Famly

7 Reasons Why You Should Choose Famly

A better solution to help manage your nursery.
reasons to choose famly
April 17, 2020
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So you’re looking for new nursery management software? Good news. You’ve come to the right place.

We could say that we work with over a thousand of early years settings across the globe, and have well over 120,000 parents using our app every day. But none of that really matters to you, and why should it?

Instead, why don’t we talk about how your nursery could benefit from choosing Famly, and why you should book a demo today.

1. Putting the children first

The key features:
  • Customisable cohort tracking
  • Accessible learning journals
  • Streamlined photo & video observations
  • Next steps overview
  • Multiple frameworks

We know that no-one works in childcare for the paperwork. It’s all about providing the very best for the children in your care, and Famly can help you to do just that.

Observations. Learning journeys. Cohort tracking. It’s all built into the same, simple system that you’ll use to manage everything in your nursery, saving you time and hassle from day one.

It’s time to call an end to learning journals that no one sees, observations that take hours to complete, and complicated spreadsheets that give you no real indication of your cohort’s development.

Instead, it’s time to use a more intelligent system, giving you the insights you need to help your children grow and giving you back the time to make sure they’re doing just that.

2. A head start with Ofsted

The key features:
  • Customisable cohort tracking
  • Historical child & staff registers
  • Automatic staffing ratios
  • Instant parent communication
  • Parent communication logs

We have designed Famly alongside nurseries of every size, and one thing that comes up time and time again is fear over Ofsted.

Using Famly you’ve got a head start whenever the call comes.

In the apps section, you can access all historical registers for both children and staff, as well as those all important staff to child ratios across the year. Using our documents section you can easily keep everything you need for the inspector, all in one place.

Our parent messaging and news feed give you evidence of parent partnerships and historical communication logs for complaints, while fully customisable cohort tracking allows you to dive deep into the development of your children.

All this means an end to the endless ring binders and folders. You can focus on preparing your nursery for the more important parts of the inspection instead.

“What stands out for us is Famly’s clean and easy to use interface, the product is intuitive and well designed. Most other software isn’t as comprehensive as Famly.”

Anna Dougherty, Manager and Co-Owner, Fledglings Day Nursery

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3. Invoicing with a click

The key features:
  • One-click batch invoicing
  • In-app parent payments
  • In-app invoice reminders
  • Simple revenue & debt overview
  • Automatic occupancy planner

Sending out invoices each month can be an exhausting, time-consuming process. But when you already have the data on each child’s plan at your fingertips, it doesn’t have to be.

With Famly, invoices are automatically generated from the sessions, purchases, discounts and automatic funding that you’ve applied to each child. Simply head to the batch invoicing section once a month and, with a click, the invoices are sent straight to the parent in-app and via email.

Once the parents have the invoices, they can even make the payment in-app using Famly Pay. They can pay by card or set up a recurring direct debit and, once the payment’s been received, it’ll be automatically reconciled in your account.

And Famly isn’t just about making invoicing easier.

With an occupancy planner to help you identify available sessions, a public funding report to pinpoint funding gaps, and automatic ratios to prevent overstaffing, Famly can help you to maximise the revenue of your setting too.

Looking for nursery management software?

Try our comprehensive Early Childhood Platform. Get every software tool you need to run your setting, manage your finances, and put the children first.

Learn more here

4. Reduce your paperwork chaos

The key features:
  • Automatic public funding
  • Online sick day & holiday registration
  • Simple digital daily diaries
  • Accident & incident reports
  • Enquiries & waiting lists

We know two days are never the same in a nursery. But one thing that always seems to remain constant is the paperwork piling up on your desk.

Don’t worry, we’re on top of it.

As well as saving you from spreadsheet misery with automatic public funding and financial reports you can trust, we also save you the slew of early morning calls that inevitably come hand in hand with flu season. Parents can register sick days or holidays in the app, saving you from spending all morning chasing every missing name on the register.

Quickly register and track incidents with our accident and incident reports, while keeping track of any potential new families with the enquiries and waiting lists feature.

Digital daily diaries can chart everything from naps to nappy changes too, saving those snatched conversations you have at pick up time to discuss what really matters – the kids themselves.

Which should help to give you…

5. Parents as partners

The key features:
  • Simple digital daily diaries
  • Beautiful learning journeys
  • Instant parent messaging
  • Personalised parent news feed
  • Simple event management & RSVPs

Alongside being your tool for day to day admin, Famly also offers a secure news feed to help you keep parents central to your nursery community.

Famly lets you keep them up to date with messages, photos and videos throughout the day, in real-time. They can also access beautiful learning journeys right on their phone, delivering your observations straight to their pocket, rather than left forgotten in a paper learning journal.

This way, parents have a much better idea of what’s going on at the nursery, meaning you have parents who are much more engaged on a day to day basis. In fact, we’ve found that the vast majority of parents across our nurseries are logging on each and every day.

“At any nursery, your relationship with parents is vital. Famly lets you keep them up to date with messages, photos and videos throughout the day, in real-time.”

Camilla Trefgarne, Nursery Manager, Parson’s Green Nursery

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6. Solve your staffing headaches

The key features:
  • Automatic staffing ratios
  • Customisable access controls
  • Instant staff messaging
  • Staff qualification tracking
  • Internal document sharing

Rotas, attendance, calculating child to staff ratios – it all takes time that you’d much rather be spending supporting and training your staff. What’s more, as you grow it quickly becomes more and more complicated.

Our room-planning app lets you see the required staff for each room, session by session. It’s linked directly to the ratios you’ve set, and so you can plan with the confidence that you’ll have the right staff at the right time.

You can view attendance reports generated from our staff sign-in app, track and view staff qualifications and use document sharing to ensure all staff see important policies and training materials.

“It has saved us so much time as a management team, allowing us to spend more with the children. Everything is all in one place, from invoicing to child development. It makes life very easy for a busy nursery.”

Read all customer reviews on Capterra

7. Take your time back

But what does this all really come down to? Why do you care about speedy invoices, reliable overviews or better parent communication? It’s all about time.

Time to focus on new initiatives. Time to focus on your staff. Time for those projects you’ve been putting off for months. Time for the kids.

Famly is intuitive, fits your workflow and comes with unrivalled support. It will save you time for the stuff that really matters. That’s our promise.

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Official Danish Government Reopening Advice

Guidance from the Danish Health Ministry, translated in full to English.

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UK Nursery Covid-19 Response Group Recommendations

The full recommendations from a working group of over 70 nursery chains in the UK.

Please note: here at Famly we love sharing creative activities for you to try with the children at your setting, but you know them best. Take the time to consider adaptions you might need to make so these activities are accessible and developmentally appropriate for the children you work with. Just as you ordinarily would, conduct risk assessments for your children and your setting before undertaking new activities, and ensure you and your staff are following your own health and safety guidelines.

Customer story

Top tips from Alphabet House

Get top tips from a setting just like yours. Hear from Alphabet House on why and how they use Famly - and why they’ve never looked back.

Read their story