New features: pre-completed printable registration forms, store primary carer information, and more...

Over the weekend a few new features have been rolled out in Libacura, and you'll notice some minor improvements to the layout of the screens:

Separate account and family screens

The account screen was getting rather full of tabs, and we ran out of space... So we've split it into two: a screen for account information and a screen for family information. All the familiar tabs are still there, just slightly re-organized. You can easily switch between the two sections using new buttons. As part of this change, you'll notice a strange-looking entry on the Changes screen: "Unknown user created accounts for ..."; please don't be alarmed -- it's nothing to worry about!

Navigate quickly between family or account records

A couple of new buttons at the top of each family and account screen make it much quicker to move from one family or account to the next or previous without having to return to the top-level index of accounts.

Store names and addresses of "primary carers"

A number of organisations have asked us for this feature, to support an OFSTED requirement that childcare organisations must keep a record of names and addresses of all "primary carers" associated with children in their care. Now Libacura makes this easy, with a new screen for entering and maintaining the information. You can find the new "Primary carers" tab in the Family screen.

Pre-filled registration forms

You can now generate printable (PDF) registration forms for registered families, with their current details filled in. So parents simply need to check the details and make corrections if necessary -- much less form filling for parents, and it should save you time when updating records, because it will be easier to see at a glance what's changed. Of course, it's better still to get parents to maintain the information on-line in Libacura themselves!

Remove old club periods

For long-time users of Libacura, you may have accumulated quite a list of old club periods. Now you can delete them when you've finished managing the bookings and fees. We recommend you delete club periods after, say, a year. A small word of warning: deleting a club period means you can no longer see the details of the bookings (which children were booked on which days), only the total charge for each booking. So don't delete a club period until all booking and payment queries have been resolved.

And a quick teaser for a new feature coming very soon... Up to now, the history of bookings and transactions for a family has grown and grown, with no convenient way to reset it or remove old historical transactions from one year to the next, for families that stay with you year on year. That's set to change -- watch this space!

We hope you like the changes. Please send comments (good or bad!) or questions by email to support@libacura.co.uk.