The child care industry is seen by many as a highly profitable and protected industry, an unusual combination of protection has come from multiple sources:
- A highly regulated industry supported by government assistance
- Historically strict controls over new childcare centre approvals
- Tough barriers to entry, with the rules for becoming an approved provider continuing to increase.
Now more than ever it is important to work with accountancy practise that has the right industry experience. Our managing partner has been involved in the childcare industry for over 20 years, including having had the responsibility as a designated childcare specialist as Senior Banker, managing an extensive childcare portfolio.
We work with Childcare Centre owners to reduce stress, provide a strong platform for growth, improving the efficiency of the centre to ensure the owners and senior management are spending more time on improving and maintaining occupancy levels as opposed to basic operational chores and ensuring their financial reporting is optimised for peak performance.
Our Services Include:
- General childcare centre accounting. We work with centre owners & senior management to provide customised reporting on agreed KPIs, strategies and action plans.
- Management reporting, providing meaningful and relevant reports to assist and support the team, making management more effective.
- A childcare-focused bookkeeping and payroll service at low cost to free up staff and reduce costs.
- Business advice on standardisation and best practice in the industry
- Preparations for sale, providing customised financial reports for valuation purposes and appropriate taxation advice to minimise capital gains impact.
- Purchase assistance including due diligence, structuring and taxation advice
The profitability of a centre can be influenced by several factors. Obviously, occupancy is one aspect, which can be a function of the centres’ maturity level or changes in management or ownership. Other key factors are the age of children attending, the level of services offered and resultant staffing requirements and rostering, all of which need to be monitored and tracked. Advivo provides the insights needed to ensure profitability is maximised at all levels.
When Advivo works with the management team, we free them up to attend to the task of managing the centre and ensuring the children are their priority. We ensure the right systems and tools are in place to take the pressure off the centre owner.
We also understand the concerns, as with any industry that is highly regulated and dependent on government support, that new governments are prone to change the legislation. We make sure we understand these changes, their impact on financial management and become true business partners to our childcare centre clients.
For many years we have said the cost of starting or purchasing a new centre was prohibitive and as such formed a natural barrier to substantial increases in competition. However, in more recent times we have seen a substantial increase in new development approvals for centres and subsequent new centre openings, which has dramatically increased the level of competition.
Do you have the cash flow or contingency reserves to adjust to a changing financing environment with increased competition, higher interest rates and a possible increase in principle repayments now being required to service your current borrowings?