Your first two weeks on RoundUp: a setup order that works

Most of what goes wrong in a center's first week on new software comes from doing the steps in the wrong order: families invited before the roster is right, a kiosk at the door before anyone has pickup lists, payments switched on the day tuition is due. Here's the order we'd follow, with the Help Center guide for each step.

Week one: the parts families never see

1. Center settings and address Everything else reads from these. RoundUp takes your state from the center address, and your state decides which ratio rules your rooms are measured against, so check it before you rely on a ratio reading. Set up your center
2. Classroom names and capacity Settle room names before children are added, because children belong to a room by its name. Set each room's capacity to its licensed maximum: RoundUp treats it as a hard limit. The ratio itself comes from children's birth dates, not the room's label. Classroom settings
3. Your staff Invite each person from Settings → User Management with the email address they'll actually use, and give them the narrowest role that lets them do the job. Adding and removing staff · Roles and permissions
4. Your roster If you're coming from another system or a spreadsheet, import it from a CSV instead of retyping it. Three things save a second attempt: put dates of birth in year-month-day format (ratios depend on them), make sure every guardian in the file has a real email address, and match the file's room names to yours at the review step. Nothing is emailed to families during an import, so you can check the result before anyone else sees it. Import your roster from a spreadsheet
5. Authorized pickups for every child Guardians and authorized pickups are separate lists. At the kiosk, a child with both parents on file but an empty pickup list needs a director override at every check-out, so fill these in before pickup depends on them. Attendance and check-in · Kiosk mode

Week two: money, the front door, then families

1. Payments, if families will pay in the app Setup runs through Stripe and asks for your business EIN, the responsible person's date of birth and last four SSN digits, and your payout bank details. Verification can take a few business days, so start well before tuition is due. Set up payments and payouts
2. The kiosk tablet Use a center-owned tablet, start it from Kiosk Mode so a PIN is set, and lock the tablet to the app with Guided Access (iPad) or app pinning (Android). Put it where staff can see who's collecting. Kiosk mode
3. A practice day Run a normal day with staff only: check children in and out, log a few meals and naps, write the daily reports. It's the cheapest way to find the child with a missing birth date or the teacher clocking in to the wrong room. Your first shift in RoundUp
4. Invite families, last Tell families it's coming before the email lands, since an unexpected invitation from an app they've never heard of looks like phishing. Then invite each guardian from their child's profile, each with their own email address. Invite families to the app

The first days with families

• Watch who has accepted. An announcement reaches the parents who accepted their invitation, not everyone you invited.
• Get daily reports out consistently. The first week sets what families expect. A few specific, careful entries a day beat a page of one-liners. Writing daily reports
• Keep Ratio Monitoring open on a director's device during the busiest hours while everyone gets used to clocking in to the room they're actually in. Ratios
• Point families to the Help Center. The family guides answer most first-week questions, from invites to finding their child's day.

Stuck on a step? Email support@roundupece.com with your center's name and what you were trying to do.