Early Childhood Education

Nurturing future generations

Early Childhood EDUCATION operators are often so caught up with the compliance side of the industry that they struggle to find the time to analyse their operations or streamline them and make them more efficient.

The biggest challenges facing the early childhood industry are the ever-changing Government funding criteria and increasing competition, often signalling the need for new strategies.

Childcare centres have unique operational guidelines, including capacity limitations and minimum staff to child ratios. Achieving the optimum balance between children, staff and operating costs can be tricky. Childcare is an extremely staff intensive industry and having the right wages to income ratio, along with other contributing factors can determine whether a centre merely survives or thrives.

Cash flow is also a key consideration within childcare centre operations, with both government payments and incentives often being prepaid and requiring repayment upon a child or staff member leaving the service. It’s imperative that an Early Childhood Centre operator has a high quality CRM software program to assist with accounting for these payments.

Centre owners also require a thorough understanding of the CRM system in order to ensure that the correct amounts are being accounted for within their accounting software. There are also other specific systems that can make an operator’s life much easier, especially within larger centres.

“The first five years have so much to do with how the next 80 turn out”
~ Bill Gates

Where others see challenges, we look for opportunities

RSM's assurance, tax and consulting professionals have been helping early childhood care operators thrive and grow to beyond their expectations. From single centre operators to those who have multiple centres, our clients rely and benefit from our industry knowledge to stay competitive in the marketplace. Our industry experts can provide assistance with:

Developing strong management skills to ensure compliance with regulations
Regular accounting services – including set up of accounting, payroll systems and ongoing monthly reporting
Setting realistic budgets forecasting all expenses
Regular reviews of wage costs and critical expenses
Taxation advice for critical issues, including regular reviews of your business structure to ensure tax efficiency and increased shareholder value
Examination of fee structure against market rates
Identifying other potential income streams
Undertaking due diligence to assist you to purchase an existing childcare business or start a new childcare centre. Includes specialist advice around lease structure and the associated tax implications, forecasting to obtain bank finance and licence requirements relating to MOE funding.

Any changes you make in your operation must be sustainable for the future. Talk to us about how we can help you succeed in an economy under stress and stay ahead of your competitors.

Did you know?*

There were 5,527 licensed or certificated ECE services and kōhanga reo as at June 2017 (up 1.1% from 2016). Of these, 4,600 were licensed services and kōhanga reo (up 59from 2016) and 927 were certificated playgroups (no change from 2016).
Education and care services made up a majority of licensed services with 2,558services (55.6%). There were 658 kindergartens (14.3%), 454 kōhanga reo (9.9%), 476home-based services (10.3%), and 421 playcentres (9.2%).
The number of education and care services have grown by 45.8% (804 services) and the number of home-based services has grown by 136.8% (275 services) since 2005.
Twenty-six percent of licensed services reported a wait time of more than one month, well down from the peak of 45.7% in 2008. However wait times at kindergartens remain relatively high with 38.8% reporting wait times of more than one month (down 2.7% from 2016).

*Sourced from Education Counts