Nursery management software for settings in England
One system for the register, the invoices, the observations and the council funding claim — built for how a nursery in England actually runs, and around the EYFS rather than bolted onto it.
From £4.13 a month with every feature included — a nursery with 40 children pays £16.50. Prices exclude VAT.
What is Nursery Management Software?
Nursery management software replaces the register on the wall, the billing spreadsheet and the folder of paper forms with one system. For a setting in England that means the daily register and room numbers, invoicing from each child's sessions, EYFS observations and termly reviews, safeguarding records, occupancy and staff rotas — and the funded entitlement claim your council expects each term.
The part most systems leave to you is the funding. Pigeonhole generates the parental declarations, takes the headcount from the sessions you already run, and then, in your council's provider portal, a 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. How funding works in Pigeonhole.
What it covers
The day-to-day of a nursery, in one system, with every part reading the same records.
Child & Parent Management
Child and family profiles, enrolment tracking, and a portal for parents
- Parent portal access
- Medical information tracking
Attendance & Sessions
Real-time attendance tracking and session management
- Digital sign-in/out
- Session scheduling
- Occupancy by room
Billing & Invoicing
Invoices raised from each child's sessions, with funded hours already taken off
- Automated invoicing
- Payment tracking
Funding Forms
Parental declarations and termly claims for the funded entitlements in England
- Auto-generated forms
- Digital signatures
- Auto-fill for your council's provider portal
Planning & Finance
Places, staffing and income, looked at ahead of time
- Occupancy planning
- Income projections
- Finance reports
Accounting Integration
Invoices and payments kept in step with your accounts
- Xero
- QuickBooks Online
Observations & Termly Reviews
Record children's learning and share it with their families
- Photo observations and learning journal
- EYFS areas of learning tagging
- Termly reviews linked to next steps
- Dictated write-ups on the staff app
Why settings choose Pigeonhole
Built for nurseries in England
Observations are tagged to the EYFS areas of learning, funding follows the entitlements councils in England pay for, and each council's own declaration form is set up for you.
AI where it saves typing
Staff dictate what they saw and get back an observation written to your own rules. At the end of term the AI reads each child's observations and suggests where they are and what comes next, and the assistant answers questions about your setting and your policies. You approve everything before a family sees it.
Comprehensive Solution
From a first enquiry to a child moving on to school, the register, billing, funding, learning records and safeguarding all sit in one place.
Quick to set up
A guided setup walks you through rooms, staff and sessions, and the import tool reads a spreadsheet from your current system. We help if you want us to.
How to choose nursery management software
Most systems cover the same ground. These are the questions that separate them.
Does it handle the funded entitlement, or just record it?
Every system will store a child's funded hours. Far fewer will generate the parental declaration, take the headcount from the sessions you already run, and help fill in your council's portal. If the claim still means re-typing each child into a council website every term, the software has left the hardest part where it was.
Does billing come from the sessions, or from a separate list?
Invoicing should read the same sessions as the register, with funded hours, extra charges and discounts already applied — so the parent bill and the council claim agree without anyone reconciling them. Ask what happens when a child changes their days mid-term.
What does it cost per child, and what is extra?
Pricing models vary enormously: per child, per setting, or modular with features priced separately. Check whether parent accounts, extra staff logins, setup and support are included, and whether the price changes as you grow.
Pigeonhole is priced by the number of children, with every feature and the parent portal included: from £4.13 a month, and £16.50 a month for a nursery with 40 children, excluding VAT. See every price band.
How hard is it to leave what you have?
Switching is the reason most settings stay on software they have outgrown. Ask how your children, sessions and contacts get in, how long it takes, and what it costs. Pigeonhole takes a spreadsheet exported from any system and maps the columns for you, so there is no migration project to schedule.
Will your team actually use it?
The register, observations and the care diary are used by practitioners with a child on one hip, not by an administrator at a desk. If capture takes more than a few taps on a phone, it stops happening by the second week — and the records you were buying the system for never appear.
Moved in by lunchtime
No data migration project and no consultant. Drop in a spreadsheet from any system and the columns are mapped for you, so you can be running the same day you sign up.
“Pigeonhole has been the most intuitive and useful software I have used in my career in Early Years.”
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