Setting up a Canadian centre

Country and province, Canadian dollars, provincial ratios, consent and AI, French, and the few things that work differently in Canada.

For directors and admins

Do this first

Set your centre's country to Canada before you do anything else, and in particular before you set up payments. Your payments account is opened in the country your centre has at the time, and its country can't be changed afterwards. Billing currency, receipts, consent questions for families and the AI default all follow the country too.

Country and province

1. Open your centre's profile In the RoundUp director portal, open Settings. Your centre's details are under Center profile.
2. Choose Canada Set Country to Canada. The state list becomes Province/territory and lists all ten provinces and three territories, and the ZIP field becomes Postal code, which takes the A1A 1A1 form.
3. Add your Business Number A Canadian centre has a CRA Business Number field in place of the US EIN. It's printed on the child care receipts families use at tax time. See Year-end child care receipts.
4. Save Click Save profile.

Your province decides which ratio rules RoundUp measures your rooms against, so check it before you rely on a ratio reading.

Canadian dollars

When the country is saved as Canada, your centre's billing currency is set to Canadian dollars (CAD). Tuition invoices, family payments and receipts are in CAD.

The currency is only set this way when your centre doesn't already have one. If your centre was ever saved as a US centre, it may already bill in US dollars, and changing the country won't switch it. Email support@roundupece.com to have it checked before you send your first invoice. Pre-authorized debit only works for a centre that is in Canada and bills in CAD.

Families pay by card, or by pre-authorized debit from a Canadian bank account. US bank accounts (ACH) aren't offered at a centre that bills in CAD.

Provincial ratio rules

RoundUp has staff-to-child ratio rules for every province and territory, with the regulation each one comes from. None of them has been confirmed with the province's or territory's licensing body yet. The Ratio Monitoring and Compliance screens say so in a Compliance rules not yet verified banner, naming the licensing body and the regulation to check the numbers against.

Before you go live, RoundUp reviews your province's rules with you. Until that's done, check any ratio reading against your licence and your licensing body's requirements, not against RoundUp alone. The arithmetic RoundUp does is the same everywhere; see Ratios.

Family consent and AI features

Families at a Canadian centre are asked for their consent when they sign up from your invitation. Under Your consent they agree to:

• health and medication records (allergies, medical conditions, medication given, and illness and injury reports), which is required to enrol,
• AI features reading their child's records, which is optional and starts unticked.

Photos and video follow the family's photo and video choices on the same form. Afterwards, My Child's Data has a Your consent section with each child's answers, where a parent can change photos and AI at any time. A parent whose answers are missing is asked for them after they sign in.

AI features start off for a Canadian centre. They stay off until a director turns them on under Settings → Configuration → AI features. Even then, a child counts as opted out unless their parent has said yes to AI features: a parent who hasn't answered is treated the same as one who said no. The AI Assistant explains what being left out of AI does in each feature.

French

• The RoundUp app is in English, Spanish and French. Each person chooses under More → Settings → Account → Language; Auto (device) follows the phone's language.
• The director portal's director pages are in English, Spanish and French. Choose under Language in the account menu at the top right.
• The family portal on the web is in English and Spanish only, so French-speaking families will find French in the app but not on the web.
• Emails and notifications RoundUp sends families are in English, Spanish or French, following the language RoundUp has for each person. Anything your staff write is sent as written, not translated. Some alerts to directors and staff, such as ratio alerts, are in English only.
• Child care receipts are in English.

Tax receipts and bank payments

Two things work differently from a US centre, and each has its own guide:

• Year-end child care receipts (CRA): the receipts families use for the Child Care Expenses Deduction, in place of the US year-end tax statement.
• Accepting pre-authorized debit: tuition paid straight from a Canadian bank account.

Not available in Canada

• Spend cards. They run on Stripe Issuing and Treasury, which Stripe doesn't offer in Canada, so a Canadian centre can't turn them on.
• US bank accounts (ACH) for tuition. Families use pre-authorized debit instead.
• The US year-end tax statement. Canadian centres issue CRA child care receipts instead.

Where your data is stored

RoundUp is provided from the United States. Your centre's records are processed and stored in the United States, and AI features, when they're on, process in the United States too. Our privacy policy sets out where, in international transfers, and has a section for centres in Canada.

More: All director guides