A contract is very important and essential for every business. If you are starting a day-care business, the preparation of a proper contract is not only a way to give protection to your future business, but also an attitude to show your respect to your clients, the parents of the little ones. If you don’t have any experience of drafting a day-care contract and you don’t intend to pay an expensive lawyer to help you, you can read this article and get some useful tips from us. Here, we will tell you what you should include in your day-care contract and what might matter most in this contract.
Point 1 – Don’t forget to specify your working hours.
If you work 8 hours a day, you should specify in your contract: what time the parents can start to send the children to your place and before which time they should come back to pick up their children. Unexpected delay can happen sometimes. Therefore, you should specify how much extra fee the parent has to pay if they are late for picking up the children. Normally, you can charge an extra $5 fee for each 10-minute delay.
Point 2 – Specify the acceptable payment methods.
If you expect your clients to pay at the beginning of each month before you start to provide service to their kids, you should emphasize this point down in your contract. If the parents don’t make the payment on time, you have the right to pause the service, or even terminate the contract.
If you open a part-time daycare, you should ask the parents to make the payment before each time you offer your service.
Point 3 – Specify if your clients should pay for your holidays.
Normally, if you open a full-time day care service, you have the right to ask your clients to pay for your holidays. However, if you want to get paid for your vacation, you must write it down in your contract.
Point 4 – Remember to specify what kind of service the kids might receive in your day care center.
You should list out all the details about what the kids may do each day in your day-care center, such as what kind of food they might eat there, what the parents should do if the caregiver finds out the child is sick during the day-care hours, or what the caregiver should do if a child has any allergy problems, etc.
Point 5 – Specify that you may charge an extra fee if a kid needs to change to another day-care center in the middle of the contract.
It happens all the time the parents are searching for a bigger or lower-cost day-care center for their little ones. Therefore, you should be prepared for that. Normally, the extra fee should cover a 2-week cost, which allows you have enough time to find a new client to take the available place in your day-care center.