How to Succeed at Home Daycare

Having a home daycare that is financially successful and rewarding to both you and the families you work with is possible with just a little extra effort.
Having great daycare software is critical. It is the equivalent of having an administrative assistant, a tax accountant on your payroll!

Things You'll Need

• Daycare Software
• File for Receipts
• Zipper Case for purse

Instructions

1. 

   Daycare software is critical! Having the right daycare software for your business will be like having a tax accountant and an administrative assistant on your payroll.
   I used C-K Kids, by Redleaf Press. I will include a link to it at the bottom of the page.

2. 

   Enter all of the requested information into your program. Be meticulous, and enter the correct square footage of each room, how much of your home you use exclusively for the daycare, how much is used by both family and daycare, and how much is exclusively for the family.
   While there needs to be some places in your house that the family can have privacy, remember that if the percentage of exclusive family space is small or non-existent, you will be able to offset a larger amount of your utilities, fuel, repairs, and home improvements at tax time.

3. 

   It's worth every minute of your time to enter your recipes, ingredients, and food costs into the software program. It is VERY important to shop for the daycare separately, and keep separate receipts for daycare food AND family food, cleaning supplies, etc. If you can't justify BOTH, you have to discount 50% of your daycare expenses as family expenses, and this will be a BIG time loss! I had seventeen children enrolled in my daycare, and only four member in my family. Daycare expenses were MUCH larger in proportion to my family food budget. When checking out at the store, just separate the items and pay for them separately, it just takes an extra minute to separate the items, and it is worth it when you get all of those extra dollars back at tax time!
   At tax time, I was able to break down my daycare food costs right to the the exact amount I had spent because the software program added up the cost of the ingredients in the meal I had on my menu planner, and divided it by the number of children present for that meal, enabling me to compare my actual meal costs to the standard meal rates

4. 

   Become a receipt Nazi. Put a zippered pencil case in your purse, and save every receipt that comes into your hands. I don't want to spend a lot of time on receipts, so I write on the back of each receipt what it was for...household food, daycare food, daycare cleaning supplies, craft supplies, etc.
   At the end of the week, I put the receipts into an envelope marked by the month, and drop it into an expandable file, and don't have to worry about it again until tax time, because I already identified the receipt on the back of it while I was still in the store.
   At tax time, I total food, cleaning supplies, office supplies, and major expenditures, as they ALL can be deducted under my home office business expenses.

Tips & Warnings

• If you participate in the CACFP food reimbursement program, the meals that YOUR children (age 12 and under) consume during daycare hours are reimbursable.

• When you figure food expenses for your daycare at tax time, your household members cannot be added in your meal counts.

Resources

• Publication 587
• C-K Kids Software @ Redleaf Press
• Darling Daycare