AcornCloud for Community Services
The service is community-owned.The paperwork shouldn’t be.
One system for the day in the rooms, the returns your funder needs, and the pack your voluntary board reads on Tuesday night. Built for not-for-profit services working with CCCs, county councils and NGO parent bodies.
- Core Funding, NCS, ECCE & AIM
- Restricted grant tracking
- Not-for-profit pricing
Tallaght Community Childcare CLG2 sites · 64 children · Programme year 2026/27
CLGReturnsUp to dateNothing outstanding
Funded hours claimed98.4%Programme year to date
Parent contribution€18.40Average weekly, after NCS
Board packReadyGenerated Mon 06:00
Funding & grantsStatus · next date
Core Funding · allocation drawdownAgainst registered hoursReconciled
NCS · 41 childrenIncluding 6 sponsor referralsSubmitted
AIM Level 7 · 2 childrenSupport hours in placeReview 12 Sep
Council capital grant · €14,000Restricted · ends 31 Mar€9,120 spent
Under-attendance on 5 funded places. Below threshold three weeks running - contact the families now, or carry the shortfall in the next drawdown.
Board pack sent7 directors · 1 click
Audit trail intactEvery figure traces to a signed record
Every euro taggedTo the grant that paid for it
1 morning
to close the month, not a week of evenings
98%+
of funded hours claimed, not written off
0
spreadsheets rebuilt for the board each month
Every site
on one register your funder can audit
Who this is for
Services that answer to more than one boss.
A private crèche answers to its owner. You answer to six - with the same one-and-a-half admin staff.
One record of the day
Check-ins, hours, funding and staff files, entered where they happen.
Typed onceNone of the six is a separate module. Every return above is a view of the same check-in, the same rota and the same invoice.
The comparison
Three ways to run a community service month.
A patchwork of tools that were never designed for funded places. Paper, goodwill and a coordinator who takes it home. Or one system that knows your children, your funding, your staff and your board at the same time.
Claiming every funded hour
No toolsA sign-in sheet, a calculator, and a claim you round down to be safe.
A patchwork of toolsHours in the check-in app, the claim in the funder's portal, and no way to prove they match.
AcornCloudHours claimed straight from the register the room signed that morning.
Spending a restricted grant
No toolsA receipt book, and a hope that the acquittal adds up in March.
A patchwork of toolsA tab per grant in a spreadsheet nobody but the coordinator can open.
AcornCloudEvery euro tagged to its fund, with balance and end date live.
The board pack
No toolsBuilt on the weekend before, from four files and a memory.
A patchwork of toolsFour exports, re-typed into a deck that looks different every quarter.
AcornCloudGenerated Monday at six, same shape every time, sent in one click.
A child slipping under threshold
No toolsNoticed when the drawdown comes back short.
A patchwork of toolsVisible in the attendance app, invisible to whoever does the claim.
AcornCloudFlagged after the third week, while you can still ring the family.
A CE participant and a student start
No toolsVetting chased by phone, ratio counted in the coordinator's head.
A patchwork of toolsA staff folder in a shared drive, and a rota that can't tell them apart.
AcornCloudOwn hours, supervision and vetting tracked - and counted correctly against ratio.
A family who can't pay this week
No toolsA quiet word at the door, and a note that gets lost.
A patchwork of toolsAn arrangement in the bookkeeping package the room never sees.
AcornCloudA plan set in the app, a clear balance, and nothing said at the door.
Three services, one parent body
No toolsThree sets of everything, and three different answers to one question.
A patchwork of toolsThree subscriptions, three logins, three ways of naming the same policy.
AcornCloudShared policies pushed out, scoped access in, one view across the network.
The month your coordinator has
~48 hrsof admin, most of it unpaid, and one person who can't be sick.
~32 hrsof admin, and the same child's hours typed into four systems.
~8 hrschecking and signing off what the month already recorded.
Based on onboarding interviews with community and not-for-profit services in Ireland, 2024–2026. Figures are per coordinator or administrator for a two-site service, and will vary with your size, funding mix and how much you already automate.
Built for community services
The service, the funder and the board - one source of truth.
Everything on the platform is here too. These are the parts built because a funded, not-for-profit service needs them.
Funding programmes, not workarounds
Core Funding, NCS universal and income-assessed, sponsor referrals, ECCE and AIM held per child - applied to the bill and reported from the same register your rooms sign each morning.
One register, every programme
Restricted funds & grants
Tag every euro to the grant that paid for it - council capital, equipment, sustainability, LEADER. Spend, balance and end date per fund, so acquittal reports write themselves.
Acquittal-ready from day one
Board & governance packs
Occupancy, income against allocation, arrears, staffing cost, incidents and risk in one pack - generated on a schedule and readable by a volunteer director in ten minutes.
Generated Monday, not the weekend before
Network & shared services
Run several services under one parent body: shared policies, fee templates and forms pushed out, scoped access per coordinator, and a view of who needs support this month.
Scoped access per coordinator
Attendance your funder accepts
Tablet check-in with signed in and out times, absence reasons, and under-attendance flagged weeks before it costs you a place - the evidence base for every claim and audit.
Flagged before it costs you a place
Mixed staffing & placements
Contracted educators, CE and TÚS participants, students on placement and volunteers - each with their own hours, supervision requirements and vetting, all counted correctly against ratio.
Counted correctly against ratio
One compliance register
Garda vetting, qualifications, First Aid, Children First training, policies and their review dates - per person, per site, with expiries flagged before Tusla or your funder asks.
Expiries flagged before they ask
Families on low incomes
Sponsor referrals, hardship arrangements and small weekly contributions handled with dignity: clear balances in the Parents App, flexible plans, no doorstep conversations about money.
Handled quietly, in the app
Sustainability & forecasting
See the coming year before you commit to it: occupancy forecast, income against allocation, staffing cost as a share of turnover, and the case for a sustainability application in real numbers.
The application, in real numbers
Who feels it
The difference shows up in people, not returns.
Compliance is the word the funder uses. This is what the month feels like for the four people holding a community service together.
The coordinatorMarie - runs two sites, does the funding, covers the office
Before
Four systems, one spreadsheet per grant, and the board pack built on a Sunday. If she's out sick, nothing moves.
With AcornCloud
The month closes in a morning, and the pack is waiting on Monday whether or not she was in.
The room leaderAoife - Wobblers, 18 children, a CE participant and a student
Before
Sign-in sheets to transcribe, absences to chase, and the ratio counted twice because the placement hours never matched.
With AcornCloud
Check-in on the tablet, ratio live on the wall, and placement hours counted correctly without her doing the sums.
The voluntary directorTom - treasurer, gives two evenings a month
Before
A pack that arrived the night before, in a different shape each quarter, with figures nobody could trace.
With AcornCloud
The same six pages every quarter, sent on the Monday, with the detail behind any figure one click away.
The parent on a sponsor referralA family the service exists for
Before
A conversation at the door about money, and a balance nobody could explain clearly.
With AcornCloud
The referral applied before the invoice, a small weekly contribution, and the arrangement kept in the app.
Restricted funds
Every euro remembers which grant paid for it.
A community service runs on money that comes with conditions attached. Tag spend to the fund once, and the acquittal report is a download rather than a fortnight.
- Council capital, equipment, sustainability, LEADER - each its own fund
- Spend, balance and end date live, so nothing is quietly spent twice
- Acquittal reports export against the fund, not the calendar month
Restricted fundsFour grants · acquittal ready
Ring-fencedCouncil capital grant€9,120 of €14,000
Outdoor resurfacing · ends 31 MarEquipment fund€2,340 of €3,000
Sleep room · ends 30 JunSustainability grant€11,800 of €26,500
Staffing uplift · ends 31 DecLEADER programme€640 of €8,000
Sensory garden · ends 30 SepEvery euro carries the fund that paid for it, so the acquittal report writes itself.
For NGOs, CCCs & county councils
Support the network without another spreadsheet.
If you fund, sponsor or support a group of community services, AcornCloud gives each one a full system - and gives you the view across them, with the permissions and data agreements written down.
- Network dashboards: occupancy, funded hours, arrears and compliance by service
- Scoped access per development worker or coach - no more than they need to see
- Shared policies, fee templates and forms pushed to every service at once
- Impact reporting for your own funder, built from live data rather than a survey
Network viewSouth Dublin CCC · 3 supported services
ScopedTallaght Community Childcare2 sites · 64 childrenOn track
Jobstown Early Years CLG1 site · 38 childrenNeeds support
Brookfield AfterschoolTerm-time · 42 childrenOn track
Your development worker sees compliance and occupancy - never a child’s record.
It allows me to know that daily audits are completed to our high standards, and it lets me to see any areas falling behind so that we can fix them right away.
Community service questions, answered.
What coordinators, boards and funders ask us on the first call.
Something else on your mind?Ask us on the call - and bring a director if it helps.
Yes. Reporting is built around the people a community service answers to - a board, a funder, a regulator - rather than around margin. Occupancy, income against allocation, arrears, staffing cost and compliance come out as one scheduled pack, and your treasurer can open the detail behind any figure in it.
Yes. Each programme is held per child against registered hours and applied to the bill from the same register your rooms sign each morning. A child on ECCE hours with an income-assessed NCS subsidy and AIM Level 7 support is one clean record, not three parallel spreadsheets. Sponsor referrals are handled the same way.
Every euro is tagged to the fund that paid for it - council capital, equipment, sustainability, LEADER - with spend, balance and end date live per fund. The acquittal report exports against the fund rather than the calendar month, so nothing is quietly spent twice and nothing has to be reconstructed in March.
Yes. Each has their own contracted hours, supervision requirements, Garda vetting and induction record alongside your permanent educators, and each is counted correctly against ratio - supernumerary people are excluded - so your staffing figures hold up on an inspection day.
Each service gets a full system of its own. You get a network view of occupancy, funded hours, arrears and compliance across them, with scoped access per development worker or coach - compliance and capacity, never a child's record. Shared policies, fee templates and forms push to every service at once, and the data agreement is written down before anyone logs in.
No. Sponsor referrals, hardship arrangements and small weekly contributions are set once and applied before the invoice, so the family sees a single clear balance in the Parents App. There is no separate list, no flag on the child, and nothing to discuss at the door.
We import children, families, staff, fee structures and balances from your current system or a spreadsheet, and historic registers, incidents and diaries come with them so they stay searchable for inspection and audit. Nothing is retyped, and we run one funding cycle alongside your existing process before you switch.
One monthly figure for the whole service, set by the band of children you have registered, with nothing gated behind a tier and no setup fee. Tell us your registrations and your funding mix on the call and we'll put the figure in writing for your board.
Bring your funder’s questions to the call.
Send us your funding mix, your sites and the reports your board and your funder ask for. We’ll show you your own service and the pack it would produce. Forty-five minutes, and we’re happy to have a director on the call.