provincial Frameworks & Milestone Progress Reports

🚨 The daily nightmare

Generic software forces rigid documentation that doesn't align with local curriculum guidelines, forcing teachers to duplicate work on separate paper progress reports.

📍 Educators spent hours every period typing or even handwriting observations that couldn't be formally connected to provincial or state early learning outcomes.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Pre-loaded with official early learning frameworks for Canadian provinces and Montessori models (US state frameworks coming in early 2027), alongside a shared library of thousands of lesson plans. Teachers map developmental milestones directly to custom progress reports for administrative review and digital delivery to parents.

⚡ Impact: Saves educators 3–5 hours per week in documentation while standardizing framework-aligned curriculum tracking.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Audit & licensing

Live Visual Allergy Badges & Restricted Pickup Guards

🚨 The daily nightmare

Substitute educators or floating staff do not know every child, creating severe risks for allergen exposure or unauthorized custody hand-offs.

📍 A substitute teacher almost offered a dairy snack to an allergic child because the center's paper allergy chart was pinned across the room on a bulletin board.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Tablet rosters display color-coded warning icons directly beside children’s name and photo for severe allergies, medical notes, and court-ordered pickup restrictions. Tapping any icon instantly reveals complete, verified safety details.

⚡ Impact: Prevents critical safety errors and gives floating staff immediate situational awareness.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Parent & enrollment

Live Mobile Bus Rosters & Real-Time Pickup RSVPs

🚨 The daily nightmare

Van drivers track after-school pickups on paper clipboards; when a parent picks a child up directly from school without notifying the daycare, drivers waste time waiting and searching.

📍 An afternoon pickup bus was delayed by 30 minutes searching for a student whose parent had picked them up early without notifying the center office.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Drivers use live mobile pickup rosters on tablets, synced with parent app attendance changes and transport RSVPs in real time.

⚡ Impact: Eliminates driver confusion, prevents missed pickups, and gives directors 100% real-time transit visibility.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Labor & efficiency

Alternative Meal Tracking & Kitchen Dietary Management

🚨 The daily nightmare

Kitchen staff manually calculate dietary substitutions from whiteboard notes, leading to food waste, prep errors, and meal plan billing inaccuracies.

📍 A center cook frequently over-prepared expensive specialty allergy meals, wasting $300/month in specialized groceries while missing counts for children on paid meal plans.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Displays instant center-wide and classroom-level counts for standard versus alternative meals (e.g., vegetarian, dairy-free) directly from attendance data, clearly separating children on paid meal programs from home lunches.

⚡ Impact: Eliminates kitchen preparation mistakes, prevents food waste, and ensures exact meal-plan billing accuracy. 14. 5-Tier Automated Vaccine Engine & "Ministry-Proof" Audit Reporting

View interactive feature walkthrough
Audit & licensing

5-Tier Immunization Statuses & "Ministry-Proof" Audit Grids

🚨 The daily nightmare

📍 A center received 4 health inspection violations for overdue booster shots that staff failed to catch on paper index cards.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Automatically calculates vaccine target dates by birthdate and assigns real-time 5-tier status flags (Complete, Overdue, Medical/Religious Exempt, Doctor-Approved Alternative Schedule, Missing Info). Includes 1-click exportable "Ministry-Proof" audit reports complete with uploaded verification files.

⚡ Impact: Flags missing or overdue immunizations before they become a compliance gap and produces instant documentation for state/provincial health inspectors.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Audit & licensing

Timestamped Checklist Templates & "Reviewed Up To" Lock

🚨 The daily nightmare

Daily sanitation, playground safety checks, and opening/closing walk-throughs are tracked on paper clipboards where staff check off items retroactively or lose sheets entirely.

📍 A licensing inspector requested the last 30 days of playground safety logs; the center couldn't locate two weeks of paper sheets and received a non-compliance citation.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

Staff complete customizable checklist templates directly on classroom tablets, which automatically record the staff member’s name and timestamp. Admins apply an official "Reviewed Up To" digital stamp that permanently locks records from future edits by staff and enables 1-click audit exports.

⚡ Impact: Eliminates missed or falsified paper logs and provides verifiable proof of routine safety maintenance.

View interactive feature walkthrough
Labor & efficiency

Pre-Enrollment Compliance Engine & Staff Expiries Dashboard

🚨 The daily nightmare

Children start care without mandatory health identifiers or signed parent agreements, while staff certifications (First Aid, Criminal Checks) quietly expire, risking heavy licensing fines.

📍 An unannounced licensing audit revealed a lead educator’s First Aid certification had lapsed two weeks prior, and a newly enrolled child was missing an emergency contact.

✅ ChildFriendly Pro solution

A centralized onboarding checklist verifies mandatory details (licensing IDs, guardian contacts, banking info, signed agreements) before a child starts. Concurrently, the expiries dashboard alerts administrators to upcoming expiration dates for staff credentials, CPR certifications, and third-party contracts.

⚡ Impact: Keeps child records and educator credentials current, with warnings before anything lapses, so licensing inspections hold no surprises

View interactive feature walkthrough

Frequently asked questions

About ChildFriendly Pro FAQs

Read more FAQs
Why do child care centers switch to ChildFriendly Pro from Brightwheel, Procare, or HiMama?

Child care centers switch to ChildFriendly Pro to eliminate monthly software subscription fees while gaining proprietary features built specifically for ECE operators. Legacy platforms charge $100 to $1,000+ per month for generic software that fails to solve complex local liabilities like CWELCC subsidy split-billing or space-based ratio guardrails. ChildFriendly Pro operates for $0/month in software fees while providing free, careful data migration.

How does ChildFriendly Pro offer enterprise software for $0 in monthly fees?

ChildFriendly Pro offers $0/month enterprise software by optionally passing standard payment processing fees to parents as a transparent convenience fee. Centers can also choose to absorb standard payment processing fees. Either way, centers pay $0 in recurring software subscription fees, saving $2,000 to $12,000+ per year compared to legacy software.

How fast is the free data migration?

Most centers complete onboarding in 3–5 business days, without disrupting active tuition collections or center operations. Our technical team extracts, cleans, and imports child rosters, family ledgers, immunization files, and staff contacts from your current platform (Brightwheel, Procare, HiMama) for $0 in setup fees.

Can our center test ChildFriendly Pro in a sandbox environment before switching?

Yes, ChildFriendly Pro provides fully functional sandbox test accounts loaded with sample student rosters and ledgers. Directors and staff explore features, practice check-ins, and run sample billing cycles in a risk-free environment before migrating active family records.

How does ChildFriendly Pro handle government subsidy split-billing (CWELCC, CCFRI, Vouchers)?

ChildFriendly Pro automates government subsidy split-billing by applying regional fee caps and co-payments directly to family ledgers. The platform calculates government allocations and parent co-pay balances automatically, generating clean itemized statements and 1-click reimbursement claims.

What kind of customer support does ChildFriendly Pro provide?

ChildFriendly Pro provides multi-tiered support featuring instant 24/7 AI assistance, live human ECE specialists, and dedicated account managers for multi-site organizations. Centers get immediate operational guidance around the clock through our intelligent AI assistant, alongside direct 1-on-1 access to trained human specialists and former center directors who understand licensing and classroom realities. Growing networks and multi-center operators are paired with a dedicated account manager for custom enterprise onboarding, staff training modules, and ongoing operational oversight.

How does the AI 90-Day Capacity Forecasting engine work?

The AI Capacity Forecasting engine tracks child birthdates and classroom age thresholds to project vacant spots and fill enrollment ahead of time. The system matches waitlist applicants to future transition dates before an infant crib sits empty, eliminating unbuffered vacancy revenue loss.

Is ChildFriendly Pro compliant with PIPEDA, FERPA, and COPPA data privacy regulations?

Yes, ChildFriendly Pro is hosted on enterprise Microsoft Azure servers and complies with PIPEDA, FERPA, COPPA, and state/provincial privacy laws. All family records, child photos, and daily sheets are encrypted in transit and at rest using 256-bit AES encryption.

Can multi-center networks and franchises manage multiple locations from one login?

Yes, ChildFriendly Pro features an Executive Multi-Center Portal that allows operators to switch between locations with a single click. Corporate leadership views consolidated financial ledgers, system-wide occupancy forecasts, staff credential matrices, and licensing audit reports across all centers.

How do parents download and access the ChildFriendly mobile app?

Parents download the ChildFriendly mobile app for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Upon enrollment, parents receive an automated invite link to create their account, view their daily journal, pay tuition via PAD or card, and message teachers.

How does ChildFriendly Pro prevent licensing ratio violations in real time?

ChildFriendly Pro uses real-time, room-by-room digital ratio monitoring that alerts staff before a classroom drops out of licensing compliance. The system dynamically recalculates staff-to-child ratios based on real-time room check-ins, local mixed-age rules, and primary educator certifications. Directors receive push notifications if a staff break or unexpected drop-off triggers a compliance risk.

How does ChildFriendly Pro automate educator payroll and schedule tracking?

ChildFriendly Pro tracks educator timecards, certification wage grids, and room ratios directly from classroom tablet check-ins. Staff clock in via PIN or QR code, automatically mapping hours to specific room budget allocations, overtime rules, and regional wage subsidies. Directors can export audit-ready timecard ledgers for their payroll provider in one click.

How does ChildFriendly Pro assist centers during unannounced state or provincial licensing inspections?

ChildFriendly Pro maintains an audit-ready compliance engine allowing directors to export digital inspection binders for any date range with one click. Time-stamped logs for room ratios, child and staff attendance, medication administration, allergy documentation, fire drill logs, cleaning checklists, and staff HR credential expiries are centralized and instantly exportable for state or provincial inspectors.

Talk to people who have run a center.

Book a live demo with a ChildFriendly expert, or send us a message and we’ll answer your questions directly.

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