How Kinderflow works

Staff members — teachers, assistants, directors — are invited by email and get their own login to the teacher portal.

1. Go to Dashboard → Staff and click Add Staff Member.
2. Enter their name, email, and role (Teacher, Director, Admin, etc.).
3. Click Send Invite. They'll receive an email with a link to set their password.
4. Once they log in, they're taken through a short setup flow and land in their classroom dashboard.

Enroll a child by adding their student record and linking a guardian. Families get their own parent portal once invited.

1. Go to Dashboard → Students → Add Student.
2. Enter the child's name, date of birth, and assign them to a room.
3. Add a guardian — either link an existing one or create a new one with their name, email, and phone.
4. The guardian will receive an invite email to set up their parent portal account.
5. Once enrolled, the child appears on the room roster and is available for attendance and daily reports.

Kinderflow includes a public waitlist page families can fill out on their own — no back-and-forth required.

1. Go to Dashboard → Waitlist → Configure Waitlist to set up program types, capacity, and any custom questions.
2. Share your public waitlist link — it lives at kinderflow.io/[your-center-slug]/apply.
3. Families fill out the form and appear instantly under Dashboard → Waitlist.
4. When a spot opens, select the family and convert them to an enrolled student directly from the waitlist.

To collect tuition online, you need to connect your bank account via Stripe. This lets parents pay invoices by card and deposits funds directly into your account.

1. Go to Dashboard → Settings → Billing and click Connect Bank Account.
2. You'll be taken to Stripe's secure onboarding — enter your business details and bank account information.
3. Once verified, your status will show Bank verified and parents can pay invoices online.
4. Payouts are deposited to your bank account on a standard 2-day rolling basis.

Staff and parents can message each other directly through Kinderflow — no phone numbers or personal emails needed.

1. From the dashboard, click the bell icon in the top navigation to open your message inbox.
2. Start a conversation by selecting a student and clicking Message Guardian, or reply to an incoming message from a parent.
3. Parents message staff from their parent portal — messages appear in your inbox in real time.
4. Teachers can also message parents from their classroom view by tapping a child's name.

Teachers fill out a daily report for each child — meals, nap times, mood, activities, and any notes for parents. Reports are sent automatically when the parent signs their child out at the kiosk.

1. Teachers go to their classroom, select a child, and tap Daily Report.
2. They fill in the report throughout the day — it auto-saves every minute.
3. When the parent signs the child out via the kiosk, they receive an email with that day's report.
4. Directors can view all reports under Dashboard → Daily Reports.
5. Parents can also view past reports anytime from their parent portal under their child's profile.

The kiosk is a touch-friendly sign-in / sign-out screen designed to run on a tablet at your front door. Parents enter their PIN, select their child, and sign — no app download required.

1. Go to Dashboard → Locations and select your location.
2. Copy the Kiosk Link — it looks like kinderflow.io/[your-slug]/kiosk/[location-id].
3. Open that link on a tablet and set it to fullscreen (or use your browser's kiosk/guided access mode).
4. Parents enter their 4-digit PIN (shown in their parent portal welcome screen) to sign in or out.
5. At sign-out, parents can add a signature and the child's daily report is automatically emailed to them.

Coming from another platform? Kinderflow can import your existing students, guardians, and staff in minutes — no manual re-entry required. We support five platforms plus a generic CSV option for everything else.

How to import:

1. Go to Dashboard → Account Management → Import Data.
2. Select your previous platform from the grid of options.
3. Follow the on-screen export instructions for your platform, then upload your CSV file.
4. Kinderflow previews the first 5 rows and auto-detects your columns. Adjust any mappings if needed.
5. Click Run Import. Students, guardians, staff, and room assignments are created automatically.
6. When complete, download the import log to see exactly what was imported and any rows that were skipped.

Platform-specific notes:

• EZCare: If your export has children and family contacts in separate files, upload both — Kinderflow will match them by child name automatically.
• ChildCareCRM: Waitlist and lead records import to your Kinderflow Waitlist, not active enrollment.
• Generic CSV: Use this if your platform isn't listed. Every column in your file gets a dropdown to map to the correct Kinderflow field.

Staff and parents can message each other directly through Kinderflow in real time — no phone numbers, personal emails, or third-party apps needed.

For staff — messaging a parent:

1. Click the bell icon in the top-right corner of any dashboard page to open your inbox.
2. Click New Message, search for a student by name, and select their guardian.
3. Type your message and hit Send. The parent receives a notification and can reply from their parent portal.
4. You can also start a conversation from a student's profile — click the student, then Message Guardian.

For parents — messaging staff:

1. Parents log in to their parent portal at kinderflow.io/login.
2. They tap the Messages tab and select their child's name to start or continue a conversation with the classroom teacher.
3. Messages appear in the staff inbox in real time.