The Enrollment Forecasting Report and the Capacity Planning Report can be used together to capitalize on your center’s operational goals. These reports work together to show you a detailed weekly view of availability, revenue statistics, and a futuristic forecast of what is coming in the near future. Let’s learn a bit more about these reports and how to use them together:
Enrollment Forecasting Report
The Enrollment Forecast Report is designed to help ensure your center is running at optimal efficiency. This report will help you monitor important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including Full-Time Equivalents (FTEs), expected payroll and tuition per classroom, and more. This report is designed to offer you a futuristic view of what is occurring in your center.
Capacity Planning Report
The Capacity Planning Report was created as an extension of the Enrollment Forecast Report to show a more detailed view of weekly schedules, availability, and age-level summaries. This report is there to help maximize the slots available per classroom to ensure you are making the most of your classroom capacity. Additionally, this report can be used to track transitions in and out of a classroom.
Together, these two reports will give you a realistic view of how many students will be in your center next week or even next month.
Configuring Both the Enrollment Forecast and Capacity Reports at the same time:
Please follow these steps to ensure all settings have been properly set for both reports.
Step 1: Configure Your Groups
In order to ensure both reports reference the correct information, it is crucial to configure your groups. Be sure to enter the following fields for each group:
Max Capacity
Preferred Capacity
Age Group
Enrollment Goal (1 month out)
Staff to Child Ratio
Designate as Classroom: If this check box is not selected, this group will not appear on the report.
For your non-classroom groups, such as a playground or a cafeteria, ensure this check box is not selected.
For the classrooms or areas that you wish to monitor, ensure the check box is selected.
Group Type: Select the category of the group (ex: “Infants”, “Toddlers”, etc)
If you need a reminder on adding and configuring groups, click here
Step 2: Set the full-time tuition per classroom
1. Tap on Manage>Groups, then tap on the three "..."
2. Select "Billing Plan"
3. Select the rate a child would incur if they attended full time, 5 days per week
4. Upon selecting your rate, the system will ask if you want to set every child in that group to be enrolled in this billing plan. If you want to mass-apply this plan, tap "Yes". If you would like children to maintain their previous billing plan enrollments, tap "No".
Important Note: If you select "Yes" in this step, all previous billing plan enrollments will be removed and this rate will be applied to all children in this room. If you do not wish to make this bulk change, please be sure to select "No" on this pop-up. This action cannot be undone.
Step 3: Configure Schedule Types for Children
Next, we need to configure several sections within the Admin settings. First up, let’s configure the Schedule Types for children. This information helps identify when children could be in your center, and what the FTE value should be for the associated schedule. To do so:
1. Tap “Admin” on the left-hand menu bar
2. Locate the “Schedule types” section and tap “Configure”
3. To add a new schedule type, tap on the “Add Schedule Type” button. Be sure to give your schedule a name, a Full-time Equivalent (FTE) value, and a time block. When adding or editing a schedule type, you may choose to “Hide from forecasting”. If you mark this checkbox, that schedule type will not appear on the Capacity Planning Report.
Note: If your center only offers a full-time option, we recommend setting your schedule time to have a scheduled start and end time. However, if your center offers multiple schedules, please set your full-time schedule to the “All Day” time block.
It is important to enter the Full-time Equivalent (FTE) amount for each schedule type. These numbers typically range from 0-1 with 1 being a full-time student.
Step 4: Set your Holidays (if applicable)
The Capacity Planning Report can omit certain days from the report calculations. This is important to ensure you are not counting additional slots that cannot be filled during a scheduled holiday or break. To configure your holidays, simply add a title and select the day you will be closed.
While this step is optional, it will offer more accurate calculations on weeks that you may not be open Monday-Friday.
Step 5: Set your Forecast Default Calculations
Within the Forecasting Defaults section, centers have the ability to set their Ideal Revenue Percentages and Target Payroll Percentages. These numbers will power the center-wide summaries at the bottom of the report. Please enter numbers only. You do not need to enter the % signs.
The final setting that will need to be set will reside in the group settings.
Step 6: Configure Staff Pay Types
To power payroll ratios and time-keeping information, you will need to set your staff member’s pay types. When adding a new pay type, you may choose to enter a standard rate amount or reference the pay rate on a staff member’s profile. Let’s add a pay rate together:
1. Locate the “Staff Pay Types” section and tap “Configure”
2. Enter your center’s weekly overtime threshold. For example, if staff members are paid overtime if they work more than 40 hours, you would set the Hours Threshold to “40”,
3. Tap “Add Custom Pay Type”
4. Enter a name for this payment type in the “Type” box, then enter in a standard pay rate (if applicable). For example, if you offer “Event” pay at $12 per hour regardless of which employee is working the event, you would enter:
5. If the pay rate is specific to the employee, you may select the “Rate Determined on Staff Profile” box. If this checkbox is selected, the system will use the employee’s standard pay rate when calculating payroll information:
Please add as many payment types as your center accounts for. Examples include Sick time, PTO, Unpaid Time Off, etc.
Step 7: Ensure Tuition Plans are Properly Categorized
When forecasting enrollment, it is important to note that MomentPath primarily considers predictable forms of revenue. To ensure your center is not accounting for variable charges, such as meal plans or access to optional services at your center, we will want to double-check that our tuition plans are properly categorized within the Billing Settings tab.
1. Tap on “Billing” on the left-hand menu
2. Tap on the “Configuration”
3. Ensure all of your tuition plans are categorized correctly. If you notice a tuition plan is missing its “Tuition” category or that a non-tuition plan is incorrectly categorized, tap the “Actions” drop-down to edit that plan’s classification. Remember, the goal is to ensure the Tuition category is only applied to tuition items.
Step 8: Entering Enrollment and Withdraw Dates for Children
To help ensure the Enrollment Forecast Report is including the correct children, you will need to enter an Enrollment date for all children. If a child no longer attends your center, you will also want to enter a withdrawal date for that student. To add this information:
1. Visit a child’s profile and scroll to the “About Me” section
2. Enter the date the child enrolled at your center in the “Enrollment Date” profile field
3. If the child no longer attends, set a withdrawal date. If this student actively attends, you may leave this profile field blank.
Note: If you have deactivated a child, you may need to locate their inactive account to set their withdrawal date. For a quick refresher on locating deactivated accounts, click here
4. Once you have entered this information, scroll down to the bottom of the “About Me” section to save your entries:
Step 9: Configure the child’s schedule
To help manage weekly headcounts and FTE calculations, you may find it helpful to configure each child’s schedule with the new schedule types we established in Step 2. This information will help you assess which children will be present throughout the day. To add or edit a child’s schedule:
1. Visit a child’s profile and select the “Scheduling” tab
2. If the child already has a schedule entered, you may use the three “...” to edit the schedule.
3. Ensure the “Schedule Type” and “Group” fields have been filled out before tapping “save”
Note:
Do not leave the “Group” field selected as “Default”. It is most important to select the specific group name when creating a new schedule entry for the child.
The FTE value will automatically calculate based on the days selected and the FTE value assigned to that schedule type. For example, 5 days will equal 1 FTE for a full-time student. If the student only attends for 3 days, the system will automatically calculate the FTE value as 0.6.
If a child has a recurring schedule, ensure all of their schedules include a schedule type.
If the child is transitioning from one room to another on a specific date, you can enter the “End date” on the current schedule and enroll the child in a new schedule for the new group. A child can be enrolled in as many schedules as needed to account for multiple transitions from room to room or program to program.
All forecasting tools reference the child's schedule. Even if a child is deactivated, children may still be included if they have not had their schedules ended properly. When children are deactivated, the system will automatically end any non-ended schedules using the child's withdrawal date.
Note: If you have already ended, deactivating a child will not override the end date you have already selected. The date will only auto-populate for current schedules.
Step 10: Ensure the child’s billing plan has the “Include on Enrollment Forecast” date entered
If the Enrollment Forecast Report is a new feature for your center, you may need to configure each child’s billing plan to ensure the proper tuition is calculated for recurring tuition.
Visit a child’s profile and tap on the “Billing” tab
1. Under the “Plans” header, ensure the child’s billing plan shows an “Include on Enrollment Forecast” date.
If you do not see a date entered, simply edit the billing plan and enter the day you would like this child’s billing plan to calculate towards the recurring tuition for their classroom.
Note:
Once Enrollment Forecasting is enabled at your center, you may receive an error if you skip this field when enrolling a child in a tuition billing plan. This is a stopgap to ensure the proper information is filled out when enrolling a child in a billing plan. You will only need to complete this step if you had used MomentPath Billing prior to the release of Enrollment Forecasting.
Non-tuition plans, such as a meal plan, will not require you to set an “Include on Enrollment Forecasting” date as they do not calculate towards recurring tuition.
Step 11: Configuring your Staff Profiles
Just as we added information to our child profiles, we will now add information to your staff profiles to help power the Enrollment Forecast Report!
1. Visit a Staff member’s profile
2. Within the staff member’s “Account” section, ensure the staff member has a “Default Group” saved to their profile. This is the room in which they will spend most of their time.
3. Scroll to the “About Me” section and locate the Hourly Pay Rate and Employee Classification profile fields. Enter in the applicable information:
Hourly Pay Rate: Enter the hourly wage of the employee. You should enter this information with numeric values only.
Employee Classification: If the employee is a full-time, salaried employee you should mark them as exempt. All hourly employees should be marked as Non-Exempt.
4. Ensure you save the staff member’s profile after editing their profile fields.
5. From the staff member’s profile, you will also need to complete the “Payroll Forecast” section. Enter the total hours a teacher is expected to work on any given day. If an employee’s schedule fluctuates, it is recommended to ensure the total number of hours the teacher typically works is represented in the Payroll Forecast section. A full-time employee, for example, might be predicted to work 8 hours per day to give them a weekly total of 40 hours. Once you have entered the total weekly hours, tap “Save Payroll Forecast”
Step 12: Adding a Staff member’s schedule
To help with daily and weekly headcounts, you will need to enter a schedule for your employees. This process is nearly identical to the process we used to add a child’s schedule into the system.
1. Visit the staff member’s profile and tap on the “Scheduling” tab
2. If the staff member already has a schedule entered, you may use the three “...” to edit the schedule.
3. Ensure the “Schedule Type” field has been filled out before tapping “save".
Notes:
If a staff member has a recurring schedule, ensure all of their schedules include a schedule type.
Remember, staff members may also have more than one schedule. It is quite possible for a staff member to have a “Before Care” schedule and a “Primary Care” schedule. Each of these schedule items can be designated with a schedule type.
Congratulations! You are now ready to utilize the Enrollment Forecast and Capacity Planning reports!
FAQ
How do I record an upcoming transition?
If you know a child is transitioning from one program to another, you can add a transition within the child’s Scheduling tab.
Visit the child’s profile and tap on the “Scheduling” tab
Under the “Schedule & Transitions” tab, ensure the child’s current schedule has an “end date”
Add a new schedule item for the room they are transitioning to.
Ensure the start date for this schedule represents the day the child will start in that room and that all applicable fields have been entered.
Once you save the child’s new schedule, you will see their progression plan within the “Schedule & Transitions” tab. You may always edit or remove a schedule or transition if things shift in the future!