Effectively
Managing Your Home Based
Daycare Business
Opening a daycare business is a lot of work, make no bones about it. The list
of things to do will seem overwhelming and unending. While creating a
business plan, designing an area for your home based daycare business, and
obtaining clients is important in the initial opening of the business, it is
equally important to manage your business appropriately once the business has
started. Here are some tips how you can lay the groundwork now for the effective
management of your day care business once you are up and running.
When you initially started your daycare business, you designated an area where
the children would be watched over, where games and activities could take
place, where
the children could eat, and where the children could rest if they so desired.
Did you think to create a specific area where you could work away from it all?
In order to manage your home based daycare business, it is important to have a
small work area designated specifically for where you can conduct the
operations behind the business. This is the area where you should handle any
payroll, budgeting, taxes,
and so on.
Remember, your day care (whether home based or otherwise) is a business and
needs to remain separate from your personal affairs. Try to have a
separate telephone line
and email address for your daycare. Open a bank account specifically to
cater for the business and use it to purchase all business related items i.e.
office supplies, art supplies, food, cleaning equipment etc. Your
business office space should be just that and not used for anything else.
I would go so far as to suggest having a separate space in another room with a
PC for personal use. This will ensure effective management of your
business.
Keep firm tabs on your time management especially if your business is attached
to your home. People who do not manage their time effectively find that
the overall
management of their daycare business is greatly affected. If you are not
fastidious about organizing your time you will become disorganized, inefficient
and frazzled with little pieces of you spread all over. You may wish to create
schedules about the activities that occur during the day in the daycare, assign
family members certain
responsibilities to keep track of the chores around the house, dedicate time to
handling the operations of the daycare center, and to take stock of supplies
and such. Don't forget to factor in breaks and relaxation time for you
too. Childcare is a tiring business and you need to keep yourself in top
form.
Many good hearted friends and relatives often intrude when a person has a home
based daycare business. They feel that, since you work at home, you have time
for their phone calls and visits. It is important that you inform these well intentioned
people that this is a job. They must understand that you have certain hours
each day that are dedicated to work and your family and this time should not be
interrupted. Believe it or not, being able to do this is an effective managing
tip when it comes to the home based daycare business.
Approach planning your day with your business head on. You can effectively
manage your daycare and family life in tandem, it just takes a bit of thought
and a lot of discipline. Policies and procedures take a little bit of work
to put in place but once there they make for the smooth running of any
business. Ultimately, your success
depends on it. Get planning.
Fiona Lohrenz writes childcare articles based on the 10 years she has spent
running a daycare. She also incorporates that knowledge into her 'Start a
ChildCare Business' DVD Guide: www.startchildcare.com Find out more at her
website: http://www.childcareonly.com
