HR and payroll software for daycare centres and preschools
Offrd costs ₹50 per active employee per month, with no minimum headcount and no setup fee. Teachers, caregivers, helpers and the centre head sit on one employee record, with QR attendance at the gate and a payslip each month. A daycare with 12 staff pays ₹600 a month.
Last updated 11 October 2026
Why is HR in a daycare different from HR in an office?
A daycare opens early and closes late, and its staff keep lopsided hours. One caregiver opens the centre in the morning, another stays on until the last child is collected. One shared register leaves the head tallying hours by hand at month end, which is fiddly work and easy to get wrong.
Preschool chains add a further tangle. Every branch has its own staff and its own gate, while the owner wants one payroll for all of them. When each branch keeps a separate spreadsheet, a teacher who moves between branches ends up as two records with two joining dates, and the payroll clerk has to wrangle them into one.
The paperwork is its own muddle. A letter cobbled together from an older file carries the old name, the old date and now and then a stray old salary.
How do you mark attendance for teachers and caregivers?
Each centre is a site, stored with a name, a code, latitude, longitude and a geofence radius. Staff mark attendance with a QR code at the entrance, using the camera on their phone. A biometric machine you already own syncs to the same record, so there is no need to rip it out.
Shifts are named schedules with a start time, an end time and a grace period. If your centre runs a morning session and a full day session, each becomes its own named shift, and nobody has to juggle two timetables inside one register. Breaks can be tracked inside the day, and the holiday calendar holds national, regional and optional holidays.
| Role | Where they work | How attendance is marked |
|---|---|---|
| Teacher | Inside the centre | QR at the entrance, or biometric |
| Caregiver and helper | Inside the centre | QR check in, named shift |
| Kitchen staff, where the centre has a kitchen | Inside the centre | QR check in |
| Centre head | Inside the centre | QR check in, general shift |
| Driver and van attendant, if you run transport | On the road | GPS check in |
| A second branch | A separate location | A separate site with its own geofence |
Which letters and records does a childcare centre need for its staff?
Under the Labour Codes in force from 21 November 2025, every employee must get a written appointment letter. That covers the head teacher and the helper who joined last week.
In Offrd every letter comes from one generator. The salary structure balances against total CTC, and the PIN code of the centre fixes the city, district and state, so the professional tax slab arrives without anyone thumbing through a state list.
At onboarding, the new joiner's Aadhaar and PAN are verified in real time, and the letter goes out for e signature. Offrd tracks probation confirmation dates and generates the confirmation letter when it falls due.
Increment, experience and relieving letters come from the same record. The policy generator builds a POSH policy, a health and safety policy and a master HR policy from a questionnaire.
Full and final settlement is a separate module with its own reference number. It has 19 standard deduction heads and 13 exit payout heads, and it draws on the same pay heads as the payslips, so the two always tally.
The statutory part is calculated inside payroll and not submitted anywhere. Provident fund is 12 percent from the employer and 12 percent from the employee on the ₹25,000 wage ceiling, and ESI is 3.25 percent from the employer and 0.75 percent from the employee for as long as gross pay stays under ₹21,000. Professional tax comes from the state that the centre PIN code resolves to. Gratuity is wages times 15, times years of service, divided by 26. Filing returns is not part of it. The EPFO ECR and the TRACES 24Q stay with your CA, who receives the payroll in EPF return format.
What does Offrd not do for a daycare?
Child records, admissions, fee collection and messages to parents are not in Offrd. Your childcare or school software goes on doing that, and Offrd holds the staff record alongside it.
Performance reviews, OKRs, 360 feedback, expense claims, a helpdesk and an asset register are also absent. On the hiring side, Pre-Hire screens resumes before the interview, ranks them and suggests interview questions. The interview and the hiring decision stay with you.
Offrd also calculates statutory amounts and does not file them. If your main need is returns that file themselves, better to hear that now than after signup.
Signup brings 50 free credits, with no card. That is enough for one appointment letter, one onboarding pack and about a dozen payslips.
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What do daycare and preschool owners ask?
- How do teachers and caregivers mark attendance?
- They scan the QR code at the entrance with their phone. If the centre has a plain biometric machine, it can sync to the same record, so the machine stays on the wall.
- Does every staff member need an appointment letter?
- Yes. Under the Labour Codes in force from 21 November 2025, every employee must get a written appointment letter. That covers teachers, caregivers, helpers and the centre head.
- We have three branches. Do we pay three times?
- No. Billing is ₹50 per active employee per month for the whole group. Each branch is a site with its own geofence, and payroll runs in a single cycle. There is no seat block and no minimum headcount.
- What happens when a teacher moves to another branch?
- The site is changed on the same employee record. The joining date, salary structure and earlier documents stay with the person.
- Can Offrd verify a new caregiver's identity documents?
- Aadhaar and PAN are verified in real time during onboarding. Other checks your centre does on its own, such as a reference call, stay with you.
- Does Offrd handle admissions or fee collection?
- No. Child records, admissions, fees and parent messages belong in your childcare or school software. Offrd keeps the staff side only.
- What does a daycare with 12 staff pay?
- ₹600 a month on the subscription plan, which is ₹50 per active employee. It covers documents, EPF, ESI, professional tax and gratuity calculation, attendance and leave management. There is no setup fee.
How do you try Offrd at one branch?
Signup brings 50 free credits, with no card. Make one branch a site, put the staff on QR attendance for a month, and eyeball the attendance summary before you decide on the rest.
Statutory rates follow the published rules of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation and ESIC, and the Labour Codes notified by the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Several limits vary by state. This is general information and not legal advice. Confirm your own position with your CA or legal adviser. Questions go to service@offrd.co.