The whole crèche day, in one place.
Enrolment, the daily register, fees, parent messages and learning records for South African crèches and pre-schools. Owners, teachers and parents each see exactly what they need, and nothing they shouldn’t.
- No card needed
- Classes and starter fees set up for you
- Works on any phone, tablet or computer
Who uses CrèchePulse
Owners and principals
Enrolments, fees, staff and reports, with today’s numbers on one dashboard.
Teachers
The register, care log, observations and lesson plans for their own classes only.
Parents
Their child’s day, statements, payments, notices and who may collect.
A day at the crèche, with CrèchePulse
Every part of the day feeds one record per child, so the register, the care log, the statement and the parent’s phone always agree.
Drop-off
Parents check in at the kiosk tablet with a PIN, or staff tick the register. The time is stamped and the parent gets a message.
Register closed
Absences reported in the parent portal are already marked. Anyone missing without a reason stands out.
Learning
A teacher notes an observation, tagged to the NCF learning areas, and adds it to the child’s learning journal.
Lunch and naps
Meals, naps, nappies and medication go into the care log. The menu warns if a dish clashes with a child’s allergy.
A payment lands
A PayFast payment allocates itself; an EFT is matched by its reference. The family’s statement updates straight away.
Collection
Staff scan the collector’s QR code or check them against the authorised list. Late? The late-collection fee is added for you.
Doors closed
The owner sees attendance, income, overdue accounts and staff-to-child ratios, and every change is in the audit log.
Fees that add up, every month
CrèchePulse keeps a proper ledger for every family, not a “paid” tick on an invoice. Part payments, credit notes, refunds and arrears all balance.
- Monthly invoices from each child’s fee agreement, with sibling discounts applied automatically
- Pro-rata fees for mid-month starters and leavers, and once-off charges for outings or extras
- Online payments through PayFast, plus EFT matching by bank reference and cash receipts
- Statements, receipts and polite overdue reminders by email, SMS or WhatsApp
- Exports for Xero and Sage Business Cloud when your bookkeeper asks
Parents see their child’s day, not a pile of paper
The parent portal works in any phone browser and can be added to the home screen like an app.
- Check-in and collection times, meals, naps and incident reports as they happen
- Notices for the whole crèche, a class or one family, with read receipts
- Statements, balances and online payment
- Report an absence, ask for a new collector or update health details; the office approves
- This week in class, the menu, the calendar and their child’s learning journal
- Separate access for each guardian, with custody and collection rules respected
Everything else the office runs on
One login per person, one record per child. These all connect to the same family, so nothing is typed twice.
Enrolment and families
- Enquiry pipeline from first call to tour, application and acceptance
- Online application form and waiting list
- Child profiles with documents, allergies and medical notes
- Guardians, emergency contacts, siblings and billing contacts
- Classes, age groups, capacity and an occupancy forecast
- CSV import when you move across from spreadsheets
Safety and collection
- Authorised collectors and custody restrictions
- Parent collection PINs and QR codes at the kiosk
- Collection history and late-collection records
- Incident and accident reports shared with parents
- Medication records with restricted access
Learning
- Observations tagged to the six NCF learning areas
- Age-banded development checklists
- Weekly lesson plans per class, shared with parents
- Printable progress reports and a parent learning journal
Staff
- Leave requests and approvals
- Weekly roster with room coverage
- Staff clock with payroll hours for overtime, Sundays and public holidays
- Certificate and document expiry alerts
Planning
- Term calendar with closures, outings and staff training
- South African public holidays loaded in one click
- Weekly menus with allergy clash warnings
- Food spend tracked against your subsidy nutrition share
Reports and dashboards
- Today’s attendance, outstanding collections and ratios
- Monthly income, overdue fees and payment trends
- Enrolment and withdrawal trends
- Attendance summaries by child, class and month
Several branches
- Group owners switch between branches with one login
- Combined dashboard: enrolment, attendance, fees and overdue per branch
- Each branch’s data stays separate
Connect your other tools
- Accounting exports for Xero and Sage
- An API and webhooks for developers
- Email, SMS and WhatsApp notifications
Children’s information, handled with care
A crèche holds some of the most sensitive records there are. CrèchePulse is built so each person sees only what their role needs, and so you can show who did what.
- Separate by design
- Every crèche’s records are walled off inside the database itself, not only in the app.
- Role-based access
- Teachers see their own classes. Guardians see only children they’re authorised for.
- Two-step sign-in
- Available for everyone, and can be required for owners.
- Audit log
- Changes to attendance, fees and child records are recorded with the person and time.
- POPIA tools
- Information officer, retention rules, anonymisation of former families and a request register with the 30-day deadline.
- Daily backups
- Automatic, with an optional off-site copy. Card details are never stored by CrèchePulse.
Made for South African crèches
Rands, EFTs and PayFast
Fees in ZAR, bank-reference matching for EFTs, and card or instant EFT payments through PayFast into your own merchant account.
Works through bad-signal days
The register, care log and kiosk keep working offline and sync when the connection returns.
The channels parents use
Email and in-app notices as standard, with WhatsApp and SMS for messages that can’t wait.
NCF learning areas
Observations and lesson plans use the National Curriculum Framework for birth to four.
Real family set-ups
Several guardians, a different billing contact, granny on the collection list, custody limits where they apply.
Local calendar
Public holidays, including Easter and Sunday-observed days, and payroll hours that know about them.
Up and running in an afternoon
Start your free trial
Sign up with your crèche’s name and email. You get 30 days with everything switched on, and no card is needed.
Add your children and fees
We create three classes and starter fees to rename. Add children one by one, or import them and their parents from a CSV file.
Invite teachers and parents
Each person gets their own login and sees only what their role allows. Parents can start reporting absences the same day.
Questions crèche owners ask
How does the free trial work?
You get 30 days with every feature, for your whole crèche. No card is needed to start. Your data stays in place when you choose a plan.
Do parents and teachers need to download an app?
No. CrèchePulse runs in the browser on any phone, tablet or computer. Parents can add it to their home screen and it then opens like an app.
Can parents pay their fees online?
Yes. Connect your own PayFast merchant account and parents pay by card or instant EFT from their statement. Ordinary EFTs and cash still work: EFTs are matched by reference and cash gets a receipt.
We use spreadsheets today. How do we start?
Start a free trial, set up your classes and fees, then import your children and parents from a CSV file. A setup checklist walks you through the rest.
What happens when there’s no signal or the power is out?
The register, care log and kiosk keep working on the device you’re using and sync as soon as the connection is back.
We have more than one branch. Does that work?
Yes. Branches are linked into a group. The owner switches between them and gets a combined dashboard, while each branch’s staff and parents see only their own crèche.
Can our bookkeeper get the figures?
Invoices, contacts, receipts and bank statements export as files ready for Xero or Sage Business Cloud, with your own account codes.
Run your crèche from one place.
Try everything free for 30 days. No card needed.