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For 16 years, Child Care Information Exchange has offered directors guidance on selecting center management software. This year, we decided to turn to the vendors, and asked each of them questions. Here is a summary of their responses.


What PERCENTAGE of child care centers use management software today?

Responses to this question ranged from a very small percentage up to 40%. The true answer is that no one really knows. As Bill Clinton once said, "It depends on your definition of . . . " a) centers, and whether the term includes YMCAs, Head Start programs, home and group home programs, corporate and college based programs, etc.; and b) center management software, and whether that includes business applications such as Microsoft Word or Peachtree Accounting, templates developed by a friend or relative, or software programs written exclusively for a single child care program. My own guess is that about 15% of state licensed ...