SACC and Employee Childcare Management System

The Challenge
After Dynaxys developed the Childcare Accounts Receivable System (CCARS), a Web-based system that provides billing and accounting functionality, the County sought an integrated application that would handle both registration and accounting functions connected with its childcare programs. This new system would replace the daily data interface that linked its current registration system to the accounts receivable system. Fairfax County wanted registration capabilities to create and manage accounts, process enrollments and waitlists, define services and fees, administer users and security, provide extensive reporting, and enable administrative functions.

In addition to re-engineering, the County also needed to —

  • Track data required by federal programs, such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA);
  • Expand access to enrollment information for other user constituencies, such as parents;
  • Support new Internet-based technologies;
  • Support online payment of invoices; and
  • Give teachers in childcare centers access to the system so that they could view rosters and record attendance.
The County stipulated that the new system had to be developed and launched with no interruption of service, enrollments, or parent invoicing.

The Solution
Re-engineering the existing registration system required implementing complex business rules. For example, some childcare centers required age and grade restrictions, capacities needed to be tracked and enforced, and the fee calculation needed to consider income levels, child deductions, and multi-child discounts. Dynaxys developed the SACC and ECCC Management System (SEMS), which provides end-to-end integrated registration and accounting functionality to support the County’s childcare services.

Dynaxys chose the Java J2EE platform to create a Web-based system for maximum flexibility and scalability. The J2EE platform allowed Dynaxys to leverage best-of-breed open-source technologies for many aspects of the technology solution. These open-source technologies include the JBoss J2EE Application Server, Apache Tomcat JSP container, Apache Formatting Objects Processor (FOP) for generating PDF-based reports, Apache Xerces for XML parsing, Saxon for XSL processing and the Apache Struts web framework.

The Result
With SEMS, Fairfax County can now —

  • Perform all required registration functions using an easy-to-use user interface.
  • Allow teachers to easily access the system online to manage class roster, attendance and services.
  • Allow parents to easily access the system online to view their bills, tax statements; view and modify enrollment status and account level administrative information.
  • Track childcare centers and services, family information, enrollments, accounts receivable transactions, and USDA data.
  • Support e-payments through the Fairfax County website.
  • Integrate registration and accounting data in real time.
  • Run a variety of operation reports, including accounting, rosters, letters, and management reports.
  • Provide up-to-the-minute financial information to both parents and program managers.
Dynaxys hosts and maintains the application in its Silver Spring data center, maintains a disaster recovery site in the Midwest and provides ongoing software enhancement and operations services to the County.

SEMS went live with no interruption of service, enrollments, or parent invoicing. Initially, the system was rolled out to county registration and finance staff. Once users became familiar with the system, the County extended its use to teachers in the childcare centers.