A home daycare center business can be run without a license but you will need to acquire a license if you are planning on starting a really commercialized child care facility. For a home day care, you can operate without a license but you will need to limit the kids you take care of to about five. Different states and zones have different regulations on the number of children you can take care of and whether you can run a profit center in your property. In order to know exactly what the parameters are, go to your local business bureau and ask about this.

If you can run a day care facility without a license then it would be best to start off thus. Practicing your managerial skills and making sure that you can handle more children and a bigger responsibility could help you decide if you would like to expand your facility in the future. Getting a license requires a ton of documentation and you don’t want to waste your time on it unless you plan on servicing more families.

Even if you choose not to obtain a license, you will still need to have a system in your day care facility. The first thing you need to take care of is to get hold of copies of parental consent forms and contracts. These are very important to ensure that you have agreements with parents on paper, signed and filed. You may be able to find samples of these forms that you can customize for your own business online.

Additionally, you need to decide what format your business will take on; by this you will have to create a detailed description of how your day to day operations will work. Will you be taking on infants? Toddlers? School aged children? Infants would be quite a challenge since there will be more tasks to do; toddlers in the meantime would be harder to keep up with because of their developing temperaments, increasing physical abilities, and short attention spans. If you take on school children, there will be more order in your facility but since they go to school, their hours as your client are limited.

Moreover, you need to come to a decision about what type of schedule you will be following. Some kids need to be in a daycare the whole day, others half a day, and some parents would opt to just drop their children in daycares when the need arises. Drop-ins could also be scheduled after five or six in the evening or even overnight. Choose which type of schedule you would want to have.

Knowing the scheduling of children in your day care center would now help you in pricing your services. But aside from the schedule, you also should consider if the kids would be fed by you or if they would be bringing in their own meals. If you would be providing meals, then you will need to charge extra for food. Otherwise, you can concentrate on naming your fees based on the hours or days the children will be staying with you.

More info: How to start a daycare business