07:45
Doors open, register done
Children are checked in as they arrive, and the day's numbers — who's in, who's expected, who's off — are live for every room without anyone counting heads twice.
Run the nursery,
not the paperwork.
Pigeonhole is nursery management software for early years settings in England. The funding claim fills itself in, invoices land in Xero or QuickBooks, and a moment in the garden becomes tonight's journal entry — all checked by you before anything goes out.
- Funding declarations and claims filled in from your own records
- Invoices sync to Xero or QuickBooks
- Built around the EYFS
Book a 30-min demo
Or tour a day in the appFree 30-day trial · no card required
07:45 — 18:00
A day, run well
Where Pigeonhole fits into a nursery day — from the first welly at the door to the last email home. Every screen below is the real thing.
09:20
A new family's application becomes a child's profile
A parent completes your application form online, and AI turns it into the child's profile — no re-keying. Later forms apply themselves the same way: a page of health notes becomes a clear summary, right where staff will see it, on the profile and the register.
10:15
A moment in the garden becomes a journal entry
A photo, the children tagged, an area of learning — captured while it's still fresh, approved by you, and shared to each family's journal. Staff can dictate the write-up instead of typing it.
11:40
A tricky question gets the policy's own answer
A child has been sick, and the room needs to know: when can they come back? Ask the assistant and the answer comes straight from your own sickness policy — the 48-hour rule quoted back in seconds, with a link to the document itself.
12:30
Lunch, nappies and nap time, logged for the whole room
Tick the children, tap what happened, save — one entry for each of them. The room shows who's asleep and when the next sleep check is due, and families can see their child's day if you choose to share it.
13:00
Invoices raise themselves and land in your accounts
Billing runs from each child's sessions, and every invoice flows straight into Xero or QuickBooks. Payments come back and mark themselves off.
14:30
The term's funding claim, filled and checked
Claims fill themselves in from the data you already hold and get checked before they go. Then, in your council's provider portal, our Chrome extension fills in the fields it recognises and puts every other figure one click away to copy. Where the council uses the LiquidLogic portal, it checks your claim against the live register too.
15:10
A quiet worry becomes a proper record
Something noticed at drop-off is logged in moments — factual, dated, and visible only to your safeguarding leads. Every action taken joins the chronology, so the whole story is in one place if Ofsted, or a safeguarding partnership, ever asks how it was handled.
16:30
Tomorrow's trip reminder reaches every family
Staff write it, you approve it, and it lands in every inbox — with the photos from today attached. No letter dies at the bottom of a book bag.
Funding, start to finish
The claim that fills itself in
Parental declarations are generated and signed digitally, headcounts come from the sessions you already run, and errors are caught before the council ever sees them. Then, in your council's provider portal, our Chrome extension fills in the fields it recognises and puts every other figure one click away to copy — so nobody types a child's details twice.
Declaration forms set up council by council · ask us to add yours
Optional, per setting
AI where it helps, never in charge
Each assist is a switch in your settings, and everything it writes stays a draft until a person approves it. Nothing reaches a family unchecked.
Rough notes become write-ups
Say what you saw — AI drafts the observation in your setting's voice, with your writing rules applied.
See howForms become profiles
An application creates the child's record, and a page of health notes becomes a summary staff actually read.
See howA term becomes a first draft
The journal drafts the progress report. You edit, approve, and share it with the family.
See howQuestions become answers
Ask about your own setting in plain English — who's in, what's unpaid, what a policy says.
See how“The funding form feature is absolutely brilliant and that one feature alone has saved me a huge amount of time.”
“My team and families have all used it easily with no problems.”
Moved in by lunchtime
No data migration project, no consultant. You can be running the same day you sign up.
1 · Guided
Set up your setting
Rooms, staff, sessions and pricing — a guided setup walks you through it.
2 · From a spreadsheet
Import your children
Drop in a spreadsheet from any system and AI maps the columns for you.
3 · Same day
Invite your families
Parents get their own portal for journals, invoices and forms.
Frequently Asked Questions
Got questions? We've got answers. If you can't find what you're looking for, feel free to contact us.
You can be up and running the same day you sign up. A guided setup walks you through rooms, staff, sessions and pricing, and the import tool reads a spreadsheet from your current system and maps the columns for you. We help with onboarding if you want us to.
Yes. Export your children and parents from your current system as a spreadsheet (CSV or Excel) and the import tool maps the columns to Pigeonhole for you. You check the result before anything is saved.
Yes. Import your children and parents and you can start sending funding forms straight away. If you also run your sessions and invoicing in Pigeonhole, the hours and any additional charges on each form are filled in for you, but funding forms work on their own too, and renewing them each term is one button.
We know not every parent is online or comfortable using technology. Pigeonhole lets you create manual versions of any form that can be printed or completed and signed on a tablet in the nursery. Once completed, every form is stored safely in one place alongside your online forms, so nothing gets lost or missed.
Yes. Pigeonhole is built for UK GDPR. Your data is hosted on Microsoft Azure in the UK and encrypted in transit and at rest, and staff only see what their role allows. Our data processing agreement sets out who processes what, and where.
We set up funding forms council by council, using each council's own parental declaration, and they cover the funded entitlements in England. If your council isn't set up yet, email support@pigeonholeapp.co.uk and we'll add it. When you submit the claim, our Chrome extension fills in the fields it recognises on your council's provider portal and puts every other figure one click away to copy.
Yes. Parents get their own login to see their child's journal, complete forms, view invoices and payments, and fill in and sign funding forms.
18:00 — home time
See your own setting in it
A demo takes half an hour, on your data if you like. If it fits, you can be moved in the same week.
30-day free trial · no card needed to start
