Most childcare directors switch management software once every few years, and most do it in roughly the same order: pick the new platform, get excited, cancel the old one, and then discover in February that the attendance logs from two years ago are behind a login that no longer works. The software is replaceable. The records are not — and in California, some of them you are required to be able to produce. The good news is that the whole problem is avoidable with about a week of unglamorous work done in the right order.
This is the practical version: what counts as your data, what usually exports cleanly and what usually doesn't, the questions to put to your vendor in writing, and a four-week sequence that leaves you with a complete archive before anyone touches the cancel button.
Why a dark login is a licensing problem, not just a nuisance
For licensed child care centers, California Title 22 section 101221 is the rule that governs each child's record. Two parts of it matter here. Subsection (g) requires that originals or photocopies of all children's records be kept for at least three years following termination of service to the child. Subsection (d) requires those records to be available to the Department to inspect, audit and copy on demand during normal business hours, and subsection (a) requires the record to be maintained in the center itself.
Read those together and the implication is plain: "it's in the old system and we don't have that account anymore" is not a complete record. If any part of a child's file — the signed admission agreement, the emergency contact information, the medical assessment, the authorizations for activities away from the center — lives only inside a platform you no longer pay for, you have a gap that is yours, not the vendor's. You can read the regulations yourself on the California Department of Social Services website.
What "your data" actually consists of
Directors tend to picture the roster and stop there. A childcare platform is usually holding at least seven distinct things, and they live in different places inside it:
- Child and family records. Names, birthdates, addresses, authorized pickups, allergies and dietary restrictions, physician details, enrolled and departed alike.
- Attendance and ratio history. Check-in and check-out timestamps, often the only evidence of who was in the building on a given afternoon.
- Billing and payment history. Invoices, payments, credits, subsidy records, and the year-end tax statements families will ask you for in January.
- Signed forms and consents. Admission agreements, handbook acknowledgments, field-trip permissions, photo-release forms.
- Health documentation. Immunization records and medical assessments uploaded as files or photos.
- Parent communication. Message threads, daily reports, incident notifications — occasionally the written record of a conversation that later matters.
- Staff records. Training logs, clearance documentation, timesheets, certifications and expiry dates.
Write that list out for your own center before you ask anyone for an export. It becomes your checklist, and it's how you catch the category nobody thought about until it was gone.
What exports cleanly — and what usually doesn't
Patterns hold across most platforms in this market. Tabular data is the easy part: rosters, contacts, attendance and billing history generally come out as CSV or Excel files, sometimes in one click, sometimes via a support request.
The hard part is everything that isn't a spreadsheet. Uploaded documents and photos frequently have to be downloaded child by child, or come out as a single archive you have to unpack and re-sort. Signed digital forms may export as a status column saying "signed" rather than as the signed document itself — which is not the same thing when a licensing analyst asks to see it. Message threads are often the least portable data in the whole system, and audit trails showing who changed what, when, are rarely exportable at all.
None of this is sinister — these products were built to be used, not to be left. It just means the realistic plan is a mix of bulk exports and some patient manual downloading, which is a very different size of job than "click export" and worth knowing before you set a switch date.
Five questions to ask your current vendor, in writing
Email, not a phone call — you want the answers on record, and the answers will shape your timeline:
- 1. What can we export ourselves, in what formats, and what requires your help? Ask for the complete list of record types, not a reassurance that "your data is exportable."
- 2. Does the export include uploaded files, photos, signed forms and message history? Name each one. Silence on a category is an answer.
- 3. How long after our final payment can we still log in and download? Get the date, in writing.
- 4. When do you delete our data after cancellation, and will you confirm deletion? You want this both for privacy and so you know the real deadline.
- 5. Is there a fee for a full data export or an archive copy? Better to learn now than during a month when you're paying for two platforms.
A four-week switch that doesn't lose anything
Centers that come through a migration cleanly almost always overlap the two systems briefly and treat the export as a project rather than an afternoon.
- Week 1 — ask and build the shelf. Send the five questions. Meanwhile create the archive structure where the export will land, before any files arrive: a folder for the old platform, subfolders by record type, and inside the child records, subfolders by departure year so your three-year clock is visible at a glance.
- Week 2 — pull everything while you're still paying. Run every export available, download the files and photos, and save PDFs of anything that can only be printed from a screen. This is the week that the overlapping subscription earns its cost.
- Week 3 — verify, then set up the new system. Verification is the step everyone skips: count the rows against your actual enrollment history, then open five children at random and confirm their full file is really there — forms, immunizations, contacts, not just a name in a spreadsheet. Only then import into the new platform and start staff training.
- Week 4 — run parallel, then cancel. Keep both live for a short window so gaps surface while you can still go back and fetch. Then cancel, request written confirmation of deletion, and file that confirmation with the archive.
One scheduling note: don't cancel mid-month or during the week your billing runs, and don't start a migration in the two weeks before a licensing visit or the back-to-school enrollment rush. For the small conversions along the way — merging downloaded pages into one PDF per child, flattening a stack of images into a readable document — the free tools at SenCreator.app handle it without another subscription.
Where the archive should live
An export sitting in the Downloads folder of the director's laptop is not an archive. It needs to be somewhere the center owns and controls: a business-grade cloud account — Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace on a business tenant, never a personal login — with multi-factor authentication on, folder permissions limited to the people who need them, and an automatic backup. Our guide to going paperless at your daycare covers the structure and naming conventions in detail, and the 3-2-1 backup approach is what keeps the archive from becoming a single point of failure.
Two touches make the archive genuinely usable years later. Mark it read-only, so nobody edits history by accident. And drop a one-page index at the top: which platform this came from, the date range it covers, what's in each folder, and what is not in there. The person who needs this file in 2029 may not be you.
If the whole sequence sounds like a second job on top of running a center, that's a fair reading of it — exports, verification, permissions and backups are exactly the kind of one-time project plus quiet maintenance that EDCON's managed IT services handle for childcare centers across Los Angeles, Oxnard, Ventura and Azusa.
Ask the portability questions before you sign the next contract
The best time to solve this problem is at the start of the next relationship, while you still have leverage. Before signing, ask the new platform the same export questions you just asked the old one, plus three more: can we export our full data at any time without a fee, what happens to our data if we leave or if you're acquired, and what is your retention and deletion policy for children's information?
That last one isn't just good practice. Under the amended COPPA Rule, operators collecting personal information from children must maintain a written data retention and deletion policy, hold that information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose it was collected, and not retain it indefinitely — the FTC's six-step COPPA compliance plan for business spells out the requirement. A vendor who can't answer the retention question clearly is telling you something. Our childcare app vetting guide has the full question set to run before you sign anything.
Common questions about switching childcare software
Can I get my records out of my childcare management app?
Usually yes, but rarely all of it in one click. Most platforms export rosters, contacts, attendance and billing history as spreadsheets. Photos, in-app message threads, signed digital forms and uploaded immunization documents are the pieces that often have to come out a different way, in batches, or through a support request. Ask in writing what formats they supply and exactly which record types are included — before you give notice.
How long can I log in after I cancel my childcare software?
It varies by provider, and it's set by your contract rather than by law. Some platforms keep your account readable for a grace period after the last payment; others cut access at the end of the billing term and delete on a schedule after that. Because the window can be short, pull and verify your full export while the subscription is still active.
What records does California require us to keep after a child leaves?
For licensed child care centers, Title 22 section 101221(g) states that originals or photocopies of all children's records shall be kept for at least three years following termination of service to the child. The same section requires the record to be maintained in the center and available to the Department to inspect, audit and copy on demand during normal business hours. Tax, insurance, employment and state-funded program rules carry their own longer clocks — confirm your specifics with your licensing analyst.
Should I ask the old vendor to delete our data?
Yes — once your export is verified and your own archive is in place. Put the request in writing and keep the reply with the archive. Under the amended COPPA Rule, operators that collect children's personal information must maintain a written data retention and deletion policy and cannot keep that information indefinitely, so a vendor should be able to state their retention period and confirm deletion.
Switching platforms this year? Let's get the data out properly.
EDCON runs childcare software migrations end to end for California centers — the exports, the verification, the archive with permissions and backups, and the new platform set up and ready for your team. Book a free 30-minute consultation and we'll map your move before you cancel anything.
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