Daycare Cash Flow Template

Move to the 13-Week Cash Flow sheet and fill in your projected tuition collections week by week. Weekly-pay families are straightforward — you can estimate collection based on current enrollment and your collection rate. Monthly-pay families all land in the same one or two weeks at the start of the month, which creates a cash spike followed by a flat period. Subsidy reimbursements should be projected based on your agency's historical payment pattern — if they pay 45 days after the care month ends, enter those inflows in the correct week. Enter your bi-weekly payroll dates and amounts in the expense rows — this is the most important thing to get right, because payroll is non-negotiable and the weeks it aligns with low tuition collection or delayed subsidy payments are where cash shortfalls happen.

The financial metrics that matter most in childcare are occupancy rate and labor cost ratio. Occupancy rate — enrolled children divided by licensed capacity — needs to stay above 85% for most centers to cover fixed costs. At 70% occupancy, most centers are losing money; at 90%, they're typically profitable at net margins of 10–16%. Labor cost ratio is the operating lever: teachers, assistants, and aides need to be scheduled to meet licensing ratio requirements, which means labor costs are somewhat fixed regardless of daily attendance. The target is to keep total payroll and benefits below 65% of revenue, which requires both strong enrollment and efficient scheduling. Centers that track these two metrics monthly catch enrollment slide before it becomes a financial crisis, because the gap between 90% and 80% occupancy at a 50-child center represents roughly $4,000–$6,000 per month in lost revenue against a mostly fixed cost base.