Making program changes can be difficult for childcare providers. While this may be true, childcare providers can usually be enticed to make changes when money is involved. Many agencies may feel that using the Internet to track attendance for subsidized childcare can be a daunting task. The entire process is actually not as complicated as it may seem. Please review the steps below to see how easy KinderAttend Internet based attendance tracking can be. Establish an Incentive for Providers For online attendance tracking to be successful, there must be some incentive for the providers to participate. KinderAttend provides two main incentives: 1. Many state licensing requirements call for providers to have parents sign-in and out when dropping off and picking up their children. The thought of having to duplicate this effort can be a major stumbling block for providers. Using the KinderAttend generated sign in sheets allows the providers to simply transfer the sign-in information for the day from the sign-in sheet to the KinderAttend screen. Although providers may still be required to have the parents sign in and out, using KinderAttend would eliminate the duplication of paper work. Having a simple, online way of doing this makes it easier for the provider. 2. Using KinderAttend, childcare providers submit their attendance to your agency daily, you have access to it immediately after the period closes. There is no lag time waiting for mailed attendance sheets to arrive and be processed. The day the attendance period closes, you can pull the payment report and authorize payment. This allows you to process and perhaps issue payments faster. You could also implement more payment cycles. For instance, you could pay bi-weekly instead of monthly. This would provide a powerful incentive for providers to want to use KinderAttend. We have found that you have to communicate these positive incentives to the providers so they fully understand the benefits of using KinderAttend. Agency Identifies Providers We generally recommend that you perform a survey of your provider population to identify providers that are ready for Internet attendance tracking. Another way to select potential providers is to utilize the leaders of your local childcare associations. The survey identifies providers that have computers and Internet access and some level of comfort using the Internet for business or entertainment. There are always providers who have asked for this capability, or at least who are comfortable with the Internet in general. Those are the ones to approach first. You do not need to convert all providers to Internet attendance tracking. Your current methods of tracking attendance will stay in place for all providers except those who have chosen to participate in the KinderAttend pilot project. KinderAttend will simply take away some of the volume. Start With a Small Provider Group Once a list of possible providers is established, you should narrow down the list to between 10 to 20 providers. We have found that by starting with a small group you can establish the new processes, while your conventional process remains in place for backup. Keep in mind you should pick the most eager and motivated providers that have Internet capabilities to start with. Obviously, your deployment, especially initially, will be more successful with motivated providers. Populate the KinderAttend Database You can hand-enter the information for this small group of providers into KinderAttend to get started. Later, when going to a larger sample, you will be able to export the provider, schedule and child information into KinderAttend electronically. This will involve your database or IT staff that manages your subsidy management system. We can set this up in parallel while you run the initial small provider group. We Train Agency’s Trainer It is easy to train the providers. We have learned that it is best if your agency has a person that can coordinate the calls you might get from providers that have questions or need help. We can train your trainer, either via the telephone, or by a visit to your agency. Such training takes only a few hours. Train Providers Your trainer can train providers via the telephone. There are very few steps that the provider has to go through on a daily basis to submit the attendance, and it is generally easier than filling out your conventional attendance sheets and invoices. We can also help with training of your providers on the KinderAttend system, if you so choose. Providers Input Attendance Once your providers are trained, they log into the system on a daily basis and submit the attendance of the subsidized children in their care. This process, complete with login, attendance submission and logout should take only a few minutes a day for the provider. Even if the provider forgets to do this on one day, she can easily supply the information later by using the grid that shows the entire payment period. By entering the attendance daily, the provider does not only stay up to date, she also knows that the agency has received this information and payment can be processed. Agency Monitors Attendance Tracking Your agents can monitor that the providers are actually inputting the attendance on a daily basis. You do not have to wait for the end of the period to find out if a provider has forgotten to submit attendance, or if there is any other kind of problem. Provider Prints Attendance Report At the end of the period, the provider can view and print the attendance report. Many agencies will still want the provider to mail in the report with parent and provider signatures on them, on a payment-cycle basis, just for the files. This can still occur. However, it will not be necessary to rely on that sheet of paper to get to your desk to process payment. Provider Prints Payment Report Optionally, you can allow the provider to print the payment report, which shows the computer calculated payment amount. This generally represents the amount of the payment the provider will receive for the care given during the period. Agency Reviews Attendance When the payment period is over, you can review the attendance report by provider online to determine that all attendance information has been submitted. Agency Prints Attendance and Payment Report You can also print out the attendance summary reports for internal filing, auditing and general review. The payment report contains the total dollar amount due to the provider. It also shows the total amount of family fees and co-payments collected by the provider. This document can then serve for your internal payment processing. For instance, in the case of New York State, the payment amount on the KinderAttend payment report is the amount to be written onto the BICS roster for the data entry staff to enter into the payment line. You didn’t have to add the hours, separate out the absences, count the total hours, days and weeks and calculate the payment. The computer did it all. You simply transfer the dollar amount into your payment system.