Smartcare Reviews

My experience with SmartCare has improved for the better.

Comments: The main benefit that a user would get from this product is all the child and family information in one place and easily accessible. Another amazing feature is the ability to print reports for attendance, billing, and other items.

Pros:

I enjoy the real-time updates within the center, teacher and parent apps. I can also appreciate that there is always someone in customer service with anything that needs to be addressed. Lastly, I enjoy that there are always constant improvements based off of suggestions that actual users have suggested.

Cons:

Thankfully, there have been so many improvements since the release of the program that there are not too many cons to mention. The only improvement that I can suggest is the ability to print out individual balance reports for families.

Loved it

Comments: Customer service was great in helping me to understand the set up.

Pros:

Parents can use with ease. The app for their smartphones gives them everything they want to know about their account, child day, erc

Cons:

It took a long time to set up all the tuition types and assign each child a tuition plan. It also didn’t have a monthly plan that suited us as we figure tuition weekly and some parents pay monthly. Therefor some months have a 4 week payment and others a 5. To do this I had to go in and switch Timon plans each month.

Good, but could be better

Comments: Overall it was okay. We liked the automatic billing. I wish there was an app for the teacher side of posting but there isn’t. If your are just wanting billing software, and the option to batch message parents, its great, but it could be better.

Pros:

We where excited about the opportunity to share in the moment posts with parents and guardians.

Cons:

The website is not at all user friendly for teachers. There were many crashes and a few times payments weren’t charged, and the double charged on the parent’s causing issues.

mom approved

Comments: Super easy to use! so helpful to me as a mom

Pros:

Love love love this product!!! Truly an essential as a mom

Cons:

A little tricky to navigate but overall great

Review

Comments: Smartcare continues to answer and support every aspect of their product. The customer support team is always available and in no rush to move on to the next customer. They will stay on the phone until the problem has a solution or they will find the solution and call us back with the answers we need.

Pros:

Smartcare is a product that continues to be enhanced to serve the needs of the consumer.

Cons:

The parent connection lacks the desired functionality that would be used by my teachers.

Try and go with flow.be smart

Pros:

Allover it's good and worth to using this

Cons:

Till now nothing much. Will use more and check

Smartcare takes Childcare management software to a new level!

Comments: Multiple platforms in One
Easy to use interface
Great support and training staff

Pros:

Smartcare is leading the change in childcare management solutions. Intuitive interface that out of the box solves most of the main needs of childcare operations. Reduce the number of solutions you need by integrating Parent communications, time and attendance, CRM, Payments and Center management.

Cons:

Software is a work in progress and there are features that are still under development. Fortunately the team is rolling out improvements and new features on a weekly basis and things will only get better moving forward.

Best Communication Tool for any Childcare Company

Pros:

I just starting using Smartcare and already it has become my favorite of all the apps I have tried. It has way more functions and features than any other app my company has used. It is all in the details. From being able to input when the next physical is due, to being alerted of what birthdays are going on in your center... I love this app and look forward to using it more.

Cons:

Its great that there are so many features with this app, but it is taking some getting used to. The customer service has been great, but the adjustment time I guess is to be expected. Give you company time to adjust.

Smartcare has enabled me to streamline my family accounts and information.

Pros:

It's easy to use and all of my information is accessible with a few clicks. The numerous reports are useful .

Cons:

Some of the reports are hard to access. It's not always clear whether to use first name, last name, and some reports don't pull up the information needed when you use the criteria requested.

Smartcare

Pros:

What I enjoy about Smartcare is that it's app friendly and accessible to parents, and will ease their minds about how their children are being cared for, because they can be updated throughout the day.

Cons:

A setback is that there is no way for teachers to see what was updated from previous teachers before them, which can cause confusion.

Preschool management in one app

Pros:

I liked the ease of navigating the system when it came to pulling reports, uploading photos and communicating with parents.

Cons:

Customer service was great, but over a year into the product and it was hard to get service that made sense. There was problem with billing and no one that helped so our organization switched to Procare (which has its own pros and cons)

Billing issues

Comments: Overall it is OK, not as dynamic as I had hoped. I like the digital log in/out process for families. However some of our families fin the two step process hard to follow.

Pros:

I like the reports that I am able to run. I like that the staff can clock in and out and only access our stuff when they are workings.

Cons:

1)The most important aspect of this tool is to be able to collect on payments. The billing system is showing bills as being due the next billing cycle, rather than the current billing cycle. My parents are confused and my payments are coming in late. If this issue is not fixed, we will be starting the next year with a new company. The customer service people don't seem to see the gravity in the situation, but if I cannot collect payment in a timely manner then I don't really need the service. 2) We use this service for an after school program. The timeline is not geared towards OST but to daycare. I would like to see some prepopulated timeline items specific to older students. Diaper changes and bottle feedings are not important to us. 3) The statements that we are able to generate for families do not meet the requirements for reimbursement for childcare. I have to create separate invoices to families with flexible spending accounts.

Not an easy transition from Child Care Manager

Pros:

We like the parents ability to set up accounts and manage funds on their own. I like the reports of children not signed out of the school and the employees not signed out of the school. I like the ability to log on and see our data anywhere.

Cons:

This system does not feel very streamlined. It feels cut and paste. When you are dealing with children and families, you should be able to go to the parents last name see.the children, the accounts, etc and do your functions - adding credits, changing billing items, making notes...all in one place. One stop shop. Not ten clicks to see it all and to do what you need to do. With the transition from CCM to Smart Care some of the functions needed additional finesse to get working - the primary /secondary sponsor was a huge issue. It would be better if the parents when signing up could choose the family sponsor. Instead of us finding billing issues because this was not configured right from CCM. Reports - Smart Care assumes everyone is going to be on tablets but unfortunately this is not the case with all preschools including ours. We need to be able to generate paper copies of all reports like we did in CCM. The reports are not as professional looking as those in CCM. Door Access not yet an option - waiting. Text Message notification - not everyone has the app or will put it on their phone. We need this function to work for mass text messaging. Grandparents can get texts they haven't all embraced the app. All searches and displays should be the same. I prefer families and children listed by last name so siblings will be underneath siblings. Also, a search bar should be on every single page.

Terrible learning curve! What was supposed to save us time resulted in two months of setup.

Comments: Ease of signing children in/out.

Pros:

Parents like the ease of signing their children in/out with the Kiosk and paying online. Automatic billing process.

Cons:

- Unable to change tuition rate without first deleting the current plan. - Inconsistent in the sorting process (parents sore on LAST name; children sort on FIRST name, etc) - Key tabs don't work consistently - Reports allow you to rearrange the fields on screen, but when you download the report it defaults to original view. VERY frustrating! - Teachers have a hard time logging in each day on their tablets. One day it works fine, next day it says email/password is wrong. - Promised reports NEVER materialized! I was led astray by Senior Child Care Success Manager! NOT HAPPY! - Pre-enrolled children are charged a "tec fee" as soon as they are put in the system even though they will not start for two months. - Email message system is very generic and NOT flexible enough to send personal messages to a select group of families. - Should have a drop down lest to choose families with past due balances, instead of printing one at a time. Very time consuming! - The software is FULL of BUGS and should not have been released at this stage. - I could go on and on, but suffice it to say I regret in changing childcare management software. What is promised to be new, better, & faster is not always true.

Smartcare is a great idea overall and has some great features but needs some work.

Comments: The only benefit our school gains from this software is that parents have the ability to pay through their app, taking some of that responsibility out of our hands.

Pros:

Smartcare has great features such as signing children in and out, and allowing parents to pay through their app.

Cons:

Smartcare is a great concept for schools, however the inability to individually customize certain features to meet the needs of your own school creates a headache. For a company that bought out another company (Childcare Manager or CCM), I would've thought that more of CCM would have been imported. The thing I like the least about Smartcare is that there are too many different platforms that you have to use (iPad for scheduling, etc., Desktop which doesn't include all features, Andriod for Kiosk). The amount of different tablets we had to get to be able to be a functioning school is unrealistic. And there is no app for teachers which makes it difficult to communicate with parents for us--we decided to go with a different software for communication purposes. Smartcare has a long way to go to be more user friendly and to be realistic for early childhood programs.

Messaging

Comments: Smartcare Technical team are always willing to help solve any problem we present to them. They have help parents with issues as well.

Pros:

I love the "Messaging" feature. Recently while away from my computer our center had an emergency situation that I needed to alert our families about. I logged in from my phone and was amazed the the messaging worked so well. Every parent received a e-mail with the pertinent details about the situation. I am grateful for the ease of use.

Cons:

It would be nice if messaging could include text to parent phones.

going paperless

Pros:

I love that SmartCare covers so many areas of our childcare business. From daily information for parents to billing to attendance, they cover it all.

Cons:

There are sometimes hiccups in the functions or little things that could be changed but the system has come a long way in the two years we've been using it.

SmartCare In a Small School

Pros:

I like that all the family information is at my fingertips. Anything I want to be included can be entered and accessible. There are many options for reports available, and that helps as long as you have entered information correctly.

Cons:

When you enter a family into the system, they do not automatically receive an invite to use the app for payments. There is also a charge for each time a parent makes a payment, and that is a hard sell to parents in a small center like ours.

Hard transition to make from what we were using before.

Comments: This software is teaching me to become more organized, to ensure things run as smoothly as possible. I get daily training. :)

Pros:

The one thing I like the most from Smartcare is the flexibility or ease to send multiple pictures to parents and the communication to all the parents who are active. I also like how the parents can use their time line to see pictures and videos of their children. It's also convenient to give the parents the option to make a payment towards tuition.

Cons:

I least like the billing in Smartcare and auto pay. It is hard to understand for the parents, and how is it possible that if an account is on auto pay that no charges can be made during the rest of the week except for Mondays.

It often feels as though the software is not fully developed which leads to roadblocks for the user.

Comments: It has taken some of the work off of me as a site director as it allows parents to pay tuition through the app and check their children in/out.

Pros:

The tool gets easier to use the more we use it and understand the different nuances. The feature that allows parents to check their children in and out for the day is great.

Cons:

It often seems disorganized. For example, names are listed differently depending on which page you are on. If you are on "Accounting" it is parent listed in alphabetical order by parent last name, under families the list is parent's first names in alphabetical order, etc. It is also weird that we are not able to make create statements for families with notes on them.

Great Childcare Center Tool

Comments: Smartcare has enabled my center to reduce printing costs in billing, registration forms, handbooks, and daily sheets. The ease of billing through the app puts our center at the top of the list. The customer service within this company is impeccable- they are always there to aid.

Pros:

The ease of accessibility not only to the many features, but the availability of customer service to respond to any questions within reasonable time frame is very helpful.

Cons:

There are some improvements to be made on how different aspects are designed, however they are constantly updating and revamping the software to be better and better.

So thankful!

Comments: As a director there are lots of things to keep up with on a daily basis. With Smartcare I feel like I am able to keep up with my day so much easier than before. Gone are the days of running room to room to check ratios or to see who is even in attendance. No more clipboards with fifty sheets of paper and post-it notes all over it with schedules. I find I have more time to actually focus on the children now. When it comes time for weekly payments, it is a breeze! I no longer have to remind parents about payments because Smartcare does it for me. The only area would would love to see advancements is in the updates. While we love the updates, they sometimes cause some issues with how you have to update all systems for them to work properly.

We are not getting what we were promised, this software hasn't worked properly in 2 years.

Comments: Easier Billing and Payment options for us and parents.

Pros:

Billing and Payments, ease of parent payments.

Cons:

Updates that crash our system every few weeks and don't actually fix anything or add features that we have requested.

We are not completely up and running yet but I like what I see as far as ease of making payments.

Comments: I haven't fully used everything yet

Pros:

The fact that parents can make card payments online through the app and I don't have to process them.

Cons:

I paid for a card machine and now that everything is being switched over that was wasted. Its hard to navigate the site it takes forever to try and find things and having 2 separate apps for one center rather then it all together is confusing for everyone. I still have to go through the second training session but am already having a hard time finding the things we went over in the first training. We are hoping that once everything is on place it will be easier to navigate and find things. We also had issues with how to bill parents as my policy charges for what they schedule and your program charges for what they attend. We are working on it with our rep though.

Smartcare Saves Time and Helps Organize!

Comments: It has been a joy to be part of Smartcare's development and growth!

Pros:

They are constantly adding new features that are requested. The support at Smartcare is very responsive, quick to help, and eager to solve problems. Smartcare saves administrative time and has really cut down on paper used at our center. The pictures are such an amazing feature!

Cons:

The parents seem irritated when the app needs an update or the kiosk takes a long time to respond, I think a lot of the time loss is from slow internet in our area.