Carmel walked us through the paperwork on 24 September. Most of it is email that Jenny and Carmel send by hand. We'd move three of those jobs into the admin you already use for tours. We've estimated the time each one saves, and every step leaves a record you can check.
Prepared for Sandra Felli and Carmel Robinson by Robin, Red Valkyrie
| Section | The job | Time back (our estimate) |
|---|---|---|
| Waitlist | Emailing the waitlist form, typing the answers into the spreadsheet, and taking the "am I on the list?" calls | About 20 minutes per familyToday about 25 minutes |
| Enrolment | The offer, the enrolment pack, the reminders and the welcome letter, all sent by hand | About 50 minutes per familyToday about an hour |
| Staff onboarding | Taking each new educator through every policy and training in the office, and filing the sign-offs | About 5 hours of Carmel's time per new educatorToday about a day |
| Three smaller updatesDone, no charge | Getting leads and enquiries into a spreadsheet, emailing applicants for résumés, and tidying the lists | A few minutes per applicant, and any list as a spreadsheet in one click |
| All three sections, fixed price | $3,800 + GST | |
The times are our estimates, worked out from how the centre described each job. The one first-hand figure we have: on 23 September, enrolment emails took up most of Jenny's day.
Once Jenny has confirmed a place by phone, she emails the family the days and the fee. Then she sends the enrolment form, the welcome letter, the family handbook and about 15 policy PDFs, and chases the families who haven't sent the form back.
The waitlist works the same way. A family asks to join, someone emails them the form, and when it comes back someone types it into a spreadsheet. Families still ring to check they're on it.
New educators get a workbook and seven days to read it. Then Carmel takes each person through every part of it in the office, and they sign off the policies and the training. The whole thing stretches over several weeks.
Some things stay as they are, on purpose. HubWorks stays your record for fees, the CCS, room numbers and each child's details. The new enrolment form collects those details, and someone still types them into HubWorks. Birth certificates, immunisation records and the direct debit form stay on paper, in your own files, so none of them end up stored in another system.
One waitlist in the admin, with each family's details, the days they want and when they want to start.
We'll bring your current waitlist spreadsheet across, so there's one list from the first day. The online form asks the same questions as the one you email now, which Carmel is sending us. Days only, no times, because every session runs 7:30 to 6:30. The waitlist downloads as a spreadsheet, like the other lists.
| Job | Today | Once it's built |
|---|---|---|
| Send the waitlist form | Attached and sent by hand | One button |
| Get the answers onto the list | Typed in from the returned form | Straight from the family's form |
| "Am I on the list?" | A phone call | Already in their inbox |
| Find the families for 2027 | Read down the spreadsheet | Filter the list |
A new Enrolments page follows every family from the offer to a confirmed enrolment, and sends each email when it's due.
A completed form prints in the same order as your paper one. Print it all for the office folder, or just the medical page for the room copy the educators sign.
A Documents page holds the policies, the handbook and the direct debit form. Replace a file there and the next family gets the new one.
The offer, reminder and welcome emails sit on the Emails page with the tour emails.
Only Admin logins can see the Waitlist and Enrolments pages or open a completed form. Staff logins don't see families' fees or anything from the enrolment form.
Insights counts the leads, enquiries and tours that turned into waitlist families, then offers, then confirmed enrolments, and shows what percentage made it through each step. You'll also see how many days, on average, an offer takes to become a confirmed enrolment. It prints as a table and downloads as a spreadsheet.
We'll reword the welcome letter to ask families to bring in the birth certificate, the immunisation record and the direct debit form rather than email them. Email isn't a safe way to send identity documents or bank details.
| Job | Today | Once it's built |
|---|---|---|
| The offer | Typed out each time | Type the days and fee, press send |
| The enrolment pack | Form, handbook and about 15 PDFs attached by hand | Sent when the family says yes |
| Reminders | Jenny keeps track and sends each one | Automatic at seven days |
| Missing answers | Checked by hand when the form comes back | The form won't submit without them |
| Who needs a call | Worked out from the inbox | A list of overdue families |
| The welcome letter | Attached to the same email as the form | Sent when the form comes in |
Carmel still takes each new educator through the hands-on parts. The reading, the presentations and the sign-offs happen before they arrive, and every step is recorded.
Each educator's record prints on one page: every policy and training, the version, the date and the score. Hand it over when an inspector or your workers compensation insurer asks what an educator has read and done.
Replace it on the Documents page and choose whether your current educators need to read and sign the new version. You'll see who has and who hasn't.
| Job | Today | Once it's built |
|---|---|---|
| Policy and training walkthrough | Carmel goes through every part of the workbook in the office | Read and quizzed before day one; Carmel covers what the quiz shows they missed |
| Sign-off sheets | Printed, signed and filed | Signed and dated in the system |
| Proof for an inspector or the insurer | Kept in the paper folder | One printed page per educator, for the folder |
Each of those pages now has a "Download CSV" button. Pick a date range, from the last 30 days to everything, and the file opens in Excel, so you can print it. Because these files include families' and applicants' phone numbers and emails, only Admin logins see the button.
Applicants can now attach one PDF, up to 5 MB, with their résumé and cover letter in it. It's optional, so nobody is put off applying. The résumé downloads straight from the application in the admin. The form accepts PDFs only. Keep antivirus up to date on the computers that open them, because a PDF can still carry a virus.
Each login is set to Admin or Staff in Settings. An Admin can now remove a tour, lead, enquiry or application to tidy a list, and Staff can't. A tour that's still booked stays on the list until it's cancelled or has happened, so nobody hides a family who's still coming.
A removed record disappears from the lists but stays in the database, with who removed it and when. An Admin can put it back from "Removed from the list" at the bottom of the page it came from, and if you can't find one, we can.
The price is fixed for what's described here. If the build takes longer than we expect, that's our cost, not yours. We invoice half when you approve and half when all three sections are live. We don't expect any new running costs: it all runs on the same website and database as your tour bookings.
About two weeks from your go-ahead, once we have the files listed below. The waitlist and the enrolment emails come first, then the online enrolment form and staff onboarding. Before a real family or a new educator sees anything, Carmel and Jenny run a pretend one through it, and we show them both how it works in a 30-minute session.