Everything you need to run your setting with KinderStart, in the order you'll need it.
Follow the stages in order the first time: sign up, set up your business, add your policies, add children and parents, set up contracts, then run your day. Come back to any guide whenever you need it.
Your account is ready and you know your way around.
Sign up with an email and password, verify your email, and you're ready to log in.
Try KinderStart in Demo Mode: look at sample children, the tools and the registration tracker without creating an account.
See who's in and what needs doing, log things quickly with the + button, and complete today's safety check.
Upgrade to the Standard plan to unlock children, the daily diary, observations, invoicing and finances, and restore it on a new phone.
Your business details, registration and billing are in place.
Add your business profile, payment details and default rate, local authority funding rates, consents and term dates.
Work through the four phases of registering with Ofsted or the Care Inspectorate, and keep your certificates in My Passport.
Understand actuals, contract, annual, and termly billing — and pick the right method for each family you care for, then download the invoice as a PDF.
Your policies, risk assessments and consents are ready to share.
Start from a policy template, save it as a PDF, and check your home room by room.
Set the consents every family is asked for when they register, in your own words.
The three kinds of safeguarding record, how long the law says to keep each one, and how to show them at an inspection.
Each child has a profile and their parents are invited to the app.
Quick Add a child, invite a parent to fill in the details, and set the days they come.
Enter a child’s details, health needs, consents and All About Me yourself, then add their parent.
Add a parent or carer to a child, send their invitation, and review the details they send back.
Every child has a signed contract, and funded hours are tracked.
Build the terms you use with every family once, starting from the KinderStart clauses.
Fixed, alternating, term-time, wrap-around and ad-hoc schedules, and how to set up a Week A and Week B rota.
Set a child’s days and rates, check the estimate, and send the contract to the parent to sign.
Check your funding claim and each child’s used and banked hours, and cost a new place before you take it.
Arrivals, meals, naps, accidents and safety checks are recorded as they happen.
Sign children in, log meals and naps, sign them out and publish the day to parents.
Record nappy changes, sun cream and extra charges like a late pickup in a child’s diary.
Mark a child absent with a reason, and log a dose of medicine from their diary.
What to do when KinderStart's safeguarding alert opens for a booked child who is more than 30 minutes late.
Record what you saw, what the child said and what you did, with a body map and case status.
Record an accident, the first aid you gave and who you told, then download the accident report as a PDF to share with parents.
Review your daily safety checks, complete a room-by-room audit, and find every compliance log.
Log monthly smoke alarm tests and fire drills, and export the record for an inspector.
Ask parents for permission for a trip in the app, and see who has signed before you go.
Plan the week’s meals, publish the menu to parents, and have meals filled in when you log them.
Save your favourite meals once, with costs, allergens and method, ready to plan on any week.
Browse recipes other childminders have shared, filter for allergies, and save a copy to your own library.
Copy a day across the week, repeat a week forward, or set up a rolling menu cycle.
Have KinderAssist plan a week, a day or a single meal around your children's allergies, then apply it to your menu.
See allergen alerts for the children booked in each day, share a kitchen prep sheet, and score the week's nutrition.
Build a shopping list from the week's menu and log the shop as a food expense in one tap.
Send one announcement to every family, with photos and this week’s activities.
Observations, next steps and plans build each child's learning journey.
Write down what a child did and said, link it to the EYFS and set a next step, with a reference on observation types.
Export a child's learning journey as a PDF with their photos, words and next steps, then download it from Export History.
Save an observation with a next step and plan an activity for it, so it’s waiting on your weekly plan.
Record setting closures and children’s holidays, and see them by month on the Setting Calendar.
See how your tagged observations build into a real picture of development — the Exploration Landscape, Review Timers, and Next Steps Journey.
Write each child's Care Inspectorate personal plan using the SHANARRI indicators, sign it, and send it to the parent to co-sign.
Invoices go out, expenses are logged and your tax return is ready.
Log funding and expenses and watch your Net Income update as each one is saved.
Log household bills with the business share worked out from your hours, and journeys at HMRC mileage rates.
Log funding and grants, read your year by month or category, and see how your tax estimate is worked out.
Enter your NINO and MTD Enrolment ID, authorise KinderStart with HMRC, and work through the MTD readiness roadmap.
Check and send your quarterly MTD updates, apportion household costs, and make your legally binding Final Declaration.
Statutory reports are done and you are ready for inspection.
Check where a child’s EYFS evidence is thin, then draft an End of Year Report from your observations, share it with parents and download it as a PDF.
Complete the statutory EYFS 2-Year Check across the three prime areas, generate and share the report, and sign it off on screen.
See a child’s sessions, hours and absences in Attendance History, and use Gap Analysis to find the areas with too few observations.
For settings in Scotland: write a SHANARRI-based 27-30 Month Review for the health visitor appointment and save a Care Inspectorate self-evaluation.
Check a child’s information-sharing consent and start a support plan with the voice of the child.
Generate an evidence archive for each child to share with an inspector, with financial data left out, and download it from Export History.
Rehearse answers to practice inspection scenarios, read what inspectors look for, and track your confidence.
See how full each day is, and spot days flagged RATIO or WARNING before they arrive.
Invite assistants with their own login, track DBS and first aid expiry, and review timesheets, leave and pay.
Export one child’s records as a PDF, ZIP or JSON file with only the categories you choose, then download it from Export History.
Take a child who has left off your daily registers and active lists, keep all their records, and re-activate them if they return.
Passwords, security, credits, cancelling and getting support.
Send a question, bug report or feature idea to the KinderStart team from the Help Centre.
Get a reset code by email, then choose a new password from the login screen.
Turn on SMS codes at sign-in from My Profile, and how it differs from Face ID or fingerprint lock.
Check your monthly KinderAssist allowance and top up with booster credits when you need more.
How to cancel or change your KinderStart plan in the app, in a browser, or through the App Store and Google Play.
Our support team is here to help. Get in touch and we'll guide you through any feature.
Browse ResourcesKinderStart strives for accuracy. Competitor features and pricing comparisons are based on publicly available information as of May 2026. Details are subject to change by respective providers.