Choosing ECE software in New Zealand: 12 questions to ask before you sign

Most centres choose their management software once and live with it for years. The roll, the ratios, whānau communication, consent forms, staff certificates and funding figures all end up inside it, so switching later is slow and disruptive. The time to ask the hard questions is before you sign.

These twelve questions work for any early childhood education software in New Zealand, whether you run a single preschool, a kindergarten or a small group of early learning centres, and whether you are comparing childcare enrolment software, kindergarten management tools or a full platform. Each says why it matters and what a good answer sounds like. Ask every provider on your shortlist the same set, us included, and compare the answers.

The roll and the room

1. What happens to the roll when the wifi drops?

Tablets move between rooms and out to the gate, and the connection comes and goes. If the roll stops when the signal does, staff go back to paper, and the record of who is in the building splits across two places.

A good answer is specific. Which screens keep working offline, and which do not? Is a sign-in taken offline counted in the ratio straight away, or only once it syncs? What stops the same arrival being recorded twice when the connection returns? A provider who says “it all works offline”, with no limits, has probably not tested it in a busy room.

2. How are ratios calculated, and against what?

Licensed services must meet adult-to-child ratios. For centre-based services the requirements are set out in Schedule 2 of the Education (Early Childhood Services) Regulations 2008, and they depend on the ages of the children and how your service is licensed.

Ask when the provider last checked its ratio bands against the regulations. Ask what the count cannot see: a visiting child who was never signed in, or a staff member on a break who still shows as present. A good answer names a date, explains the inputs, and tells you to confirm the figures against your own licence. Be wary of a screen that says “compliant” as if software could decide that.

3. How does it handle consent and medication?

Consent is rarely a single yes or no. Families often agree to photos in the learning journal and refuse photos on the website. Medication usually needs a parent’s written authority before it is given, and a record of each dose afterwards.

A good answer treats consent as separate decisions, with a withdrawal taking effect immediately. For medication, ask whether a dose outside the recorded authority is flagged or refused, and whether the educator at the door can record what a parent says at drop-off.

Privacy and access

4. Who can see which child?

The boundary most often got wrong is the one inside your centre: a parent should see their own tamariki and nobody else’s, and an educator may need a child’s allergy plan but not the custody arrangements.

Ask what each role can see: owner, manager, educator, parent. Ask where that is enforced (in the database, or only in the screens) and how they test it. A good answer goes role by role. “Users only see what they need” is not an answer.

5. Where is the data stored, and who can access it?

Under the Privacy Act 2020, your centre is responsible for the personal information it holds about children, families and staff, including information a software provider holds on your behalf. Choosing a provider does not hand that responsibility over.

Ask where the data is hosted, who on the provider’s side can reach it, how that access is logged, and whether a backup has actually been restored to prove it works. Ask how quickly they would tell you about a privacy breach, because serious breaches have to be notified to the Privacy Commissioner and to the people affected.

6. Can we get all our data out, and in what format?

Every provider is confident about moving you in. Fewer are clear about moving you out.

Ask what an export contains (children, whānau, attendance, consents, medication, staff documents, invoices), what format it comes in, whether it costs anything and how long it takes. Ask what happens to your data after you leave, and when it is deleted. A good answer is “yes, all of it”, followed by the details. If the answer is vague, treat it as a no.

Staff and compliance

7. How are staff expiry dates tracked?

First aid certificates, practising certificates and safety checks such as police vetting all have dates, and a lapsed one is easy to miss.

Ask whether the system records the date printed on the actual document, and who sighted it, or whether it assumes an expiry from a standard period. Ask how warnings reach you: on screen, by email or as a notification. A good answer tells you exactly how, so you know whether somebody has to go and look.

8. What does it not do?

This is the most useful question on the list. ECE compliance software can hold your evidence, but it cannot certify your compliance. That judgement sits with the Ministry of Education and the Education Review Office, not with a dashboard.

A good provider answers without being pushed: it prepares the figures but you submit them; it shows ratios but you confirm them against your licence. A provider who cannot name anything their product does not do has not thought about it.

Price, set-up and support

9. What exactly will we pay?

Ask for the price in writing, and what it depends on: per child, per room, per site or per staff member. Ask about set-up fees, extra modules, text message or payment charges, price rises, minimum terms and exit fees.

A good answer is one you can put in a spreadsheet and check a year later. Having no published price list is not automatically a bad sign, but you should get a clear number for your situation before you commit.

10. Who sets it up, and how long does it take?

Moving children, families, staff and rooms into a new system is real work: importing records, inviting families, setting permissions and training the team.

Ask who does each part, what is done for you, and what the centre needs in place first, such as a privacy officer and consent forms that mention the new system. A good answer includes a realistic timeline.

11. When something goes wrong, who do we talk to?

At 7.45am with a queue at the door, a help centre article is not much use.

Ask how you reach support, in which hours, and whether it is a person who knows the product. A good answer names a real contact and a response time the provider can actually keep.

12. Will the demo use invented data?

A demo should show you the product, not another centre’s children. If a provider shows you another service’s tamariki in a sales call, assume they would show yours too.

A good answer is a demo built on made-up children, families and staff, with realistic situations already in it: a certificate about to lapse, a ratio close to the line, a family that has refused photo consent.

How to run a trial

Once you have a shortlist of two or three, test each one against your own week rather than a sales script.

1. Write down five things that happened last week: a pickup by someone not on the usual list, a new allergy, a first aid certificate about to expire, a wifi outage, a parent asking what was recorded about their child.
2. Ask each provider to show you those five things in the product, on demo data.
3. Turn the wifi off on a tablet during the demo and watch what the roll does.
4. Log in as a demo parent and try to find another family’s child.
5. Ask for a sample export and open it yourself.
6. Bring the person who does the roll every morning.

Where a provider says “yes”, note what they actually showed you. The best preschool software for your centre is the one whose answers still hold when you check them.

Where Kindra fits

Kindra is the ECE platform we build at Salix. Our answers, briefly: the staff roll keeps working when the wifi drops, as long as it was open before the connection went, but the family PIN screen at the door needs a connection. The ratio bands for centre-based services were checked against Schedule 2 on 18 August 2026, and we still ask you to confirm them against your licence. A parent sees only their own tamariki, enforced in the database. Staff expiry dates are flagged on screen, not by email. It prepares RS7 funding figures and never files them for you. Ask and you get an export.

It is also early. There is no price list, no self-serve sign-up and no phone app yet, and it is being shaped with a design partner of two sites. Every centre is set up with us directly, and the demo uses invented tamariki, never another centre’s.

If that sounds like a fit, see how Kindra works, or tell us about your centre.