Tip of the Month #11 - Enrolling Your New Starters!

It's that time of year again! We hope that you have enjoyed the glorious weather that we have been blessed with this summer! Now that the new school year is upon us and we have said goodbye to the children ready to start school, it's time to add new ones who are ready to start their journey with your setting! For this months Tip of the Month, we're going to take a look at things to do on the system to get it ready for all your new starters!

Adding Children and Families                                                                                                                                              

First, let's have a look at adding a new family to your Abacus system. You'll want to head to the Families section  and click on "Add Family". You will then need to enter the details of the Primary carer and the child. The fields with the asterisk (*) are mandatory and you cannot move on without entering anything into these fields. 

The more details you add, the better! You will find that you will get more out of your system when you have taken the time to add all of the details at this stage.

For a detailed helpfile on Adding Families, please click here.

Converting Enquiries                                                                                                                                             

Let's say that you had an enquiry that has now confirmed that they would like to start with you at the setting in the upcoming term. We will need to convert them from an enquiry to a registered child.

To do this, head to Families and click on "Enquiries". On the left had side you can view your live/outstanding enquiries, converted enquiries and lost enquiries. 

To covert a live enquiry to a registered child in the setting, click on their name and click on the list and click on the green piece of paper with the green arrow  to complete the enquiry. A box will then pop up and ask you the outcome of the enquiry. If the child has got a place at the setting, select "Converted" and if they have not, select "Lost". Then, you need to select the date, the reason for the success/loss and if the enquiry is converted - whether they should be placed on the registered or waiting list. Once you're happy with your choices, click "Process".

You might find that this box is being blocked by a pop-up blocker! So please make sure that you allow pop-ups from Parenta.com!

After you have clicked Process, Abacus will ask you to fill in some details that were not given at the enquiry stage. This page looks very similar to the enquiry page but there are a few more fields that will need your attention. Look for any fields marked with an asterisk and enter the details and go ahead and click "Save". The invoice type field is easy to miss so make sure that you have entered this info!

Enquiry Reports                                                                                                                                             

There is a whole section for Enquiries in the Reports  section of Abacus! Just head to Reports and select Enquiry from the Report Types list.

You can use the Outstanding Enquiries Report to see which of your enquiries has yet to be converted to a place at the nursery. The report will show you the date that the enquiry was added, the source of the enquiry as well as all of the contact details you need to get in contact with this potential new customer! You can run the report oldest to newest or vice versa!

The Enquiry-Conversion Report will give you a month-by-month breakdown of how many enquiries you had that month, how many of those had a show-round of the nursery, the number converted and the number lost. You will also be given a percentage amount so you can see which months had more success than others and make sure that you are on top of it!

The Enquiry Source and the Booking Source reports help you see what advertising methods you're using are the most affective! If you have an advert in the local newspaper but you can see that none of your new enquiries found out about you through it then you can then decide that that money gets put somewhere else! In the same way, if many of your new enquiries discovered you via your website or Social Media then you know that it's worth putting effort into this avenue! (By the way, we can help you with this too! Have a look at what we can offer in websites/social media here)

The last enquiry report would be the Lost Enquiries report, this report will show you the customers that chose not to join you at your setting and gives the reasons why. In a similar way, you would be able to see that if you were losing a lot of custom for one reason, you know that you need to focus on this in order to becoming more appealing!

The Child Data Form Report                                                                                                                                            

The Child Data Form Report is a report that contains all of the information that you hold for a child. Things like their carer contact details, allergies, medical requirements and languages are recorded on this form. Did you know that you can run this report blank so that you can ask the parent to fill in the details?

Send a copy of this blank report to the carers of the children that are due to start with you and you then have all the information you will need to add the children onto your Abacus system! 

Children Starting Report                                                                                                                                            

Head to the Reports tab  and have a look at the Children Starting Report. You can run this report for a specific time period and see all of the children who have a start date in this time frame! This report is super useful so that you can make sire that the correct sessions and rooms have been selected for each child ahead of their arrival and you can check that you have all the relevant information that you need from them!

Footsteps

Baseline Observations                                                                                                                                             

If you are a setting that uses our EYFS Tracking software, Footsteps, then you will want to add a Baseline Observation for your new children. Essentially, we just want to tell the system what level we think the child is at so that we have a jumping off point for future Observations! 

For a detailed guide on adding Baseline Observations, click here.

The Baseline Observation should be created to show where the child is starting from. This type of observation will only appear if you haven't done of for this child before. Select Baseline Observation as the Observation Type.

You can then write the observation in the Observation text box. This should be a summary of what you have seen from the child since they started at the setting, what the parents have told you or what you have learned from the child's previous setting. Below this, you have the opportunity to upload evidence. This might be the learning journey from a previous setting or a report from the child's key person. A Baseline Observation is the only observation type that doesn't just ask for photos and videos of the observation but anything you want to add to support the baseline!

Once you are happy, click "Save and Continue" where you will be taken to the Learning section.

In this section, you want to select where the child is performing and in what age band they are performing in. Mark where you think the child is based on what you have observed in each age band. You can select if the child is Emerging (E), Developing (D) or Secure (S) in each area.

If you are not a setting that uses Emerging, Developing and Secure - you can just mark the child as Secure in the age band of each area to show that they are capable up to that age.

If you would like to refine the areas, click "Refine" on the right-hand side to break down the area into more specific areas of learning. 

Once you are happy with all of these areas, click "Save and Continue" to complete the rest of the Baseline just like you would any other observation type. Alternatively, you can stop here by selecting Complete Observation.

As always, the Customer Experience team is here to support you so don't be afraid to give us a call or send us a ticket if you need any help getting yourself set up for the new term!

We hope that you have found this tip useful! Let us know by giving it a thumbs up below!

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