Protect subsidy revenue.
Find compliance gaps before inspection.
hayway turns attendance, staffing, billing, and state rules into a ranked daily action list. Your director sees what needs attention, why it matters, and what to do next.
Keep your current childcare software while hayway runs the pilot alongside it at one site.
- Runs alongside your state system
- Director-approved actions
- Founder-led migration
- Month-to-month plans
Add coverage in Infant A at 7:30a
Forecast: 9 infants, 2 staff scheduled
Submitted is not reconciled.
The state portal shows attendance was submitted. It does not tell you whether the care was paid correctly.
The state paid less than expected.
A deposit lands, but no line item explains which child, day, or rate caused the difference.
The audit issue is still open.
A finding was noted last month. No one was assigned, and it is about to repeat.
Next week's coverage is short.
Thursday morning is one teacher under ratio in Infant A, and nobody has flagged it yet.
A short, ranked list of decisions
- 1
Reads current records
Attendance, staffing, ratios, and reservations.
- 2
Ranks decisions
The few things that actually need a call today.
- 3
Explains the evidence
Every card carries the facts, timing, and alternatives.
- 4
You decide
Accept, reject, or defer. The director stays in control.
- 5
Tracks the outcome
Flow checks whether the decision actually helped.
- Review
Add coverage in Infant A at 7:30a
Forecast: 9 infants, 2 staff scheduled
AcceptDeclineDefer 2h - Review
Twos room trends over ratio Thursday
3 drop-ins confirmed, 1 teacher on PTO
AcceptDeclineDefer 2h - Review
Break window safe at 1:15p
Room stays in ratio with floater cover
AcceptDeclineDefer 2h
Illustrative preview. Every real recommendation shows its reasons.
Know what the state actually paid
- Prepare claim records from attendance
- Review billed versus reimbursed
- Surface confirmed shortfalls and pending amounts
- Monitor voucher-risk patterns
2 vouchers at risk, nearing the monthly absence cap. Act before the slot terminates.
Reconciliation runs alongside your state system, no certified e-filing.
Turn inspection risk into this week's actions
- 1
Weekly audit
A repeatable sweep for missing or expiring records.
- 2
Assigned owner
Every gap gets a name.
- 3
Due date
And a deadline that is tracked.
- 4
Evidence
Attach what proves it was fixed.
- 5
Closure
Confirmed closed, repeat-failure watched.
Everything it takes to run your center
Flow leads the day. The full childcare-native platform is underneath it.
Billing
Recurring invoices, private-pay and subsidy, parent self-checkout.
- Flat-rate, hourly, drop-in, and sibling discounts
- Subsidy claims and copays reconciled against attendance
- Employer seats and scholarships billed as third-party payers
Attendance
Digital check-in, live ratios, point-in-time evidence.
- PIN, QR, and passkey check-in with offline tablet sync
- Live staff-to-child ratios by room
- Point-in-time records for subsidy and licensing reviews
Scheduling
Staff scheduling with Smart Fill and timesheets.
- Smart Fill schedule builder and timesheets
- Open-shift broadcast to your approved bench
- Break protection that keeps rooms in ratio
Compliance
Immunizations, ratios, incidents, corrective actions.
- Audit-readiness scanner for certs and health files
- Incident reports with director approval and e-sign
- CACFP meal-claim tracking
Parent app
Payments, messaging, daily sheets, tax statements.
- Daily sheets with photos, meals, and naps
- Messaging auto-translated into 10 languages
- Pay, sign, and download year-end tax statements
Teacher app
Run the room from a phone; posts reach families.
- Check-in and check-out with the live room ratio
- Meal, nap, and safe-sleep logs with allergy flags
- Posts and photos flow straight to the parent app
Built for the way your program runs
A migration you can verify
Supported imports
Families, children, and staff by validated CSV.
Verification
The full file is checked before anything is written.
Parallel review
Run alongside your current system while you confirm.
Go-live
Families are invited only once it is verified.
Children's data, protected at every layer
A child's file is some of the most sensitive data a family ever hands over. hayway defends it in depth: isolated per center, encrypted where it matters, scoped to who genuinely needs it, and logged so access stays accountable.
Your center, walled off from every other
The separation between centers is enforced in the database with tenant and role controls, not just on the screen, so each center's children, families, and finances stay scoped to that center.
Extra locks on the most sensitive details
Medical alerts, allergies, custody and incident notes, Social Security numbers and bank details each carry an added layer of field-level encryption at rest, so those fields are not stored in plain text alongside the rest of the record.
Access scoped to the role
Teachers see only the children in their assigned room. Directors see their own center. Parents see only their own child. Least-privilege by default, and nobody can hand out access they don’t already hold.
FERPA-style disclosure trail
Every view of a sensitive record and every disclosure to a parent is logged FERPA-style, with court-ordered custody restrictions enforced. You can answer who saw what, and when, without reconstructing it after the fact.
Signed incident reports lock
Once a parent signs an incident report, it locks from edits. Families and your center keep one stable, signed record of exactly what happened, with no quiet revisions later.
Two-step sign-in that survives staff turnover
Staff sign-in supports phone codes and passkeys, with backup codes so a lost phone never locks anyone out. Turn it on for everyone or just for leadership when you’re ready.
Strong, modern security without the enterprise overhead. We don’t sell or share family data, and access is scoped to the people who genuinely need it. To be straight with you: this is serious protection, not a HIPAA covered entity or end-to-end encryption, and we won’t claim otherwise.
Built by a process engineer and daycare parent
Bringing process-improvement methodology, flexibility, and transparency to your center.
- Six Sigma Green Belt and structured problem solving
- Lean and 5S, root cause analysis, DOE and GR&R
- Fifteen years leading and training operations teams
- High-volume hospitality, from back-of-house trainer to sous chef
- Studying Data Science at IU Southeast
- A daycare parent on the other side of drop-off
A paid 60-day revenue assurance pilot
Who it's for
Licensed Indiana and Kentucky centers with a meaningful subsidy population and a lean office team.
What's measured
Dollars identified, dollars actioned, dollars confirmed received, record corrections, and admin hours. Deliverables, not revenue promises.
What it requires
Your claim records and the state payment report for one completed month, one pilot owner, and a weekly review.
$275 per site per month, billed month to month · founder-led setup included · no free pilot, no performance guarantee. Capacity is limited to three concurrent pilot sites.
One flat price per site
Priced per site, month to month, with no long-term contracts.
Home
For licensed-exempt and registered home providers: billing, attendance, and families from your phone. One home program.
billed annually
- Up to 8 active children · 1 staff account
- Billing, invoicing & autopay
- Digital check-in & attendance
- Parent app + in-app messaging
- Documents & e-sign
- Year-end tax statements
Home Pro at $29/mo adds subsidy claim tracking and state remittance reconciliation.
Get startedStarter
For a single site: basic billing and the daily essentials. Unlimited children, one location.
billed annually
- Unlimited enrolled children · 1 site
- Core child & family profiles
- Digital check-in & attendance
- Flat-rate billing, invoicing & parent self-checkout
- Leads, tours & waitlist (basic CRM) + in-app messaging
- No parent app · 200 AI actions + 250 texts / mo included
Pro
Everything for growing centers and multi-site orgs: subsidy, scheduling, parent app, AI Co-Director, procurement, and unlimited sites.
billed annually
- Unlimited children · unlimited sites
- Hourly & age-based billing + subsidy claims, voucher-risk & CACFP
- Staff scheduling with Smart Fill & timesheets + parent app
- Document vault & e-sign + accounting export
- Multi-site rollups, AI Co-Director, procurement & compliance suite
- Custom domains & white-labeling · 1,500 AI actions + 3,000 texts / mo
Sitter: free for a single family's babysitter or nanny
Individual babysitters and nannies get a free hayway account. Start one yourself, or accept a family's invite from the parent portal. Log every session, send payment requests, and hand the family a clean year-end summary for their records. No subscription.
Free single-family account · no card required · grows into Home at $15/mo when you take on more families.
Prices are per site, per month. AI actions and texts beyond your plan's monthly allowance bill at $0.10 per action and $0.02 per text. Card payments include a 1.5% platform fee and ACH a 0.4% fee (capped at $2) on top of standard processing. No long-term contracts.
Questions, answered
Straight answers about pricing, payments, data security, and how hayway fits your center. Can't find what you need below?
Starter is $50 per site per month (unlimited children, one site, basic billing, no parent app). Pro is $275 per site per month and includes the parent app, subsidy tools, AI Co-Director, procurement, and more. Pro supports unlimited children and an unlimited number of sites, and each site is billed separately at $275 per month. Pricing is per location, and annual billing saves 10%. Each plan includes a monthly allowance of AI actions and texts; usage beyond it bills at $0.10 per AI action and $0.02 per text segment, billed monthly, never as a hard cutoff. No long-term contracts.
Still have questions? Get in touch
Plan your childcare software search
Practical guides and source-cited state requirements for childcare operators.
Childcare management software buyer’s guide
Compare billing, attendance, compliance, security, and family communication workflows.
Read resourceChildcare billing software guide
Understand recurring invoices, payment methods, reconciliation, and platform fees.
Read resourceState childcare licensing guides
Browse source-cited ratios, training, safety, facility, and subsidy requirements.
Read resourceRun billing, attendance, subsidy records, and family workflows together.
Billing, enrollment, attendance, compliance and the parent app on a single childcare-native record, with no re-keying a child into five tools. For Indiana and Kentucky claims, hayway reconciles against recorded attendance and flags configured voucher-risk patterns for review. The 60-day pilot runs alongside your current software at one site, so you see the reconciliation value before moving anything else.
No long-term contracts. Built in New Albany, Indiana.