Child Care Seer Release Spotlight - January 17, 2023

On January 17, 2023, Child Care Seer® will release our latest upgrade to all customers. In this release, you’ll find many exciting new features and updates including easy tax reports for parents, automatic late fees, incident reports, expiring tags and so much more! Keep reading for more information on everything that is included.

2022 Tax Reports for Families made EASY

We all dread tax season, but this year we’re making providing family 2022 tax statements a breeze! Child managers can find the Tax Report button right on the home screen of their Seer mobile app or on their Money menu on the desktop. With just a few clicks, families can download their tax statement(s) and have a copy delivered to their Seer messaging and email.

In addition, we’ve made it easy for you to send a message to your families with a direct link to generate their tax report. Simply start a New Discussion in the Center Inbox, select your recipients (we suggest using “select child managers”), and then click Template and select “Tax Report Instructions”. Parents will be notified via email, and when they view the message in their Seer Inbox, they will have a customized link directly to their tax report(s).

Automatic and Manual Late Payment Fees

Child Care Seer strives to help you get paid on time, but sometimes late fees are necessary to encourage timely payments for service. In this release, you’ll find two new ways to add late payment fees to past due accounts in Seer.

Automatic Late Payment Fee is now available on the Billing & Payments section of the My Center menu. Simply turn on this feature, specify your center’s policy, and Seer will automatically apply late payment fees to outstanding services as directed.

If you prefer to directly control late payment fees, we’ve also made it easier to apply these fees manually. Simply click on the Unpaid button on your Dashboard, select the accounts you wish to charge, and choose Add Charge. If you would like to customize your late payment fee, or if you have multiple late fees, visit Charges & Credits on the Pricing menu.

Incident Reports

You'll find a new Entry type on Family Connection in Child Care Seer. Incident is now available both on the Classroom Device and on your Dashboard via Live Classroom (click the device icon next to the Class name). Simply click Create and then select Incident in the Children section. Please note, Incident entries remain On Hold until reviewed in the Awaiting Release Queue. These entries may be directly exported to .pdf for parent signature and document retention. Incident entries will not appear in the Daily Journal sent to families but will be visible to staff.

New Features of Tags

Apply discounts to children

Have you ever wanted to apply a discount to a child rather than to each service or enrollment? Now you can! Starting with this release, you’ll be able to link any Credit or Charge (located on your Pricing page) to a Child Tag (managed via Tag Manager in My Center). After creating the tag, simply add it to any child on their Profile page. Moving forward, creating a new enrollment or service will automatically select the credit or charge but allow you to remove it if you would like. Thank you to Casey in LA for feedback leading to this enhancement.

Staff Tag Manager

We've added a new tab to Tag Manager: Staff Tags! Now you can organize and store commonly used staff tags rather than typing a new one every time. In addition, you can choose colors and icons to represent staff tags for easy identification throughout Seer.

Expirations for Tags

You’ve asked, and with this release we’ve delivered: expiration dates for tags. When adding a tag to a child or staff, select an expiration date as an option. Then, wherever the tag appears in Seer, simply click mouse over the icon to see the expiration information. We also let you decide whether to automatically remove a tag when it expires or to keep the tag but show the expiration.

Edit Pricing on Programs

Yes, you read that title correctly. You can now edit the Pricing on Programs in Child Care Seer!!! If you are new to Seer, you might find that statement odd, but those customers who have been with us for some time have been waiting for this release! No more “procedure” to raise your tuition. Simply edit the Program, update the price, and click Save. Please note that price changes for existing enrollments will start in the next billing period.

Online Help Improvements

There is a new and improved Knowledge Base in town! We’ve migrated our online help to a new provider to improve your user experience. With more powerful search tools and more intuitive category organization, we know you'll be able to find the answers you're looking for exactly when you need them. Check it out at https://success.childcareseer.com/

In the next several days, you’ll find newly updated Onboarding videos available to all via our website and YouTube channel. Why would an experienced user need those you ask? We suggest using our videos to easily train new staff coming into your center. Or, maybe there’s a part of Seer that you’d like to start using but you’ve forgotten how to start – check out the video! Videos are short and can be watched in any order or at any time you choose. And unlike live training, you can pause and rewind when the phone rings!

Even though we like to provide help and training online for easy access at all hours, we are still very happy to help you directly any time via our help button or website. We love to hear from customers, and someday your feedback might lead to a new feature in the Release Spotlight!

Online Payments Updates

Over the next several weeks, we will be rolling out ACH and Payouts updates to all customers. As these are changes which affect money, we will be releasing in phases to minimize disruption.

ACH Time to Payout Reduced

Because we understand that getting money quicker is always an improvement, we've upgraded ACH processing to reduce time from collection to payout by 2 business days.

Payout Details Added

To give you better understanding of your accounts, we’ve added details to payout information in several places. First, in the Online Payments report, there is a new column detailing Anticipated Availability. This is the date we anticipate collected funds will be available in your bank account. Please keep in mind that every bank is different and has slightly different processing procedures. Additionally, in the Payouts report, we’ve added the ability to expand each Payout to show exactly which transactions are included.

Other things you’ll notice in Child Care Seer…

Due Now and Past Due on Unpaid

If you are using a custom Due Date for Services (found in the Billing & Payments section of My Center), you’ll notice a new section on your Dashboard and Unpaid reports. Items appear in the “Now Due” column between the due date you’ve specified and the service start date, items move to “Past Due” after both dates have passed.

Activity Planner: Copy&Hide is now Customize

Did you know you can link classrooms in Activity Planner to minimize data entry for new activities? If you have multiple centers, you can also link to a master Activity Planner rather than add each lesson to all locations. In this release, we’ve changed Copy&Hide on linked activities to “Customize”. This new option will automatically open the activity, allow you to make changes, then save it to use in class while still preserving the original activity for reference.

Center Managers can edit or delete messages after release

Did you find an error in an Inbox message sent hours ago? Or maybe someone sent a message never meant to go out? Center managers can now edit or delete Inbox messages even after they are released. Simply open the message and click the action menu on the item you wish to change or delete. The original message will be kept as a comment (not visible except to Inbox managers) for reference.

Easy Response from Classroom Device

We know teachers are working with children in the classroom and can’t spend lots of time responding to parent messages. New in this release, we’ve added several generic response phrases which can be sent with just one click while using the inline response editor.

New Messages from Class Device Limits

Visit the Family Connection tab in My Center if you would like to limit which staff members can start new message threads with families from Class Devices.

Booking Requests on Mobile App

For staff members with permission to approve booking requests, this option is now available on the Dashboard on our mobile app. Customers offering hourly drop-in care can now approve those last minute visit requests even when away from the desk!

Yearly Subscriptions Available

If you would prefer to pay your Seer subscription yearly rather than monthly, you may do so at any time in My Center in the Seer Subscription Plan section.

Center Phone on Help Button

We’ve added the center phone (listed in your profile on My Center) as a contact option on the Help button.

Social Media

Be sure to like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter social media platforms! Look for early information on new features and interactions with your fellow Child Care Seer users. Just search for Child Care Seer on your favorite platform!