Crèche management software built for South African centres
One place for your learner records, daily attendance, the monthly register, fees, bank reconciliation and parent messages, priced in rand and published on this page.
Set up free with your real class list. Pay only when you go live. No card, no lock-in.
Crèche management software keeps a centre's learner records, daily attendance, fee statements and parent communication in one system instead of books and WhatsApp threads. In South Africa it also has to produce the monthly attendance register your district ECD official asks for, which the R24 per child per day subsidy claim is built from.
Zande does that. It reads your bank statement PDF from FNB, ABSA, Standard Bank, Nedbank or Capitec, matches deposits to learners, and sends fee reminders on WhatsApp. Starter is R99 a month up to 40 learners, Pro R299 up to 100, Growth R499 unlimited. Setup is free.
The dashboard of a real centre. Learners, collection rate and the month's fees in one place.
Why the imported software does not fit
A lot of crèche software was written for schools in other countries. It wants card payments and debit orders. Your parents pay by EFT from a Capitec app, in cash at the gate, or out of a SASSA grant that lands in the first week of the month. It wants email. Your parents read WhatsApp. It prices in dollars and hides the number behind a demo booking. And it has never heard of the monthly attendance register your district ECD official asks for, which is what your subsidy claim is built from.
So the centre runs on paper. A register book. A fee book. A bank statement you scroll through on your phone at night trying to work out whether that R250 from "T MABUZA" is Thandi in Grade R or her cousin in the toddler room. Two hours on a Saturday reconciling. A month later you find out three parents have not paid since April and nobody noticed.
The register is worse. Every child, every day the centre is open, ticked by hand, then copied into the format the district ECD official wants. The register is what the subsidy claim is built from, so a month with gaps in it is a month you have to go back and reconstruct.
How it works
We load your centre for you, free
Send a fee spreadsheet or a photo of your register book on WhatsApp to 066 238 2296. We load the learners, the parent numbers, the fees and the payment history. One 300-child centre was loaded from a single fee spreadsheet including eight months of past payments.
Mark attendance on your phone each morning
The teacher opens the class list in the phone browser and taps present or absent. That single tap builds the monthly register in the background, so it is finished by the time the month ends. No separate book, no copying out.
Upload your bank statement, clear the queue
Download the statement PDF from your banking app and upload it. Zande matches deposits to learners, learns from every correction you make, and lets you split one deposit across siblings. Anything it cannot match sits in an unmatched queue you clear in a few minutes.
Reminders go out on WhatsApp, on the right dates
Grant parents are paid in the first week, roughly the 4th to the 7th. Salaried parents are paid on the 25th or the last working day. Reminders go on the 26th, the 6th and the 20th, so the message arrives while there is money in the account.
What you get
Monthly attendance register, built automatically
Daily attendance marked on a phone becomes the register the district ECD official asks for. Nothing is written twice.
Bank reconciliation for the five big banks
Statement PDF, CSV or Excel from FNB, ABSA, Standard Bank, Nedbank or Capitec. Matching improves every time you correct it, and one deposit can be split across siblings.
Fee statements and arrears tracking
Every learner has a running statement showing what was charged, what was paid and what is outstanding. Arrears are listed by parent, oldest first, so you know who to phone.
WhatsApp fee reminders
Reminders go where parents actually read, timed to SASSA and salary pay dates. No email addresses to collect and no printed letters to hand out at the gate.
Learner, staff and incident records
Full learner file with parent contacts and documents, staff records, and incident reports you can produce when a parent or an inspector asks.
Enrolment, parent portal and ELDA progress
Online enrolment forms, a parent portal for statements and notices, ELDA child progress tracking, expense tracking, and multi-site if you run more than one centre.
Why trust this one
Zande is built in Hazyview, Mpumalanga, by Siyabonga Ndlovu, who runs a 114-learner crèche. Every part of it was written to fix a problem at that centre first. The reconciliation exists because he sat with a Capitec statement and a fee book on a Saturday. The 26th, 6th and 20th reminder dates exist because those are the days money is actually in a parent's account here.
The honest limits, stated up front. There is no offline mode, so you need a signal to mark attendance. There is no app to download, it runs in the phone browser. There are no card payments and no debit orders, because parents keep paying the way they already pay, into your own bank account. Zande takes no cut of tuition.
Your data belongs to your centre. Parent and child information is personal information under POPIA and the system is built on that basis. See the POPIA guide for what a centre has to do.
What it costs
The price is on this page because you should not have to sit through a call to find it out. Starter is R99 a month for up to 40 learners, which is R2.48 per learner. Pro is R299 a month for up to 100 learners, R2.99 per learner. Growth is R499 a month for unlimited learners, R3.33 per learner at 150 children. Annual payment is 20 percent off. Setup is free and you pay only when you go live, so there is no card to start. On Starter, one recovered R250 fee covers the software for two months.
Common questions
What does it cost, in rand?
R99 a month up to 40 learners, R299 up to 100, R499 unlimited. Annual is 20 percent off. Setup is free, there is no card required to start, and you pay only when you go live.
Do parents have to change how they pay?
No. EFT, cash or a SASSA grant, straight into your centre's own Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, ABSA or Nedbank account. Zande does not touch the money and takes no cut of tuition. There are no card payments and no debit orders.
Will it produce the register I need for the R24 subsidy?
Yes. Daily attendance marked on a phone builds the monthly register your district asks for, in the format on our free template. The subsidy is R24 per child per day attended, paid per approved subsidised place, means-tested and capped by the provincial allocation. The claim guide explains the process.
I have 300 children on a spreadsheet and eight months of payments. Can you load that?
Yes, and it is free. WhatsApp the spreadsheet, or a photo of the register book, to 066 238 2296. That exact case has been done, 300 children with eight months of payment history loaded from one fee spreadsheet.
Does it work on a phone, and does it work offline?
It works in the phone browser, so there is nothing to download and no app store account needed. It does not work offline. You need a signal to mark attendance or upload a statement.
Set up your whole centre free and see it running with your real class list before you pay anything. Send us a spreadsheet or a photo of the register book on WhatsApp and we load it for you.
Set up your centre free →