McCormick Institute for Early Childhood

BY Annett Brown | May 6, 2024

This document may be printed, photocopied, and disseminated freely with attribution. All content is the property of the McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership.

Child care providers find themselves juggling numerous responsibilities that cover a wide span ranging from managing staff, to paying bills, to nurturing young minds. Amidst these demands, maintaining accurate financial records often becomes a daunting task. Child care providers, like many other business owners, generally tend to hate bookkeeping and paperwork, but it’s critically important to have it done and to have it done correctly.

Efficient financial management is one of the keys to success for early child care providers. Key business decisions start with having accurate and up-to-date financial information, which provides critical insight into your business and aids in decision-making.


More and more child care providers find themselves having to navigate accounting tasks independently, as rising costs force them to cut back on many tasks or items they could previously outsource. However, a correctly designed accounting system can aid in this transition and provide the skills necessary to confidently navigate the intricacies of financial management.


The McCormick Center’s upcoming virtual technology training, “Mastering Financial Management: QuickBooks Training for Child Care Providers,” will help child care providers overcome the fear of the financials that plague small business entrepreneurs. There is a saying, “What gets measured, gets managed,” and it is true that meticulous financial tracking can not only optimize operations but also assist with informed decision-making.

A well-structured setup in QuickBooks is crucial for effective financial management, and it can be adapted to meet the unique needs of childcare businesses. Learning to navigate QuickBooks effectively will allow you to use QuickBooks more efficiently to make critical management decisions and reduce outsourcing costs.


key elements of child care program financial management:


  • Income Transactions: Proper tracking and the categorization of income sources, such as tuition, fees, grants, food reimbursements, and extracurricular activities.
  • Expense Transactions: Efficient tracking of operational expenses, including rent, utilities, supplies, meals, reimbursements, transportation, and professional fees, as well as processing more complex transactions such as asset purchases, depreciations, bill and loan payments.
  • Banking Transactions: Accurate utilization of bank feeds to track bank and credit card transactions and monthly reconciliations to ensure accuracy between bank statements and QuickBooks records.
  • Report Creation: Generating reports essential for tax purposes, management decisions, budgeting, and forecasting.
  • Year-End Reports: Utilizing QuickBooks for year-end reporting requirements such as financial statements, child care expenses reports for families, and 1099 vendor payment reports.


“Mastering Financial Management: QuickBooks Training for Child Care Providers” will walk participants through how QuickBooks can be used for income transactions, expense transactions, banking tractions, report creations, and year-end reports. In addition, the session will explore strategies for optimizing workflows by automating recurring transactions and demonstrate how to integrate QuickBooks with other software and tools to enhance efficiency.

The May 17 session will also cover challenges encountered by QuickBooks users with insights into how to avoid common errors. Participants will be able to engage in a live Q&A session where they can ask specific questions and gain insight with fellow child care providers.


By adopting the practices outlined in the webinar, child care providers can streamline financial performance enabling them to focus their energies on nurturing the next generation.

Annette Brown is a Certified Public Accountant and the owner of ABC Accounting Services, LLC. She received her BS in Accountancy from Northern Illinois University and her CPA Certification from the University of Illinois. Annette began her accounting career in the corporate sector and has over 25 years of accounting experience. She started ABC Accounting Services to empower small business entrepreneurs to thrive in their businesses.

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The AI-Enabled Administrator: Reclaim Valuable Time

By Dr. Neal Green • February 8, 2026
Tools: Gemini Gems, NotebookLM, Perplexity Spaces Overview The evidence is clear that early childhood professionals' most significant challenge is a lack of time. Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, when used strategically, can give administrators some of the time they desperately need, allowing them to focus more on their staff and the children and families in their care. This approach aligns with the foundational goal of strengthening leadership effectiveness and program impact (Abel, Talan, & Masterson, 2023). When I scan the AI landscape of available products and platforms, it becomes overwhelming. There are so many options that it is impossible to keep up with every new development. Focusing on a limited number of AI tools backed by organizations with strong infrastructure and fiscal stability is a wise place to start your AI journey. McCormick Institute for Early Childhood’s (MIEC’s) upcoming professional development sessions will focus on three AI tools. These include Gemini Gems, NotebookLM, and Perplexity Spaces. Think of Gemini Gems as your customized AI assistant that you "train" to follow your rules and meet your goals. Gemini Gems are the right tool to tackle Internal Operations . NotebookLM is perfect for creating Family Support resources that stick. NotebookLM is a powerful AI tool that uses only the documents or other resources you add to generate specific, focused output. Perplexity Spaces is a fantastic choice to address Marketing demands. Like many AI tools, you can toggle back and forth between open web searches and focused documents that are specific to your work. Gemini Gems: The “Specialist Teammate” Gemini Gems allow you to create templates you can use repeatedly for agendas, HR policies, and more. If you have used AI in the past, you know that writing an effective prompt takes time, and they can easily get "lost" if you use AI often. Gems removes that challenge and lets you save your most effective prompts without having to rewrite them every time you use Gemini. It is up to you to decide if you want to create several smaller Gems to tackle common challenges you face or create larger Gems that encompass large swaths of your work. For our purposes, we will focus our Gem work on Internal Operations, addressing Program Administration Scale (PAS) Item 9: Internal Communications (Talan & Bloom, 2011). Imagine using a Gem to turn messy staff meeting notes into professional minutes with clear action plans in minutes or less! NotebookLM: The "Walled Garden" NotebookLM is an excellent tool for Family Support for your center, addressing PAS Item 17: Family Support and Involvement (Talan & Bloom, 2011). After uploading documents and resources, such as your parent handbook or community referral lists, to your Notebook, you can create several resources that parents/guardians of your center students will love. Just a few of the impressive features available with NotebookLM include audio (podcast) summaries, video summaries, and reporting functions with templates or the option to create your own report with metrics that matter most to you. Perplexity Spaces: The "Research Librarian" Perplexity Spaces is a perfect AI partner for Marketing your early childhood education (ECE) program, addressing PAS Item 18: External Communications (Talan & Bloom, 2011). You can build your own centralized repository, with control over branding to ensure consistency and present a professional, current image. Adding specific instructions to your space eliminates the need to format documents constantly and saves valuable time. The consistency that a Perplexity Space offers in this regard allows you to upload messages that are the "voice” of your brand. Your marketing efforts are not only more aesthetically pleasing but also enable you to track trends at similar centers in your area, helping you assess the competition. Strategies for Success: Audit your Internal Communications: Identify one repetitive task, such as creating staff meeting agendas (PAS Item 9), and automate it with a Gemini Gem. Curate your Family Resources: Gather three to five existing documents to "feed" a NotebookLM project for more responsive family support (PAS Item 17). Standardize your Brand: Use a Perplexity Space to ensure all public relations tools project a consistent, professional image (PAS Item 18). Reflection Questions: Which administrative task takes the most time away from your interactions with staff and families? How might centralizing marketing materials (branding) impact the professional image to prospective families? Table 1: AI Tools for ECE Professionals
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