Procare Software

The Procare Whisperer - AKA - Benji

So... I had one little question, right? One little itty bitty - probably could have figured it out by myself - question. But.... it's people's finances, so I called to make sure I didn't screw anything up. Holy Goodness Gracious. NO. I solved what I had initially called about - but I still scheduled an additional call with the rep because of how many ???s he answered that I didn't even know I had. I started with TE and Procare about 6 mos. ago. I simply take parents tuition for a small(ish) preschool. That's it. No big deal. The person who was in this position before me trained me the best she could on the software and she was trained by someone else who really never understood the initial training given to her. Follow all that? Yeah. Exactly. Enter our rep. I seriously have sat in front my computer using Tuition Express software every week for 6 mos. I've never fully understood it, never appreciated what it could do and can promise I've never been excited about exploring its further uses. I've been called by your sales department 3 times to consider Cloud services and MyProcare. Firm no. Every time. I can tell you that after speaking with our rep - I'll be bringing a proposal to switch to Cloud capabilities soon. Our rep made me feel comfortable with my software abilities, taught me how to use TE better. He taught me about the ins and outs of TE that I wasn't even aware I was missing. (POS, files, individual posting, etc). Our rep's enthusiasm, his passion toward your product, and his knowledge of the Family Data and Accounting Portal is above and beyond. He was encouraging & really sparked my interest to now speak with Shauna about Ledger & Expense and Employee & Payroll. Our rep cemented my opinion that my school should stick with TE software. He inspired me to learn more about it. He sold me on the idea of additional portals - and as someone who is supposed to be running a tight ship - that's no easy task. I'm pretty sure I even exclaimed "Hot Damn!" in a church preschool more than once today. My background is in Sales Management and Customer Service, our rep is a gem of an employee and please be so aware of that. He is a representative for you in every sense of the word. Professional, knowledgeable, fun to talk to and passionate about what he's working with. A++

Pros

It's fluidity. It can grow with us and help us grow. It can be my checks and balances so that I will always be accountable to my staff, my parents and my board. I can organize and create clear reports in ways I wasn't able to do previously. Amazing stuff really.

Cons

Learning it. It's hard to self-navigate. But the training you can get is very good.

Awesome Tech support.

Pros

It can keep track of the immunizations. It alerts us when immunizations are going to expire. Tracking and changing classrooms is a breeze.

Cons

We can't put comments on each child or employees. For example, teacher calls out, we don't have a place to keep track of call outs and the same with students, if a parent has a concern, we have to write it down, but prefer to keep track on ProCare. Less steps is always best when it comes to billing and charges, etc. It is a challenge to just delete one sibling when they have moved on to another school and the younger one is still with us. I have had tech support, but still shows up. If I delete the one sibling, it deletes both students on the folder so I end up adding them both back on the hidden folder. I just want to hide the one that moved on.

We are a licensed preschool and childcare facility that has used the software daily for many years.

Daily operations, accounting practices, collecting staff and student information and communication.

Pros

ProCare's versatility is extremely impressive. We use this application for students and staff alike as our sign in station and communication tool. This helps us track student and staff attendance down the day and minute which is invaluable to grant reporting, payroll and tuition reimbursements.

ProCare also has many useful faucets for early childhood organizations, such as behavior tracking, immunization records, emergency contacts and other pertinent information. As a Director that is responsible for all billing, income collection, and taxes, one of the most useful and irreplaceable aspects is the Family and Agency Accounting sections as well as Tuition Express. These areas are key to making sure we stay on top of our financial health.

I honestly cannot say how phenomenal this software is. The substantial amounts of report types are endless and extremely helpful in all areas of running and producing a professional preschool and child care facility.

We are also a two site facility and switching to ProCare Cloud has been the best monthly investment.

Cons

Interfacing software with our Website and Facebook Page. We recieve a lot of traffic through these sites and we would love to be able to collect date straight to ProCare through these web resources.

Great as a parent or director

Overall, if you're looking for a central place to organize all the many things that come with childcare, this is the best product on the market that I'm aware of.

Pros

I first used Procare as a parent in my infant son's childcare center. It was easy to check him in and out by having an ID and password number and I loved that I could see my balance on our account and get messages from the director of the childcare center.

When I took over at a different center as the director, I was pleased to see they used the same program. Additionally, this center increased the ease of checking in and out by having a fingerprint scanner for parents to check students out and for employees to clock in/out. As a director I could easily see which students were there on the home page and the home page was customizable to what I wanted to see (ex. upcoming staff/child birthdays, children currently checked in, children recently checked in/out etc.). There is another tab where detailed children information is easily inputted and organized as well as an employee tab.

I really haven't seen anything else within childcare systems that has as many options and functions as Procare.

Cons

Some reports can be difficult to find and not, at least to me, logically sequenced. However, I can usually Google to find the answer.
I would love Procare to come out with an app for classroom teachers to access and parents to access where teachers can input students eating records and parents can pay their balance.

A little frustrating. A lot of good features, but some really complicated features too

It does make keeping track of the daily issues at our center easy.

Pros

I like the dashboard. I like the ability to have the child and parent photos on the screen. The clock in and out is great.

Cons

I really don't like the reports. I don't like that you have to go in EACH time and say currently enrolled children. There are a lot of really complicated features. I'm really frustrated that when this was set up in August of 2017 the accounting and payroll was not set up properly and we have not been paying our employees overtime for the entire time until today when I KNEW that there were some employees that had overtime. This is a huge issue and I'm not even sure how to go forward from here. Tech support fixed it, but did say that it was not set up properly on their end from the beginning.

I've used it for 6.5 years and absolutely LOVE it! Wonderful program, no regrets!

Pros

I love Procare's Customer Service! They are so willing to answer questions and help where needed. I appreciate the fact that they are constantly to working to enhance Procare's features which in return benefit us as user.

Cons

The only thing I do not like about Procare is the online waiting list. We have now switched over to MyProcare but there are glitches. They can't put another child on the waiting list if they already have a child enrolled. This makes it hard for expectant mother OR when families can only get one child in at a time. I also don't like how we can't search by DOB. We've had to create personalized questions that allow us to "track" by birth year and it is really hard to do. We need to be able click on an age and have it automatically pull up every child that is that current age. ALSO, once last thing. I HATE that it show children's ages in months. It needs to show it with years and months like on the children's profiles. Stating that a child is 105 months old DOES NOT HELP. :) Other than the waitlist Procare is AMAZING!!!

V9 to V10 Conversion

We have use Procare for 15 years and love it! We do not have all the modules but most of them. We work within Procare 80% of our day. We have recently converted to V10 and are working often with Support to help us with or little challenges.

Pros

We have found the video's to be awesome! The help feature is the Best! The helpfulness and person care from all the support staff is A+ !!! Love Remote Access by the staff!!!

Cons

It's a challenge learning all the new buttons and new reports but at some point it will become second nature. County ledgers did not transfer correctly and had missing data. Thankfully Support has taken it over to work on to see what is the best and simplest solution for our specific situation.

Procare Child Care Management system is an Owner/Administrator's "best friend". Excellent and ez.

We have used Procare since 1996 and tried 2 other systems prior to finding out more about Procare through use of their demo. We've upgraded each version which has enhanced services each time. The sales and technical support personnel are very informative, friendly, and accessible. We also use Tuition Express which makes collections a breeze. Additionally, we use the keyless entry system for enhanced security. Procare has kept up with the needs of families and childcare center management by making these additional options.

Pros

Cost effective--not expensive and pays for itself in short time
User friendly with lots of tutorials, webinars, and on phone as well as on line support
State of the art technology to meet current and future needs
Technicians work with teachers, administrators and I/T people as needed with ease and friendliess
Fast service, product delivery
Attractive software--"eye appeal" to users

Cons

I love everything about this software!

I very much dislike Procare

The old procare was so easy and user friendly. The new version is a nightmare, way too complicated. if you forget your password you can't use one you've previously used, you need a password just to place an email back to them, tech support a nighmare to get a hold of or get a straight answer. If i could switch to another company I would!

Pros

The fingerprinting option for logging in

Cons

Too complicated, hate procare, old version was user friendly, this version you need an IT degreee, too many passwords required (just to send an email asking for tech support quesion!) If you're gonna sell me a product this complicated there should be 24/7 tech support, we should have had a live demo/training session. Look at your form that says tell us a bit more about yourself? Isn't everyone using this product in childcare? You want me to scroll through that list to id my industry?!?!?

Procare

Procare is how my business runs! We use it for all payments, sign in and out sheets, time cards for staff, scheduling students even simple things like birthday lists. Procare is the staple in my child care.

Pros

There are tons of things you can do with this software. It is very versatile and has lots of features. The customer support is really really good. I'm sure they realize their software is difficult so it's nice to know I can call and speak to a live person who will guide me through whatever steps to help me with what I'm doing. They are always very polite and helpful.

Cons

This software is rather complicated to use! The software is for child cares and in my experience most child cares are full of people with degrees in child care and psychology! Finding a tech savvy person isn't as easy. I have tried my best to understand and take notes along the way-but I would say this software is NOT user friendly. Plus, there are times when a pop-up window comes up changing a setting and if you choose it you can never change the setting back. I learned that the hard way...

Love it. customer service agent was most helpful this morning

The ability to manage my childcare center as well as my pre-school classes. It really simplifies the record keeping that is required for all state licensed centers and pre-school. You are able to manage the center and bill the parents for weekly tuition.

Pros

Easy to load new students. I like the ability to run more reports in a faster time. I like the break down on printing sign in sheets and roll call sheets. I really like the different choices in statements that you can offer your parents. It is very well priced for the service that you receive. The customer support staff are very helpful and eager to assist you.

Cons

Employee part. I have had new software since July and I still can't put my employees time in like I did with my older version. But no worries I have my old software still working on another computer that I use for employee time sheets. Love Love Love ProCare

Procare a great program for busy Early Childhood Centers!

Makes my work easier and faster!

Pros

There are several things that I love about this program. 1st is the attendance tracking to see total hours of care for each child and 2nd how I can see how many children are in attendance at any given time. 3rd is the tracking for immunizations is so helpful to make sure my children are up to date. 4th is keeping up with tuition fees and how easy it is to see who owes what.

Cons

Occasionally when I am adding a family it won't let them sign in and I have to redo it. Also in the weekly report section I don't like that if someone is out they are not shown on report at all. I would rather see there name and 0 hours than not even show them on the report.

Procare Review

Pros

I like that the customer support team is so friendly and helpful when I call and have a "dumb" question. They never make me feel like I am dumb! I also like the web support because often I can go on there and get my question answered without calling in!

Cons

We stopped using the time clock because it was too slow. When we have 30 employees clocking in and having to enter 2, 4 -digit codes by the time they were half way through the last half were showing up tardy when they really weren't. We found a system that had one 3 digit code that was much faster.

Best investment I could have ever made for my business

Streamlining my office data reconciliation.

Pros

This software is so intuitive. It has Everything I need to run my business and be able to spend more time in the classroom instead of on my PC. I love the fact the software is set up to purchase only what you need. There is so much to learn however between the amazing youtube channel and customer service you are never without support as you learn to navigate this software and customize it for your specific needs. One of the customer rep was my initial point of contact answering tons of questions as I decided if the Procare software system was right for my in home group child care needs. It was had everything I was looking for and my clients love the system too, no more clipboards full of sign-in sheets falling all over the floor and needing to be stored for years taking up space. Now i'm growing into a new center and was ready to streamline my tuition processing I looked at what I spend now and it appears I will be actually saving by processing via Tuition Express! I have been working with another customer rep and once again all of my question and concerns were addressed, she supported me through the entire application process. I could not be happier knowing that my data is safe and secure with ProCare.

Procare keeps everything organized and efficient

Pros

Ease of use- I basically played around and learned the software on my own with the use of Procare's video classes. The classes walk you through every step and you can walk along with them using your software at the same time. Customer support is phenominal. They are always at hand and stay with you through the process of handling what ever your question/issue may be. Upgrading is easy as well.

Cons

I wish it was easier to figure out specifically tayloring the way we charge our families to fit the program. For the most part it is in there, but our sytem of charging is unusal .

Procare Software Review

Pros

ProCare is fairly easy to use. I did not receive any formal training on how to use the program, but I was able to teach myself how to use most functions fairly quickly.

Cons

This is not a deal breaker, but I would have liked to have seen more options for backgrounds on the program, since I like to decorate my desk and classroom according to the seasons.

Procare's Technical support is wonderful!

Pros

The ease of billing procedures, Tuition Express and Payroll. Procare is also a very user friendly program and the on-line tutorials is an extremely nice tool!

Cons

What I like least is that we lose Technical Support after a certain amount of time. After paying for the product it would be nice if the Technical Support could be offered on an on-going basis. The Technical Support Team does an amazing job and is always extremely polite and easy to work with whenever I encounter a problem. The amount of time spent on hold to reach them is sometimes difficult especially when we are trying to run our programs and do our jobs at the same time.

Great software for the money

I use this program for payroll and monitoring child attendance. The payroll time cards are extremely easy to use with QuickBooks. I export the weekly child attendance to Excel to reconcile with manual forms to verify their accuracy for CACFP (food program)

Pros

It is extremely accurate and has an enormous set of features that I am still learning to use. It is relatively easy for someone like me who has a good working knowledge of computer work, but am not anywhere close to being a computer geek. The customer support has been very good in the times they were needed.

Cons

Customer support is needed about 2-3 times per year to get the software working. Sometimes, it takes a long time (over 30 minutes) to get a live person online. However, once a CSR is connected, they are very polite and get the problem fixed.
Hardware issue: some people have a problem with their finger image so we are having to set them up with other fingers. We tell them to rub behind their ears for natural oils to improve the image on the platen but there are some people who continue to have problems.

Assistance with billing formularies

Josh was a wonderful help to me! He was persistent to return my call several times, even though I was unavailable each time he called. He quickly assessed my needs, and provided the fix that I needed right then! It was something I needed corrected right then, and he took the time to make that happen! I appreciate Josh and his excellent customer support!

Pros

It has many capabilities and is easy to learn and maneuver.

Cons

The reporting methods. I would like to be able to perform functions to multiple files at the same time, not having to enter each individual to make changes. I would like to be able to print reports from the filtering that I do on screen and print that information. Not have to exit and find and create a report to print what I was just viewing. I would also like to have multiple windows open at the same time. Many times I am in a file, and have to jump out to enter another, or stop the function I am performing to handle something else.

We use Procare at our Child Care Center

The ease of use

Pros

I love the ease of the Sign in/out process. Once parents and approved adults are fingerprinted, we know they are approved to pick up kids. I love it that once parents sign in, I can generate several reports for by CEO.

Cons

Sometimes the Cloud starts running slowly during peak times. Everyday between 3 & 4 the system begins running slowly. Also, the fingerprint reader is very sensitive. Some parents fingerprints can't be read.