Automation That Actually Works

Every nursery has repetitive tasks that eat into time: sending payment reminders, chasing missing documents, alerting staff about expiring qualifications. These tasks are important, but they shouldn't need manual effort every time.

What we mean by automation

Automation in Early Tree means: when something happens, the system does something in response—without you having to remember or intervene.

Examples of what's possible

Payment reminders: When an invoice becomes overdue, automatically send a reminder email. If it's still unpaid after another week, send a follow-up. Escalate to a phone call task for your admin team after three weeks.

Document expiry: When a staff member's DBS check is approaching expiry, create a task for HR, notify the staff member, and flag it on dashboards.

Training renewals: Paediatric first aid, safeguarding, food hygiene—track expiry dates and trigger renewal workflows automatically.

Registration completion: When a new family signs up but hasn't completed all required information, send gentle reminders on a schedule until everything is submitted.

Attendance anomalies: If a child who normally attends hasn't been marked present and no absence has been recorded, alert the room leader to follow up.

Triggers, conditions, and actions

Our automation engine works with three concepts:

Triggers: What starts the automation. An invoice becoming overdue, a document approaching expiry, a child being marked absent.

Conditions: Additional checks before proceeding. Only apply if the parent has email, only for staff in certain roles, only if no payment has been received.

Actions: What happens. Send an email, create a task, update a record, notify someone.

You don't need to be technical to set these up. We provide templates for common workflows, and building custom ones uses a straightforward interface.

Tasks and SLAs

When automation creates tasks, those tasks have deadlines. The system tracks whether tasks are completed on time and can escalate overdue tasks to managers. You always know what needs attention.

Why this matters

A nursery manager told us she spends Monday mornings sending the same emails she sent last Monday: payment reminders, document requests, training follow-ups. With automation, Monday morning becomes strategic planning time instead of admin catch-up.

Join our beta and automate the repetitive work.