Creche & Preschool Management Software for South Africa
Give parents a window into their child's day — and run your creche's admin, attendance and fees from one platform.
If you run a creche, preschool or ECD centre in South Africa, the parents at your gate each morning are trusting you with the most important thing in their lives. What they want back is simple: to know their child is safe, happy and learning. What you’re stuck with instead is paper registers, a fee spreadsheet, and evenings spent typing the same updates into WhatsApp groups.
Skooly is creche management software built parent-first. It runs daily communication, check-ins and fee collection for more than 4,950 schools and 19,950 teachers across 10+ countries, processing over US$10 million in payments — and South African preschools have been part of that story for years.
We set it up for you, with your real classes and fee schedules.
The parent experience is the product
Parents don't see your admin. They see what reaches their phone.
Daily reports and photos.
Teachers share what each child did, ate and learned, with up to 4 photos per update, straight to the parent's app. Photos stay full-quality for 24 months. The 5pm “how was her day?” conversation starts with the parent already smiling at a picture.
A portfolio for every child.
Artwork, activities and moments build into a child portfolio over time — something parents keep, and the strongest re-enrolment tool a centre has.
Milestones parents can see.
Record assessments and developmental milestones, and share progress in a form parents understand. When report time comes, the evidence is already there.
Announcements without the noise.
Newsletters, reminders and notices go through one app, not six WhatsApp groups — and every parent actually receives them.
Safe, simple attendance
Check-in and check-out in seconds.
Daily check-ins and check-outs run from a tablet kiosk or the teacher's app, with a live register of exactly who is in the building.
Safety built for young children.
Pickup and drop-off authorisation means a child only leaves with someone the parent has approved. Health checks (temperature and visual) are recorded at the door, leave applications come in online, and visitor check-ins are logged too.
Reports at every level.
Attendance reporting per child, per class and per centre — ready when parents, staff or inspectors ask.
Fee collection that doesn't need chasing
Fees are where creche owners lose their evenings. Skooly generates recurring fee invoices automatically, sends reminders before and after the due date, and lets parents pay cashless — through the app, an email link or the portal — with digital receipts issued instantly. Sibling discounts, subsidies, partial payments, and automatic late-fee and early-bird computation are all built in. You see who has paid and who hasn’t in real time, without matching bank statements by hand.
Your data, protected
Skooly encrypts data in transit and at rest, keeps each centre’s records isolated with role-based access, and is designed with data-protection compliance in mind — a sensible foundation for centres working under POPIA. Parent and child records live in one secure system instead of on paper and personal phones.
Plans that grow with your preschool
Starter
Up to 50 children
Daily reports and photos, attendance, invoicing and the parent app.
Growth
Up to 100 children
Adds the Collection Suite (automated reminders, auto-reconciliation) and the check-in/out kiosk.
Premium
Up to 200 children
Adds learning modules, the child portfolio, assessments and milestones, and staff payroll.
Plans are published openly in rand — no quotation meetings, no setup fee. Every plan starts with a free 14-day pilot — guided setup takes minutes, and the Premium plan includes done-for-you setup of your children’s records and fee schedules. The parent app is always free for parents. Full details on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
It's a system that runs the daily operations of a creche, preschool, daycare or ECD centre — parent communication, daily reports, attendance and safe check-in/out, fee invoicing and collection, and child records — in one platform, replacing paper registers and WhatsApp groups.
Through the free Skooly One parent app. Teachers send daily reports with up to 4 photos per update, plus announcements, milestones and the child's portfolio — all in one place on the parent's phone.
Every child has pickup and drop-off authorisation: a child is only released to someone the parent has approved, and every check-in and check-out is time-stamped. Health checks and visitor check-ins are recorded too.
Cashless — via the app, an email payment link or the portal, with stored cards and instant digital receipts. Invoices recur automatically, reminders go out on their own, and sibling discounts, subsidies and partial payments are handled by the system.
Skooly encrypts data in transit and at rest, keeps each centre's records isolated with role-based access for staff and parents, and is designed with data-protection compliance in mind. Your records sit in one secure system rather than on paper and personal devices.
Days, not months. Guided setup gets your centre running in minutes — and on the Premium plan our team migrates your children's records and fee schedules for you.
No. The parent app is always free for parents, on iOS and Android.
Ready to give your parents a better day-end conversation?
Start your free 14-day pilot or book a 15-minute demo — either way, you'll see Skooly running your real classes, not a slideshow.