Set up your center
The handful of settings worth getting right on day one, because everything else reads from them.
Center profile
Name, address and contact details. These appear on family-facing screens and on documents you export, so use the name families would recognize rather than the legal entity name if they differ.
Hours
Your opening and closing times drive late-pickup calculations and the way the day is bucketed in reports. If you run extended care or a split schedule, set what actually happens rather than what the brochure says — a closing time that's an hour early manufactures late fees.
State and licensing
Your state determines the staff-to-child ratios RoundUp measures your rooms against, and which reports are available. Get this right before you rely on any ratio reading — the arithmetic is only as good as the rule it's applied to.
Oregon is the most thoroughly verified jurisdiction, including the ERDC subsidy export. Other states carry ratio rules but not every state-specific report.
Your first classroom
Create at least one classroom before adding children or staff — both attach to rooms, and children with nowhere to go are awkward to place later. See Create classrooms.
A sensible order
- Center profile, hours, jurisdiction Everything else reads from these.
- Classrooms With correct age ranges — ratios depend on them.
- Staff So there's someone to assign to rooms. See Adding and removing staff.
- Children and families See Enroll a child.
- Invite families Last, once there's something for them to look at. See Invite families.
Inviting families before the rooms and rosters are right is the most common way to make a rocky first week for yourself.
More: All director guides