Stop chasing receipts across your childcare centres
Childcare providers waste hours every week on reimbursements, shared credit cards, and manual reconciliation. Budgetly gives every centre its own Visa debit card, captures receipts at the point of purchase, and syncs to Xero automatically.
Get your centres off shared cards in 14 days →
Australia's favourite.
99% of businesses stick with Budgetly.
Replace shared credit cards, petty cash, and centre-by-centre reconciliation.
Childcare providers manage spending across multiple centres, mobile educators, and tight operational budgets. Generic expense tools weren't built for this. Shared credit cards and petty cash pull centre managers away from kids and finance away from strategy.
The old way
- Petty cash distributed to centres with no spending audit trail
- Shared credit cards with no centre attribution
- Educators paying for centre supplies out of pocket and waiting weeks
- Bank cards taking weeks to issue for relief educators
- Centre budgets invisible until month-end statements arrive
- Compliance reviews requiring days of manual receipt collection
With Budgetly
- Every centre, room, and program gets its own Visa debit card
- Cards issued in seconds for relief and casual educators
- Receipts captured at the register, not chased at month-end
- Per-centre and per-program budgets enforced in real time
- Live visibility across every centre on one dashboard
- Audit-ready records for compliance reviews in one click
- APRA-regulated
- Data stays in Australia
- 2FA + SSL encryption
- AWS Sydney ISO 27001 infrastructure
- Live status
Built for the way childcare centres actually work
From excursion supplies to centre operations, Budgetly handles the spending workflows your educators and finance team deal with every day.
Replace shared credit cards with controlled cards per centre.
Issue physical or virtual Visa debit cards to each centre, room coordinator, or staff member in seconds. No more shared credit cards, petty cash, or weeks of bank paperwork. Each card has its own budget, its own rules, and its own audit trail.
- Per-centre, per-room, or per-program budgets
- Block ATM withdrawals, alcohol, and out-of-policy merchants
- One-tap freeze when a relief educator finishes
- Issue cards to casual or relief staff in 30 seconds
- Cards work anywhere Visa is accepted across Australia
Emily Rivera
James Park
Hannah BellEducators capture receipts the moment they spend. No chasing.
Educators snap a photo of the receipt at Kmart or the supplier on the Budgetly mobile app. The system matches it to the transaction, extracts GST, and tags the right centre. Your finance team stops chasing paper receipts at month-end.
- Receipts captured at the register on mobile, not weeks later
- Automatic matching to the right transaction
- GST extraction so no rebate is missed
- Tag transactions by centre, room, or program
- Real-time alerts when a receipt is missing on a transaction
Bondi Junction NSW
Kmart Bondi Junction
$128.50
Set a budget per centre. The system enforces it.
Set per-centre and per-program monthly budgets. The card declines automatically when the budget is exhausted. Centre directors and finance see the live balance across every centre in one dashboard. No more waiting for the statement to know who overspent.
- Per-centre, per-room, or per-program budgets
- Automatic monthly resets
- Live balance visible to centre directors on mobile
- Hard stops when the budget runs out — no surprises
- Centralised dashboard across every centre
Kmart · Emily Rivera
$128.50Compliance reviews stop being a fire drill.
Childcare is heavily regulated. Missing receipts mean lost GST rebates and compliance risk. Budgetly creates a complete digital audit trail for every transaction — card, merchant, amount, matched receipt, centre, and approver — and syncs to Xero with automatic account coding.
- Digital audit trail for every transaction, end to end
- Automatic GST extraction from every captured receipt
- One-click reports for any period, centre, or program
- Two-way Xero sync with no double-entry
- Tag transactions by centre, room, or program
Kmart Bondi Junction
$128.50
What childcare providers gain when they switch to Budgetly
Real outcomes from Australian childcare providers running centre spend on Budgetly.
Control without slowing educators down
Finance sets the rules once. The system enforces them every time. Educators focus on the kids. Both are true at the same time.
- Card on day one, no bank paperwork or reimbursement claims
- Snap a receipt at Kmart and you're done
- Never out of pocket for centre supplies again
- Real-time centre budget visible on mobile
- More time with kids, less time on admin
- Live visibility across every centre, no month-end surprises
- Audit-ready always, with full digital trail per transaction
- Compliance and board reports in one click
- Two-way Xero sync, no manual reconciliation
- Stop processing reimbursement claims for craft supplies
- Own the budget for your centre without finance gatekeeping
- See spend across your room coordinators in real time
- Approve out-of-policy purchases from your phone
- Freeze a card instantly when a relief educator finishes
- Tag transactions by room or program for clean reporting
Trusted by teams across Australia
Read verified reviews ➜Awards and recognition
Customer stories
Aspire Education saves each centre 1 day a week in expense management
Aspire Education Saves Each Centre One Day a Week in Expense Management With Budgetly
How Hillsborough OOSH Saves Time and Achieves Greater Visibility with Budgetly
Budgetly's case study on how NSW childcare provider Hillsborough OOSH saved time and gained control with Budgetly's …
Aurora Southern Highlands Steiner School Saves 4 Hours a Week With Budgetly
Read how Aurora Southern Highlands Steiner School saves up to 4 hours a week on expense management with Budgetly.
Lighthouse Christian School saves time & stops overspending with Budgetly
'We've saved so much time and money with Budgetly, which we can put to use in other areas of the business.' Natasha …
Frequently asked questions
What is expense management software for childcare providers?
Can I issue cards to relief and casual educators?
How does Budgetly help with childcare compliance reviews?
Can I set separate budgets for each centre or room?
How quickly can we get started?
How much does Budgetly cost for childcare providers?
Built for the audit and compliance rules childcare providers can't afford to fail
Compliance only works if every rule, every receipt, and every approval is enforced and logged by infrastructure you can trust.
Per-centre policy enforced at the card network
Budget, supplier, category, and country rules are evaluated at the Visa network layer. Out-of-policy spend declines at the terminal — not in a report you read next month.
Full digital audit trail per transaction
Card used, merchant, amount, matched receipt, GST, centre, and approver — timestamped and attributable. Export the full audit trail for any period, centre, or program in one click.
Approval chains, not approval in name only
Multi-step approvals, escalation rules, and amount thresholds are enforced. No one person can create, approve, and execute a high-value transaction alone.
Role-based access for educators, directors, and finance
Educators, centre directors, and finance see only what their role requires. Role changes and permission updates are audit-logged.
APRA-regulated operator
Budgetly is APRA-regulated for its own financial activities. Card issuance and payments run through regulated banking partners on the Visa network.
Data hosted in Australia
Budget, transaction, and rule data are stored in AWS Sydney — ISO 27001, 27017, and 27018 certified infrastructure. Nothing leaves the country.
Get your centres off shared cards in 14 days
See how childcare providers like Aspire Education save a day a week per centre and stay compliance-ready by default.