Working document
The child file and daily record audit
Work through your own files the way a licensor does, one stack at a time, and fix the gaps before somebody else finds them.
Free resources
Resources for providers who keep their own records
Free tools, a quarterly record audit and straight comparisons for people running family child care homes and small licensed centers in the US.
Everything on this page is written for the person who is holding a bottle and thinking about a licensing visit at the same time. No lead capture in front of the calculators, no vague advice about best practices, and nothing that assumes you have an office manager or a curriculum coordinator down the hall.
Start with whichever problem is loudest. If tuition feels wrong, run the rate floor calculator and see where your break even line actually sits. If evenings are disappearing into paperwork, price the hours. If you are shopping for software, read the comparisons, which say plainly which kind of program each option suits. And if a licensing visit is due, run the record audit this week rather than the week it happens.
Free tools
Free calculators for home daycare and small centers
Two quick calculators built from the numbers that actually decide whether a family child care home stays open: what a slot has to earn, and what the paperwork costs you in hours.
Comparisons
NapLog compared with the other child care apps
NapLog is built for the provider who is also counted in ratio, so these comparisons are about program size and daily habits rather than feature counts.
Main guide
The Unannounced Licensing Visit: A Room by Room Checklist
The room by room guide settles what a licensor looks at in a family child care home or small center, in what order, and how to fix the items that get written up most.
Magazine
The Daily Sheet
Reporting on the craft, licensing rules and money behind in home daycare and small licensed child care programs in the US.
About
Who writes all of this
Meet the person behind The Daily Sheet, why the coverage sticks to licensing rules, food program records and the money behind one infant slot, and how every guide here gets checked against what family child care homes and small licensed centers are actually held to.
The record audit and the calculators stay free
Nothing on this page needs an account, and none of it stops working if you decide NapLog is not for your program. If you would rather see the working version, a demo puts naps, meals, diapering and incident reports into one file and prints the packet a licensor works through on a file review. Twenty minutes, on an enrollment the size of yours.