Enjoy Childcare are pros at running before and after school care, holiday programmes, and drop-off services from their centres in South Wellington – Brooklyn, Mornington, Ōwhiro Bay, Berhampore and Roseneath. They pride themselves on being a relatively small organisation that can adapt to the changing needs of whānau in their area and play an active role in their community. We had the opportunity to talk to their business administrator Seraphina who gave us insight into how Enrolmy helped them effectively scale up their programmes. They transitioned from just one centre to five.
Founded in 2015 by Enrino Pasullean and Josh Brown, Enjoy Childcare quickly became known for making a significant impact on the lives of families. Their inspiring philosophy includes a strong commitment to ensuring they never have to turn away a child - being available and willing to support any whānau who may need extra assistance. The team at Enjoy Childcare provide a warm, organised, and all-encompassing space where each child is able to feel secure enough to engage in play, unwind, and explore new activities. Their exceptional delivery of a dynamic range of programmes resulted in more enrolments and an inevitable expansion of their operations.
However, as their operation expanded, so did the complexity of managing bookings, payments, and enrolments—highlighting an urgent need for a more efficient system.
The Challenge: Scaling Up While Maintaining Quality
In their early years in business, Enjoy Childcare administered all their booking, payment and enrolment processes manually. This worked fairly okay when they were managing only one centre...but business administrator Seraphina explained things only became complicated when they expanded to add three more.
Reminiscing on their admin processes prior to any kind of automated system, Seraphina said there was a lot of room for human error. Enrolments and bookings would take up a lot of her time. It was a major task to pass on this information in a timely manner to all centres. This was especially true when receiving numerous last-minute emails and phone calls from parents. And with different staff teams in their centres every other day, information could easily get lost or doubled up.
Plus co-founder Enrino would spend his Sunday evenings printing off the paper registers to then drive to each centre to distribute them. If driving between each centre wasn’t an arduous task in itself, to register, parents would need to fill out a long website form which Seraphina would transfer to a spreadsheet and made into a sheet to be printed.
Seraphina said it was evident they needed a better system to support their growth and this was when they made the change to Enrolmy.
A Crucial Turning Point for Enjoy Childcare
Enrolmy was a software solution that completely revamped their administrative procedures, streamlining everything from registration to invoicing. Parents now have the convenience of making changes to their bookings directly, while Seraphina can efficiently oversee any changes. By going digital, all information is now centralised and easily accessible through Enrolmy's user-friendly mobile app. This means for Seraphina, no more last-minute phone calls or chasing up contact details and safety forms under a myriad of paperwork.
“The enrolment process has changed dramatically – it’s really handy having parents able to step in and control their bookings but it’s also good that I still receive a notification when a change is made. We have additional services that we offer like a drop-off service that we charge for. It relies on me knowing that the child has been booked in for that service, so I know how much to invoice.”
The Transition to Enrolmy Yielded Immediate Benefits
Reduced Admin
Instead of the manual data entry and the back-and-forth communication between parents and the five centres, Seraphina can now spend her time doing more productive, strategic tasks. She says,
“I’m able to dedicate a short, focused amount of time overlooking booking and enrolments and answering and supporting any whānau with their queries, and then I can dedicate a big chunk of my time [to] focusing on the company’s strategies and partnerships with schools.”
Enhanced Staff Development
The time saved has benefited their whole team, too. Seraphina explains because they spend less time doing repetitive or follow-up tasks, they can focus more time on implementing better strategies and systems to improve their service and performance:
“[We now have time for] a strong focus on staff development and training [to enable them] to hold their roles as supervisors efficiently.”
Loyal Families Are Rewarded
Importantly, Enrolmy also gives Enjoy Childcare quick and easy oversight of all the centres, their staff and families who continue rebooking with them:
“I can see all the active names and when we’re busiest during the term. Enrolmy also enables me to monitor which families are active with us and we can do something special to reward loyal families."
Payments Are Made Faster
Another Enrolmy win Seraphina noted, was accelerated payment cycles compared to their previous fortnightly manual invoicing system:
“Before, Enrino would do invoices fortnightly and it took him a few days to do through a manual system. Now I invoice weekly and payments are more frequent.”
Environmental Benefits
Having all the information handy in digital format means they don’t have to print hard copies of the attendance sheets. Seraphina explains that this is an environmental win and makes it much easier to reconcile the roll call.
Efficient Health and Safety Management
One notable aspect where Enrolmy made a difference was in health and safety management. The app's quick sign-in/sign-out feature allowed Seraphina instant access to attendance data. This facilitated prompt follow-up if children didn't arrive or were picked up later than expected. Moreover, having allergy information readily available meant staff could make necessary adjustments during food-related activities without delay.
“[We] have a greater sense of trust when working with an automated system”.
For Enjoy Childcare, adopting Enrolmy wasn't just about overcoming administrative hurdles; it was about refocusing on their core mission—to provide exceptional care that adapts to the needs of whānau in their community. With the time and energy of worrying about up-to-date records and attendance sheets saved with Enrolmy, they can focus more of their efforts on the big-picture stuff. Enjoy Childcare has left the repetitive stuff to us and now can focus on what they love, making an even bigger, better impact in their local community.
You’re invited to join Enrolmy!
We love supporting our amazing provider Enjoy Childcare to not only maintain but elevate the high standard of fun and safe childcare they're known for in South Wellington. Experience how Enrolmy can make it possible to also fulfil your potential through easy, and robust booking, enrolling, payment and customer relationship software.
