This blog was originally posted on April 21, 2021, and was updated on Sept. 9, 2022, with new information.
Access to additional financial support can often be a critical aspect of a child care center’s revenue. The downside? The extensive paperwork it requires, which means more time doing administrative work that takes away time from doing what you love.
One of the easiest and fastest ways to tackle this important but time-consuming task is to use child care subsidy software that simplifies subsidy management. Procare Solutions gives you the ability to easily address any subsidy payments through its enhanced subsidy-account features.
What Are Child Care Subsidies?
Child care financial assistance comes in many forms and can be called vouchers, certificates or subsidies, according to the federal Office of Child Care. States receive funding from the federal government to provide child care financial assistance for low-income families so parents can work or attend school.
Eligibility requirements are different in each state. Select your state or territory here and review the “Financial Assistance for Families” tab to find your local child care financial assistance program.
Subsidies generally are for families with children under 13, although the age limit is often extended if the child has a disability.
How Child Care Subsidy Software Helps Your Center Manage Subsidies
Procare helps you manage payments from agencies including DHS, DFACS, DCFS, Head Start and similar programs for subsidized child care, daycare and preschool programs.  
Procare’s enhanced subsidy account feature makes it easy for you to use your subsidies to manage payments and invoicing from agencies or outside sources, and the ability to reconcile against those generated invoices/balances.
Center managers can quickly and easily manage subsidy receipts and allocate to children with just a few clicks.
You can set up recurring plans to track subsidy invoices. Each time a recurring invoice bills out, the associated value will be added to the subsidy’s ledger automatically!
Subsidy charges added to a recurring plan with other recurring charges can be configured so the charges are only visible to the center and not shared with parents. It just depends on your center’s preference.
Corporate users that oversee multiple schools or centers can create and manage subsidies with standardized naming conventions to generate consistent reporting across all locations!
And you can separate a parent copay and subsidy coverage!
Let’s Recap!
With Procare, you can track money from subsidies, donations, grants, fundraisers, scholarships and more, and do so separately from other child care tuition. In some cases, these funds may be set aside and used for specific purposes.
Features offered by Procare include the ability to set up recurring or one-time invoices, and to see the amount associated with each subsidy overall, per child or by specific line item.Â
You can learn more about Procare’s subsidy management software by visiting our support page.
Interested in joining the nearly 37,000 child care centers ranging from single-unit operations to multinational enterprises that use Procare to help them run their businesses and manage their finances? Request a demo today!
