Z a n d e
ECD management, simplified
Crèche admin on your phone

Get your crèche paid.
Not just organised.

Set up your whole centre free — add your learners and see it running with your real class list. You only pay when you're ready to go live.

It pays for itself the first time one unpaid parent finally settles up. WhatsApp fee reminders, the attendance register your district asks for, and every learner file on your phone — for DOE-registered, private and community crèches.

Built by Siyabonga Ndlovu, who runs a 114-learner crèche in Hazyview, Mpumalanga.

✓ Works in your phone browser ✓ Free setup, we do it with you ✓ Pay by card or EFT

Not sure where to start? WhatsApp us — we'll import your learners and set up your centre with you, free.

Curious what you're losing? Take the 60-second leak check →

Dashboard
Payments
Attendance
Bethel Crèche · sample view ● Live
114
Learners
87%
Collected
R28.4k
This month
Recent learners
Amahle Dlamini
Toddler · Age 2
Paid
Sipho Nkosi
Grade R · Age 5
Paid
Lerato Mokoena
Pre-school · Age 3
Due
Export DOE register →
Fee Collection 12 unpaid
CollectedR23,450
74% collectedTarget: R31,420
Outstanding
Thabo Sithole
R250 · Toddler
Mark paid
Zanele Khumalo
R360 · Grade R
Mark paid
Nomsa Ndlovu
R370 · Newborn
Mark paid
Attendance — Today 102 present
Grade R · Mark attendance
AM
SN
LM
TC
ZK
NP
KS
BM
TN
PP
SZ
MK
LS
AN
KM
DS
NM
TK
Present (15) Absent (3)
Submit DOE register →
DOE register ready
June — 114 learners · 1 click
Attendance Registers Fee Statements Compliance Tracker Online Enrolment Staff Management Incident Reports Document Scanner WhatsApp Reminders Attendance Registers Fee Statements Compliance Tracker Online Enrolment Staff Management Incident Reports Document Scanner WhatsApp Reminders
R24/child/day DBE subsidy Automatic DOE registers Statements on WhatsApp POPIA compliant Mobile-first design No IT support needed R24/child/day DBE subsidy Automatic DOE registers Statements on WhatsApp POPIA compliant Mobile-first design No IT support needed
R24
DBE subsidy per child per day — we make sure you capture it
2 min
Daily attendance on your phone — no paper, no Excel
1 click
DOE register built and exported at month-end
R0 to start
Free to set up — no card, no contract, no setup fee
The problem

Does this sound familiar?

Running a crèche is hard enough. The admin shouldn't be the hardest part.

Paper registers get lost — and you lose the subsidy

The DBE pays R24 per child, per day. But only if your register is correct, complete, and in the right format. One missing page costs you thousands.

✓ Zande builds the register automatically, every day

Chasing 90 parents for fees — one WhatsApp at a time

Every month, the same parents. The same conversations. The same half-promises. Your collection rate stays stuck at 60% while you chase individually.

✓ Automated reminders on the 4th, 10th, and 20th

Your learner records are scattered. Nothing is easy to find.

A parent asks for last month's fee statement. A learner's intake form is in a drawer somewhere. Your register is half in a notebook, half on your phone. Small admin tasks take 30 minutes to sort out.

✓ Everything stored, organised, ready in one click
Fix this for your centre →
Inside the app

This is the actual app.

Not mockups. A real 48-learner centre, mid-term, with fees half collected and a DOE register due.

Zande dashboard: 48 active learners, R12,660 collected of R14,240 expected, R1,580 outstanding, DOE 48 of 48 submitted, 89% collection rate. Learner list showing each child's class, parent, monthly fee and the day that family pays, with overdue families flagged. Payments for the month: 43 paid and 5 outstanding, each unpaid learner with a Record button. Printable DOE attendance register generated from daily attendance. Bank statement reconciliation matching deposits to learners, with unmatched EFTs listed for review. WhatsApp fee reminders: four parents owing R1,220, each with a Send button and an editable message. Monthly collection report for the year, showing the collection rate climbing from 69% in January to 89% in August.

Every unpaid parent, on one screen. Who owes, how much, and one tap to record the payment when it lands.

Parent portal on a phone: amount due R250 for June, the centre's banking details, and the payment reference to use.

Parents get their own page. What they owe, how to pay, and the exact reference to use — so the money lands matched.

R24
per child · per day · DBE subsidy
The money most centres miss

Registered with DOE?
The DBE pays R24 per child. Most centres miss some of it.

For DOE-registered centres, the subsidy only pays out if your attendance register is correct every single day. Miss a day and you lose the claim for that child. Zande takes attendance on your phone and builds the register automatically — in the exact format your province requires.

How many subsidised places has your district approved? 60 places
R30,240/month at full attendance
60 places × R24 × 21 days attended. That is the ceiling at full attendance, so a month with absences or a closure pays less. Not sure how many places you hold? Zande shows which learners are on your approved list and which are not.
Build the register this is claimed on → WhatsApp us your number How to claim the subsidy: full guide
Everything you need

Built around how your centre actually works.

Every tool an ECD owner needs — from the first enrolment to monthly admin — in one clean interface. Works for DOE-registered and private centres.

Attendance & DOE Registers

Mark attendance on your phone in under 2 minutes. Zande builds the attendance register automatically, in the format your district accepts. Submit at month-end — no reformatting.

Learner Management

Full learner profiles, age groups, fee classes, enrolment dates, and every child's documents scanned and stored in one place.

Fee Collection & Statements

Record payments, track outstanding balances, and send the statement straight to the parent on WhatsApp — by email too if they want it. Zande works out who to chase and writes the message, so you never chase manually again.

Statements out
1 tap
Reminders
Automatic

Compliance Tracker

Track every document, certificate, and inspection date. Get notified 30 days before anything expires.

Incident Reports

Log incidents, notify parents, maintain records. All timestamped and stored.

Staff Management

Staff records, roles, contact details and start dates — all in one place.

Financial Reports

Monthly collection summaries, outstanding reports, and audit-ready records exported in one click.

Fee Reconciliation

Upload the statement PDF straight from your banking app — Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, ABSA or Nedbank — and Zande matches every EFT to the right learner. No more mystery deposits or ticking a paper list by hand. On another bank? Send us a sample and we'll add it within a week.

Online Enrolment Pro

Share one link. Parents apply online with their child's details and documents — applications drop straight into your pending list to approve, waitlist or decline in a tap.

Child Progress Growth

Track each child against the Early Learning Development Areas (ELDA). Capture observations through the year and produce a progress report parents can see.

Expense Tracking Pro

Log your centre's running costs and see income against expenses each month — the real picture of what your centre actually keeps.

Multi-Site Growth

Run several branches from one login. Each site keeps its own learners, staff and registers, and you see the whole group in one owner view.

Parent Portal Growth

Give parents a secure login to see their fees, invoices, statements and their child's monthly attendance — no more "what do I owe?" messages. They sign in with their phone number and child's name; it's read-only.

Free School Website Growth

Every Growth centre gets a clean, mobile-friendly website — your logo, classes, fees and an online enquiry form — so parents find you on Google and apply. We build and host it for you.

Included with Growth
R0
Built & hosted
for you
Why Zande exists

Built inside a working crèche.

Zande wasn't designed in an office park. It runs a real ECD centre every single morning.

SN
The founder

"I run Bethel Crèche here in Hazyview, 114 children. I got tired of chasing fees and rebuilding DOE registers by hand, so I built the software I wished existed. Every feature has to work at my centre before it reaches yours. Zande isn't built by a startup that never heard of the DOE. It's built by a principal, in rand, for South Africa."

Siyabonga Ndlovu
Founder, Zande · Principal, Bethel Crèche, Hazyview
Message me directly
114 learners

Zande runs the daily attendance, fee tracking, and DOE registers at a real 114-learner crèche in Hazyview, Mpumalanga — the centre it was built in. Every month-end register you export, we export too.

Z
Our home centre
Hazyview · Mpumalanga · DOE-registered
Same problems

We didn't imagine these problems. We chase the same fees, reconcile the same unmatched EFTs, submit to the same district offices, and answer to the same DOE deadlines as you do.

Z
The Zande team
Built in Hazyview, made for South Africa
The test

Every feature has to survive a real morning at the centre — 6:45 drop-off, one phone, patchy signal, a queue of parents. If it doesn't work there, it doesn't ship.

Z
How we build
Phone-first · low data · no training needed

Software from inside the sector, not above it. Get started free today.

Get started free
Switching

Bring your spreadsheet. We load it for you.

Nobody starts from nothing. Send us whatever you already keep and we set your centre up for you.

10 minutes

Send us the file

Excel, CSV, or a photo of the register. Whatever you actually keep. WhatsApp it to us.

Same day, we do it

We do the work

We map your columns, set up your classes, and load your learners and fee history. Not a template you fill in yourself.

2 minutes every morning

You check it

You open Zande and your centre is already there. If something looks wrong, we fix it before you pay anything. After that it is two minutes a morning to mark the register.

Whatever you keep it in today
A hardcover attendance book An Excel file A WhatsApp thread with the parents A photo of the register on your phone

We recently set up a centre with over 300 children from a single fee spreadsheet — learners, classes, payment dates and eight months of payment history, loaded for them.

Start free

Import is free. Support is a WhatsApp message to a person in your time zone, not a chatbot in another country.

Pricing

Less than one learner's monthly fee.

Across South Africa a place costs R250 to R370 a month, so R299 is one learner. It is also less than the DBE pays you for 13 children attending a single day. Set up your centre free, then unlock the full app from R99/month. No lock-in, no setup fees.

Monthly
Save 20%
Annual
Starter
For small centres getting started.
R99/month
Up to 40 learners · R2.48 per learner
Get started free
  • Up to 40 learners
  • Attendance register
  • DOE register (auto-built)
  • Fee recording & statements
  • WhatsApp fee reminders
  • Financial reports & export
Growth
For established, growing centres — with a parent portal and your own school website.
R499/month
Unlimited learners · R3.33 per learner at 150
WhatsApp us to set it up →
  • Everything in Pro
  • Unlimited learners
  • Free school website
  • Parent portal — fees & attendance
  • Child progress reports (ELDA)
  • Multiple sites / branches
  • Priority support — next-day response
  • Done-for-you setup — we load your learners

Your parents keep paying the way they already pay.

EFT, cash, or a SASSA grant — straight into your own Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank or ABSA account. Zande matches the deposits to the learners. Nothing changes for the parent.

EFTCashSASSA grantNo card on fileNo debit order
FAQ

Common questions

Yes. Take attendance on your phone each day. At month-end, click Export — Zande builds the register in the exact format your DOE office requires. No reformatting, no manual typing.
R24 per child, per day attended, paid on the subsidised places your district has approved, not on every learner on your roll. It is means-tested and capped by your provincial allocation. A centre with 60 approved places, at full attendance across 21 days, would reach R30,240 in a month, and less in any month with absences or a closure. The claim is built from your daily attendance register.
Sign up and add your learners for free. When you're ready, pay from R99/month and we unlock the full app — attendance, fees, statements, registers and reports. Pay by card and it activates instantly and renews each month, or pay by EFT and we activate you within a day.
Yes — Zande is mobile-first. No download or app store. Open your phone browser, go to zande.online, log in. Works on any Android or iPhone.
Yes. Export your Excel file as CSV and upload it during setup. Zande maps the columns. If you get stuck, WhatsApp us and we do the import for you at no charge.
Your data is encrypted, backed up daily, and private to your centre. Learner records are never shared or sold. Two things worth knowing. Our servers are in Manchester in the United Kingdom, not in South Africa, and we will say so here before that changes. And you can export your attendance registers as CSV and your fee statements as PDF whenever you want, so your records are never locked in. For what your centre has to do under POPIA, read our POPIA guide.
Yes. Zande works for all ECD centres — DOE-registered, private, and community-run. If you don't receive the DBE subsidy, the DOE register is optional. You still get fee tracking, parent invoices, learner records, WhatsApp reminders, online enrolment, and all other tools.
No contract, no lock-in. Pay month to month. Cancel from your settings page at any time. If you cancel, your data is available to export for 30 days.
Not ready to sign up yet?
Take the free templates — attendance register, fee policy, and arrears letters. No email needed, no catch.
Get the free templates →
Ready to start?

Stop losing money
to paper and WhatsApp.

Set up takes one afternoon. No card. No IT support. No training. Just you and your phone.

Get started free

Rather have help? WhatsApp us and we'll set up your centre with you — free.

No card to sign up Set up free Set up in one afternoon POPIA compliant
Get started free →