Playground can be customized to meet your program needs and preferences by navigating to the Settings tab in your Admin dashboard. The article below outlines the most important settings and decisions you’ll need to make to get started with Playground. For more information about all settings, see here.
Note: Most settings are designed to toggle on/off. A setting is “on” if the toggle is to the right and green in color. It is “off” if the toggle is to the left and gray in color. The description of the setting will specify what happens when it is on or off.
The following set-up will take you approximately 5-10 minutes to complete. Prefer a video? Watch here for guidance.
General Settings
This tab includes general information about and settings for your center, attendance policies, communication policies, guardian permissions, and teacher permissions.
Step 1
To get started with Playground, please confirm your Center settings within the “General Settings” are correct.
Reply-to emails: Add/confirm your reply-to-email address is correct.
Taxpayer Identification Number: Add/confirm your Taxpayer ID Number.
Step 2
Within General Settings, navigate down to Teacher Permissions.
Toggle on or off the following settings based on your program's needs:
Setting | Turn on if... | Turn off if... |
Edit student classrooms | Your students move from classroom to classroom (this affects ratio) | Your students are in one classroom (this affects ratio) |
School wide visibility | You would like your staff to see all students enrolled at the center | You would like your staff to only see the students in their assigned classroom(s) |
Track staff current classroom | Turn this on to ensure correct ratio | We recommend this stay on |
Mobile app restrictions while clocked out | You want to keep staff from communicating with families and viewing student files outside work hours | Your staff communicate with families after hours and need to view student files at any time |
Restrict teacher check-in hours | We recommend you turn this on to ensure your hourly reports are fully accurate | Your staff chooses to take lunch whenever they want, OR if your schedule changes more frequently than you update in Playground's system |
Step 3
Navigate to the “Billing” section in the top menu.
This tab includes settings for your center’s billing cycles, processing fees, reminders, and autopay. We will review much of this in our onboarding calls, but there are 4 things that you should select before beginning onboarding.
1. Start at the “General” category
Default billing frequency: Set whether you bill your families monthly or weekly.
Note: If you bill on a bi-weekly cadence, you should select “weekly.” Your Onboarding Manager will support you with custom billing set-up if you use any other cadence.
2. Scroll down to “Weekly billing cycles” OR “Monthly billing cycles,” per your billing frequency
2a. Weekly billing cycles:
Billing cycle ends on: Select the day of the week family payments are due (i.e., the billing due date)
Service dates: Select what each billing cycle covers from the 4 options:
Option | What it covers | Example |
Same as billing cycle | The most recent full week before your billing due date. | If your due date is Friday, October 10, this option will show service dates for October 4 – October 10. |
Weekdays | Monday through Friday of the current week (not tied to billing due date). | If today is Wednesday, October 8, this will show October 6 – October 10. |
Upcoming billing cycle | The entire week following your billing due date. | If your due date is Friday, October 10, this will show October 11 – October 17. |
Upcoming Weekdays [Recommended] | Monday through Friday of the next week (after billing due date). | If your due date is Friday, Oct 10, this will show October 13 – October 17. |
2a. Monthly billing cycles:
Billing cycle ends on: Select the date in the month that family payments are due (i.e., the billing due date)
Service dates: Select what each billing cycle covers from the 4 options:
Option | What it covers | Example |
Same as billing cycle | The month leading up to the billing due date | If the due date is Friday, November 1, this option will show service dates for October 2 - November 1. |
Calendar Month | 1st - Last Day of the current month, regardless of billing due date | This will show October 1 - October 31, with payment due on your chosen day in October. |
Upcoming billing cycle | The month following your billing due date | If the due date is November 1, this option will show service dates for November 2 - December 1. |
Upcoming Calendar Month [Recommended] | 1st - Last Day of the month following the billing due date | This will show November 1 - November 30, with payment due on your chosen day in October. |
3. Scroll down to “Processing fees”
Pass credit card fees onto guardians: Toggle on if you would like to pass fees on
Pass ACH fees onto guardians: Toggle on if you would like to pass fees on
Note: We highly recommend turning these on.
💡Additional guidance on processing fees: When families pay their balances through the Playground app, a small processing fee is applied to the transaction. There are two types of fees: credit card fees and ACH fees. As a billing administrator, you can decide for each fee type whether your program or the families will cover the costs. This allows you to specify whether the program or the families pay the credit card fees and whether the program or the families pay the ACH fees.
Read more about processing fees at Playground here.
🚨 If you decide to absorb fees, we highly recommend never taking on the credit/debit fee (3% + $0.30 per transaction). Instead, only consider covering the ACH fee, which is a flat $1 per transaction and far more cost-effective.
4. Scroll down to "Mandatory Autopay"
Mandatory autopay: Toggle this “on” if you want to enroll all families in mandatory autopay when they add their payment method. This will enable Playground to charge families directly and reduce the need for you to chase down payments.
💡 We strongly recommend requiring families to set up auto pay. This helps ensure payments are received on time and eliminates the hassle of chasing down late payments. You can always make exceptions for specific families and exempt them from auto pay; your onboarding manager will show you how.
Step 4
Navigate to the “Scheduling” section in the top menu.
The “Scheduling Overage” section allows you to set up automatic late pick-up fees for families and to determine how many hours constitute “full time” for your students. To get started, we’ll focus on late fees. (Read more about fee approvals here.)
Overage billing type: Select whether late pick-up fees start at a certain time or apply anytime a child is at the center outside of their specific schedule
Overtime billing rate: Set the rate you charge for late pick-up fees
Default grace period: Set how long families have beyond pick-up before late fees kick in. If you do not have a grace period, set this to “0 minutes”
💡At Playground, we do not support flat late pick-up fees. To ease your transition into Playground and ensure the late pick-up feature provides the most value, we recommend setting fees as a rate per time period (for example: $1 per minute or $5 per minute). This structure allows you to rely on accurate reporting before charging and simplifies fee tracking.
Thank you for setting up your core settings! Your onboarding manager will take you through the next steps in your Onboarding Kick Off Call.