Preschool & Childcare Edition
Bill a month of tuition in a single pass — one invoice per family, sibling discounts applied, agency subsidies split out, and last month's fees carried across. Keep an eye on room capacity and staff ratios, chase what's outstanding, and hand parents the figure they need in January.
Switching It On
Included with Pro and with every Nonprofit plan; nothing is charged per child. 🧸 Preschool appears in the top navigation on a qualifying licence, and in the sidebar once a child is enrolled. Set things up in this order: rooms and plans, then the settings, then the children.
Rooms and Ratios
Add each room under Classrooms & Plans with its licensed capacity, the child-to-staff ratio your state requires for that age band, and how many staff are assigned. The overview then shows enrolment against capacity and open seats, and raises a flag when a room is over capacity or under-staffed for the children in it.
Tuition Plans
A plan is a name and a monthly rate — "Full Day 5, $1,100" — with an optional schedule note. Children are assigned a plan at enrolment, and any child can carry a custom rate that overrides it for scholarships, staff discounts or unusual arrangements. Editing a plan's rate affects future runs only; invoices already created keep their figures.
Enrolment
+ Enroll Child asks for the child's name and date of birth, the family that gets billed (create one on the spot if they're new), the room, the plan or custom rate, and a start date. Leave the registration-fee box ticked to add your standard fee to their first invoice.
Children can instead join the waitlist; they aren't billed, and enroll converts them when a space appears. When a child leaves, use withdraw and give the last day — they're billed through that month and dropped afterwards.
Agency Subsidies
Where a programme pays part of the tuition, add the agency as a customer and set the monthly subsidy on the child. Every run then removes that amount from the family's invoice and bills the agency on a separate consolidated invoice, posting to Childcare Subsidy Income.
Family balances and agency balances stay separate right through to the aging report, and subsidy money is left off the family's year-end statement, where it doesn't belong.
Fees and Late Pickups
+ Charge records a one-off. For a late pickup, enter the minutes and the fee is worked out from your grace period and per-minute rate; inside the grace period Kantivo declines to charge anything. Registration, activity, trip and supply fees are entered with a description and amount.
Charges sit in Pending charges until the next billing run picks them up, and can be removed until then.
Running the Month
On Tuition Billing, pick the month and press Preview invoices. Nothing is created — you're looking at exactly what will be:
| Tuition — Mia (Toddlers) — March 2026 · Full Day 5 | $1,000.00 |
| Tuition — Leo (Preschool) — March 2026 · Half Day 3 | $600.00 |
| Sibling discount 10% — Leo | −$60.00 |
| Late pickup — Mia, 20 min (2/10) | $15.00 |
| Total due March 1 | $1,555.00 |
The sibling discount reduces every child after the highest tuition in the family and posts to a Tuition Discounts account, so the gross tuition and the discount both show on the income statement. Then choose Create & post to put the invoices on the books, or Create as drafts to review them first.
Children starting or leaving mid-month are billed the full month. If you prorate, set a custom rate on that child for the month and clear it afterwards.
Collecting
Families are ordinary customers: email invoices with a pay-now link, take card or bank payments, send statements and reminders, reconcile as usual. Reports → Tuition aging breaks down what families and agencies owe by how overdue it is, and the Families tab shows each family's children and balance.
Parent Tax Statements
In Reports, pick the year to see what each family paid during it — payments received, not invoices raised, which is the basis the IRS uses. Each statement carries your name, address, EIN and licence number alongside the total, ready for Form 2441 or a dependent-care FSA claim, with subsidy-funded amounts excluded.
The Numbers Behind It
Settings holds the sibling discount percentage, the default registration fee, the late-pickup grace period and per-minute rate, the day of the month tuition falls due, and your child care licence number.