Sandbox Childcare Management
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Ease of use
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Features
Summary
Sandbox is under seven-years-old and is focused on providing an intuitive and easy-to-use system that helps out daycare center administrators and teachers. They did beta testing early on to find out what customers want and shaped the software around that. Sandbox recently expanded to mobile as well and are planning to release a Teacher App and Parent App in the near future to keep building on the remarkable success and popularity of their product.
As part of Hopping In’s ongoing series of childcare management software reviews, we reviewed Brightwheel. Today, we’re going to take a look at Sandbox Software. They may be a relatively new company, but they have a lot to offer.
The Inside Scoop on Sandbox
Sandbox Childcare Management is a great program. It is cloud-based, very user-friendly and its features can help you run your daycare center at top efficiency.
What it excels at is recordkeeping, attendance tracking and payment processing. The interface is easily accessible and easy to use, plus it cuts way down on the hassle of office paperwork.
Basically: say goodbye to paperwork and clumsy communication, and say hello to not needing more than 24 hours in a day.
The core of Sandbox is built around a central dashboard and additional areas that include registration, automated billing management and payment processing as well as check-ins and check-outs for kids, email notifications to parents to keep them in the loop, automated invoice creation and a handy report system.
Sandbox works for daycares across North America and has received consistently good reviews from daycare centers from small to large.
Basic outline of Sandbox
Sandbox is all about giving you what you need without making things too complicated.
Staff and family info is stored in a central, easily-accessible, secure cloud. Access levels are in place to ensure only authorized staff will have access to info they are required or authorized to see. An easy-to-access emergency contact list lets staff know kids’ contact details and any allergies or other concerns staff should be made aware of. Sandbox is accessible by any computer or mobile device including tablets.
Sandbox has a smoothly-functioning automated attendance tracking with an integrated time clock that works on Android, Windows, iOS, you name it. When staff need to check what’s going on they can easily do so in seconds. This can especially help if you work with software like HoppingIn, which shows parents your daycare’s availability and lets you sell unused spots (both for full days and half-days).
Sandbox is also a big winner with parents and has a central parent portal where they can sign their kid up with your daycare center online and have a central hub where the kid’s information and registration process is stored.
Parents also get access to another portal that gives them real-time updates on their kids’ progress during the day including photos, similar to Brightwheel.
Another big plus on Sandbox, as mentioned, is its automated billing process. As the daycare center administrator you can control when bills are created and sent to parents and lets parents pay online. It’s a win-win all around.
Overview of Sandbox features
Sandbox has a lot to offer without getting you too bogged down in complicated, hard-to-use features. Its features are all quite accessible and easy to understand and use, which is a huge advantage of this program.
- Online Registration
- Parent / Child Records
- Parent Portal
- Payment Processing
- Photo Gallery
- Wait List Management
- Mailing List Management
- Billing & Invoicing
- Check in / Check Out
- Child Care Center Updates
- Daily Reports
- Employee Management
- Immunization Records
Pricing
Sandbox has three pricing options depending on the size of your daycare center.
If you have less than 50 kids in your daycare center the price for Sandbox is $59 per month plus an initial set up and a training fee of $250. The set up includes a backup of all your data, unlimited customer support and includes all upgrades and new apps and features for no additional cost.
More than 50 kids and your monthly fee increases to $99 per month plus the initial $250 flat fee.
If you have more than one daycare center location where you wish to use Sandbox, each additional location costs $49 extra per month and an initial setup flat fee of $100 each.
What’s great is that Sandbox plans are run on a month-by-month basis and don’t require you to sign a contract.
Advantages of Sandbox
Sandbox has many advantages. It runs smoothly on all devices and is fairly simple to learn for staff.
Another big plus with Sandbox is their great customer service. The company is helpful and will take the time and energy to help you resolve anything you want to improve or know about.
Downsides of Sandbox
Honestly, there are very few downsides of this software. The price is reasonable and the features and ease of use are impressive.
What could help even more is helping parents navigate the initial filling in of forms when they sign up, and including options for special events like field trips and concerts.
In lieu of their mission to save our nerves from paperwork, Sandbox and its customers would also greatly benefit from allowing the integration of accounting software like Quickbooks.
What do people who use Sandbox say?
Sandbox – Yay or Nay?
Both the users and HoppingIn vote yay.
Sandbox makes the running of your daycare so much easier – from safety to paperwork. What’s even better is that Sandbox stays in touch with its users, as proven by their latest beta testing and shaping new features.
They also stay up to date with the demands, so you can look forward to the release of a Teacher App and Parent App in the near future.
Author: Hopping In Blog
Sholom Strick is an expert on the business of running daycare centers and founder of Hopping In, a tool that helps childcare centers and family daycare providers fill unused spots.
To contact him or for media inquiries email s.strick@daycareteam.com
