ChildcareLink

ChildcareLink We assist investors, operators and landlords in the buying, selling, leasing, and developing of childcare centres. Linking Care with Trust.

Two consents to sell an independent childcare centre. Three to sell a franchised one — and the third is the one people f...
09/09/2026

Two consents to sell an independent childcare centre. Three to sell a franchised one — and the third is the one people find out about late.

The franchisor's consent has a rule worth knowing: no written refusal within 42 days of a complete request, and consent is deemed given. The catch is in the word "complete" — the clock restarts every time the franchisor reasonably asks for more information.

Franchised owners — has your brand ever told you what it would charge on a transfer?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

A franchised childcare sale needs three consents, not one. The franchisor's is the only one with a 42-day deemed-consent clock — and it runs in the vendor's favour.

Quick test for centre owners: can you produce a document that says what award level each of your educators is on?Most ca...
07/09/2026

Quick test for centre owners: can you produce a document that says what award level each of your educators is on?

Most can't — and it isn't sloppiness. The Children's Services Award requires you to classify every employee, but nothing requires you to record the classification or tell the employee. Meanwhile 36 old rates collapsed into eight new levels on 1 March 2026, and two of those levels move on an anniversary rather than a qualification.

When did you last check a rate against the level it is meant to come from?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

An eight-level structure replaced the Children's Services Award's old classifications and 36 minimum rates on 1 March 2026 — what every operator now has to check.

Own two or more childcare centres? Here's a quick test of your monthly reporting.Can you tell, from the front page, how ...
01/09/2026

Own two or more childcare centres? Here's a quick test of your monthly reporting.

Can you tell, from the front page, how many staff hours moved between your centres last month? If not, at least two of your wage-cost lines are wrong — in opposite directions — and neither centre director knows it.

How many centres were you running before the spreadsheet stopped being enough?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

Which lines consolidate honestly across a childcare group and which must stay per-centre, how head-office cost allocation works, and the two lines that only exist once you own more than one service.

You have just bought a childcare centre. Congratulations — and now open the filing cabinet.Every enrolment agreement in ...
31/08/2026

You have just bought a childcare centre. Congratulations — and now open the filing cabinet.

Every enrolment agreement in it is a contract between a family and the previous owner. Every supplier account is in someone else's name. Your educators, though, transferred to you by law — along with their sick leave, their parental leave rights, and in most states their entire long service leave history, which cannot be contracted away.

We have mapped the first ninety days: what moved, what didn't, and which deadlines expired before you got the keys.

Which part of a handover has caught you out?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

What transfers to a childcare buyer at settlement and what doesn't — the Fair Work transfer-of-business rules, the National Law notices, the CCS re-approval, and the first monthly pack.

Here is a question worth asking at your next staff meeting: after an incident, who at your centre tells the insurer?Ever...
25/08/2026

Here is a question worth asking at your next staff meeting: after an incident, who at your centre tells the insurer?

Everyone knows the regulator gets 24 hours. Fewer know the insurance notification has a deadline too — your policy expiry date — and that a claim the insurer never heard about during the policy year can be a claim they never pay.

Does your incident form have a line for the insurer on it?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

One incident at a childcare centre starts three notification clocks — the regulator, the family and the insurer. Here they are on one timetable, with who owns each.

Quick question for centre owners receiving the worker retention payment: who at your service is allowed to sign the annu...
24/08/2026

Quick question for centre owners receiving the worker retention payment: who at your service is allowed to sign the annual declaration?

It has to be a person with management or control — not the bookkeeper who prepared the figures, and not your external accountant. Every centre we have watched scramble on this had the numbers ready early and the signatory unreachable on the day.

Do you know who your signatory is?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

The worker retention payment is a grant agreement, not a subsidy. Here are the declarations a childcare provider must sign, when they fall due, and the evidence behind them.

If your monthly report takes twenty minutes to read and never changes a decision, the problem probably isn't the numbers...
22/08/2026

If your monthly report takes twenty minutes to read and never changes a decision, the problem probably isn't the numbers.

It's that nothing on the page says what result would make you act.

What's the one number you actually check every month?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

The eight numbers that belong on a childcare centre's monthly management pack — and the threshold beside each one that turns a figure into a decision.

Most centres we review have a current fee schedule sitting on top of family terms written for a business that stopped ex...
21/08/2026

Most centres we review have a current fee schedule sitting on top of family terms written for a business that stopped existing three years ago — usually terms drafted when the centre only took permanent enrolments, still in use now that a third of Fridays are casual.

Nothing in the document is wrong. It just describes someone else's centre.

Our new guide covers what belongs in a childcare enrolment agreement, and what the National Regulations have already decided for you.

When did you last read your own enrolment terms end to end?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

Your enrolment agreement is the contract you actually enforce. What has to be in writing before a fee debt is collectable, and the notice period already set for you.

Most childcare vendors assume the price is the binding part of a heads of agreement and the process bits are administrat...
19/08/2026

Most childcare vendors assume the price is the binding part of a heads of agreement and the process bits are administrative. It's actually the other way round.

The price is usually a stated intention that due diligence is allowed to move. The confidentiality and exclusivity clauses are the ones you can be sued on. We've written up what belongs on the page, who holds the deposit, and how long an exclusivity period should really run on a childcare deal.

Have you ever signed something before the "real" contract and later wished you'd read it properly?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

A heads of agreement binds the process, not the price. What goes on the page in a childcare centre sale, which parts bind, and what a vendor should never leave to the contract.

The most expensive habit we see in independent centres isn't overpaying a supplier. It's finding out eleven days after t...
17/08/2026

The most expensive habit we see in independent centres isn't overpaying a supplier. It's finding out eleven days after the cancellation window closed — and then paying it for another full year.

Contracts that renew themselves are common, and the notice period to get out is usually buried. Put every supplier's exit deadline in the same calendar as your compliance dates, ninety days early, and half the problem disappears.

When did you last actually read one of your supplier agreements?

Follow https://www.facebook.com/childcarelinkau for more on buying, selling, and investing in Australian childcare.
⚠️ General information only. Not financial advice.

With fees capped and wages set by award and ratio, non-wage costs are the only lines left to move. A practical supplier, energy and contract audit for operators.

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