The second service
Two managers doing the same job two different ways, two fee sheets, two logins - and you reconciling both on a Sunday.
AcornCloud for Multi-sites
Run every servicelike your best one.
One login across every crèche in the group. Group standards for fees, forms and permissions; local room for each manager to run their own service. Two sites or twenty-five - the numbers land in one place, on the same day.
- Group console & site templates
- Scoped permissions
- Consolidated finance
Tiny Acorns Group6 services · 412 children · 98 staff
Group consoleGroup occupancy91.2%6 services
Collected this month€318,94099.1% of billed
Needs attention2 sitesCover & vetting
ServicesOccupancy · status
Salthill86%6 places free
Knocknacarra94%In ratio
Oranmore100%Full · waitlist 18
Barna89%Vetting expiry
Salthill is 6 places short in Toddlers. Knocknacarra has 4 free, and two Salthill waiting-list families live closer - offer the place there.
Site 7 clonedFees, forms, roles · 4 minutes
One login, scopedSite, area or group - never more
Acquired site, day oneOpens on your group standard
1 login
across every service, room and rota
Day 1
a new or acquired site opens on your group setup
0
site spreadsheets chased at month end
Same day
group P&L, occupancy and arrears - not week three
Who this is for
Groups that outgrew running each site on its own.
The second service is where it starts. AcornCloud is built for what comes after that.
A group of five to ten
Enough scale that a group office exists, not enough that anyone has time to chase six exports before a board meeting.
Buying, not just building
An acquired service arrives with its own system, its own fee logic and its own idea of what a room is called.
One register, every site
Tusla requirements, vetting and funding held once for the group, reported per service.
The comparison
Three ways to run a month across six services.
A single-site system bought six times over. Paper, phone calls and one person who remembers everything. Or one platform that knows every child, euro, rota and expiry in the group at the same time.
Answering “how is the group doing?”
No toolsSix phone calls, and a number you'd rather not show the bank.
A patchwork of toolsSix exports, one spreadsheet, and a group figure nobody fully trusts.
AcornCloudEvery service on the same six columns, already there on Monday morning.
Opening or acquiring site seven
No toolsRebuilding everything from scratch, and hoping it matches site six.
A patchwork of toolsA new subscription, a blank setup, and a fortnight of copy-paste.
AcornCloudCloned from your best service - rooms, fees, forms, roles - in an afternoon.
Keeping fees consistent
No toolsTwo managers, two fee sheets, and a discount nobody signed off.
A patchwork of toolsThe same plan re-entered per site, drifting a little more each term.
AcornCloudOne fee architecture published group-wide, with approval thresholds per site.
A float covering three services
No toolsThree staff files, three sets of hours, and vetting checked from memory.
A patchwork of toolsA profile per site, and a payroll reconciliation at the end of it.
AcornCloudOne profile, one compliance record, hours rolled into a single payslip.
An inspection at any site
No toolsA drive to that service and an afternoon in a filing cabinet.
A patchwork of toolsLogging into that site's system and hoping its register is current.
AcornCloudOne register across the group; the dated pack exports without leaving your desk.
Closing the month
No toolsThe owner's evenings, and a P&L that lands in week three.
A patchwork of toolsSix ledgers aligned by hand, then exported per entity anyway.
AcornCloudOne closing date, group and per-site, exported to Xero or Sage with cost centres.
A family the nearest site can't take
No tools“We'll put you on the list” - and they ring somebody else.
A patchwork of toolsA waiting list per site, and no idea the next town has space.
AcornCloudMatched across the group by room, age band and start date, and offered same day.
The month your group office has
~96 hrsof admin, most of it the owner's evenings, and no trend.
~64 hrsof admin, six exports to align, and a figure nobody trusts.
~12 hrsreviewing and signing off what the group already recorded.
Based on onboarding interviews with multi-site childcare groups in Ireland, 2024–2026. Figures are total group-office and manager admin for a six-service group, and will vary with your size, entity structure and how much you already automate.
Built for multi-site groups
Central control where it matters. Local freedom where it counts.
Everything on the platform is here too. These are the parts that only exist once you run more than one service.
The group console
Every service side by side on the same numbers - occupancy, collection rate, staff cost, ratio flags - then click into any room in a single step.
No site switching, no second login
Site templates & instant setup
Clone a working service into a new one: rooms, ratios, fee plans, forms, policies, roles and report packs. A new build or an acquisition opens on your group standard.
Not on a blank page
Group billing standards
One fee architecture published to every site, with NCS, ECCE and AIM applied the same way. Decide which sites may discount and which need approval.
Lock a period once it's reconciled
One compliance register
Garda vetting, qualifications, First Aid, Children First and safeguarding, policy review dates and incidents - per person, per site, expiries flagged early.
Before an inspector arrives
Staff who work across sites
Floats, relief and managers covering two services get one profile, one set of hours and one compliance record. See who is qualified and free today, group-wide.
Before you ring an agency
Consolidated finance
Revenue, arrears, subsidy income and staff cost per site and for the group, on one closing date. Export to Xero or Sage per entity, with matching cost centres.
One closing date, every entity
Roles & scoped permissions
A site manager sees their service. An area manager sees their region. Finance sees every ledger and no child records. Defined once at group level.
Inherited by every new site
Group waiting list
Enquiries land once and are matched to any service with space - by room, age band and start date. Offer the sibling a place at the site down the road.
Instead of losing the family
One voice to families
Group announcements, policy updates and newsletters sent once and branded consistently - while each service keeps its own room posts, diaries and tone.
Two children, two sites, one app
Site benchmarking
The same six columns for every service.
Not a report you build - a view that is already there on Monday. Sort by any column and the conversation with your area managers writes itself.
| Service | Occupancy | Collected | Staff cost | Waiting list | Compliance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salthill | 86% | 98.4% | 61.2% | 22 | Clear |
| Knocknacarra | 94% | 99.6% | 56.8% | 31 | Clear |
| Oranmore | 100% | 99.8% | 54.1% | 48 | Clear |
| Barna | 89% | 98.9% | 59.7% | 19 | 2 expiring |
| Renmore | 92% | 99.2% | 58.0% | 15 | Clear |
| Claregalway | 86% | 98.7% | 60.4% | 12 | Cover gap |
| Group | 91.2% | 99.1% | 58.4% | 147 | 2 actions open |
Scroll the table sideways to see every column.
Illustrative group data. Staff cost is shown as a share of site revenue; occupancy is contracted places against licensed capacity.
Who feels it
Growth shouldn't cost your people their evenings.
Scale is the word on the board slide. This is what the month feels like for the five people who actually carry a group.
The group ownerNine services, one board to answer to
Before
A month-end that lands in week three, built from six exports, with no month-on-month trend anyone would defend.
With AcornCloud
Group P&L, occupancy and arrears on the same closing date as the sites - and a number the bank can have.
The area managerFour services across a county, most weeks in the car
Before
Logging into four systems to find out which service needed her, usually after it already did.
With AcornCloud
One console that says which two sites need her this week, then drops her straight into the room.
The site managerRuns her own service, reports into the group
Before
Rebuilding the same figures in the group's format every month, in a spreadsheet she didn't design.
With AcornCloud
Her numbers are already in the group view. She runs her rota, her rooms and her waiting list her own way.
The finance leadSix entities, one set of statutory accounts
Before
Six ledgers reconciled by hand, cost centres that never quite matched, and a scramble before every audit.
With AcornCloud
One closing date, exports per entity with matching cost centres, and no access to a single child record.
The parent with two childrenOne at Salthill, one at Knocknacarra
Before
Two apps, two logins, two invoices, and two different answers about the same policy.
With AcornCloud
One app, one bill, one group voice - and each room still posting in its own tone.
Guardrails, not handcuffs
Standardise what should be the same.
Every group draws the line in a different place. Set it per area - published from group, editable locally, or locked outright - and leave the rest to the manager who knows the building.
- Fee plans, discounts and refund rules published group-wide, with approval thresholds per site
- Enrolment forms, consents and policies versioned once and pushed to every service
- Roles and permissions defined at group level, inherited by each new site on day one
- Locked billing periods, so a reconciled month cannot be edited under the group's feet
- Full audit trail: who changed what, at which site, and when
Group standardsPublished from group · editable locally · locked
6 rulesFee plans & refund rulesGroup
Enrolment forms & consentsGroup
Roles & permissionsGroup
Room posts & diariesLocal
Rota patterns & coverLocal
Reconciled billing periodsLocked
Full audit trail: who changed what, at which site, and when.
Staff who work across sites
One person. One record. Three buildings.
Relief educators, floats and managers covering two services are the first thing a single-site system breaks on. Here they are one profile that moves with the rota.
- One profile, one set of hours, one compliance record - across every service
- See who is qualified and free today, group-wide, before you ring an agency
- Hours roll up to a single payslip whichever site the shift was worked at
Niamh D. · relief educatorOne profile · three services this week
VettedMonSalthillToddlers
TueSalthillToddlers
WedBarnaPreschool
ThuKnocknacarraWobblers
FriSalthillToddlers
Garda vettingValid to Mar 2028First AidRenews NovChildren FirstComplete
Hours roll up to one payslip, and her compliance record follows her between sites.
Opening site seven
A new service, or one you just bought, live on your standard.
Whether you’re building or acquiring, the same four steps. We do the data work; your group office reviews.
Pick the service to clone
Choose the site that already works. Rooms, age bands, ratios, fee plans, forms, policies, roles and report packs come across as your group standard.
Day 1We do the data work
Children, families, staff records and balances are imported from whatever the acquired service was running - or from a spreadsheet, if that's what it was.
Days 2–5Your group office reviews
Fee logic, room names and permissions are checked against the group standard before anyone at the new site logs in. Local exceptions are agreed, not discovered.
Day 6The site opens on your setup
Managers get a forty-minute session, families are invited with your wording, and the service appears in the group console the same afternoon.
Day 7AcornCloud has made my life so much simpler. I manage 4 services in different locations and AcornCloud allows me to manage compliance, ratios and communications off site and support my onsite team.
Multi-site questions, answered.
What group owners, operations directors and finance leads ask us on the first call.
Something else on your mind?Ask us on the call - finance welcome, and bring your two hardest sites.
The second. That's where two managers begin doing the same job two different ways, and where the owner starts reconciling two fee sheets on a Sunday. Nothing changes structurally between two sites and twenty-five - you add services to the same console rather than adding systems.
About a week end to end, and an afternoon of your group office's time. You pick an existing service to clone, we import children, families, staff and balances from whatever the site was running, your group office reviews the fee logic and permissions, then the service appears in the console. A new build is faster because there's no data to bring across.
Yes, and that's the point. You choose per area what's published from group, what's editable locally and what's locked - fee plans, forms, policies and roles are usually group; rotas, room posts and diaries are usually local. Every group we onboard draws that line in a different place.
Roles are defined once at group level and inherited by every new site. A site manager sees their service, an area manager sees their region, finance sees every ledger and no child records, and a group director sees everything. Nobody is granted more than their role needs, and new sites don't need permissions rebuilt.
Floats, relief educators and managers covering two services get one profile, one set of hours and one compliance record. You can see who is qualified, vetted and free today across the whole group before you ring an agency, and their hours roll up to a single payslip whichever building the shift was worked in.
Yes. Sites are grouped by entity for finance and by region for operations, so you get a consolidated group view alongside exports per entity to Xero or Sage with cost centres that match your company structure. A reconciled period can be locked so it can't be edited under the group's feet.
It does. Tusla requirements, Garda vetting, NCS and ECCE sit in the same compliance register and the same billing engine for every site - configured per service, because a Dublin site and a Donegal one rarely run the same fee logic, and reported for the group.
We migrate them. Children, families, staff records, fee structures and balances come across, and historic registers, incidents and diaries come with them so inspection evidence stays searchable. We run one billing cycle alongside the old system before anything switches over.
Bring your two hardest sites to the call.
Send us your service list, your fee structures and the group report you build by hand every month. We’ll show you your own group in the console and what the close would look like. Forty-five minutes, finance welcome.