Elimination of data re-entry saves £4,500 each month in admin resources
Family business, Early Learners Nurseries is a long-established chain of day nurseries based in the North West of England. It was set up 36 years ago by Hayden Bartholomew and currently operates in four locations with approximately 100 employees and around 1000 clients. In addition to its day nurseries, the company also offers wrap-around care in the form of school clubs, adding a further level of complexity to its business administration.
Hayden has used many nursery management systems over the years, but in his opinion, few have done what they said on the tin, most have created more time pressures and headaches – so he decided to search out a new solution. He currently has plans to open a further two sites – a 50% growth in his estate, and he lays a big proportion of the credit for the expansion to Nursery In a Box.
“They’ve got it really right – it’s a brilliant software solution and its undoubtedly allowed me to manage the business much more efficiently, which in turn has meant we’re able to expand faster,” explains Hayden.
“The onus with Nursery In a Box is very much on the user of the software to input the information into the system. So rather than a parent filling out a registration form or a key worker filling out a medical form – which then have to be retyped by another employee – the information goes directly into the system.
“Each stakeholder is responsible for keeping information or forms up to date and checking the status of things. On average, the software saves me around £4,500 per month in secretarial costs across the sites – and that’s before I’ve accounted for the reduction in paper and ink cartridges.”
Hayden has a background in management and can see the impact that the software is having on his business. He also says that the cloud-based software means that he can run his nurseries from any location if the worst were to happen.
“God forbid a nursery should burn down over night, but hypothetically if it did, we’d only need a village hall to operate out of and all our systems would be back up the next day. Everything we need is online,” Hayden explains.
“Software shouldn’t create more problems – it should solve them, and that’s what Nursery In a Box has done delivering a real-time nursery to me wherever I am in the world – even on a beach.”
The system eliminates repetition of tasks, the information is entered once and stored electronically, and the notification system reminds users about tasks, payment of invoices or anything else that’s key to them. It’s also being updated with new features all the time. Hayden concludes: “I can’t stress enough what a great team of people they are to work with at Nursery In a Box – they’re problem solvers, not creators and they’re always on the end of the phone to help, taking on board all our suggestions to make the software even better than it already is. Without it, expansion would have been much slower, and we wouldn’t have had a disaster recovery plan that was quite as watertight.”
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