Fill rate is the number every childcare operator should know cold. A center's entire economics turn on filled seats against a fixed cost of rent and ratio-driven staff, so every licensed seat sitting empty is tuition the building could carry but isn't. This dashboard keeps enrolled seats tracking against licensed capacity, classroom by classroom and center by center, so empty revenue is never hidden behind a per-site report.
What this dashboard answers
How many of our licensed seats are filled right now, across every center? Which sites and which age groups have the most open seats to sell? Is any classroom over its licensed capacity? The overview puts total enrolled seats, total licensed capacity, fill rate, and open seats on cards, then breaks fill rate down by site so a struggling center stands out at a glance. A classroom-and-age-group matrix takes it to the room level, where the actual selling and staffing decisions get made.
The metrics that matter
Fill rate is the headline, but read it next to open seats (the dollars on the table) and FTE enrollment (because part-day children consume less capacity than a raw headcount suggests). The overcapacity classroom count is the safety valve: a room over its licensed maximum isn't extra revenue — it's a ratio violation waiting to be cited. Infant rooms behave differently from preschool rooms, with smaller licensed capacities and tighter ratios, which is why the age-group split is built in.
Why the data is trapped
Procare, Brightwheel, Kangarootime, and Famly all track enrollment and licensed capacity — but their reporting is built one center at a time. A multi-site director who wants fill rate across the whole portfolio ends up exporting each center's roster, pasting them together, and hand-typing licensed capacity per room. By the next enrollment change the spreadsheet is already wrong. The cross-tab that matters — enrolled vs. licensed by room, rolled up across sites — is exactly the view the platforms don't roll up.
How to read it
Start with fill rate by site and find the laggards, then drill into the classroom matrix to see which rooms and age groups carry the open seats — that's your sell-list. A center at 70% fill with infant rooms full and preschool rooms empty has a marketing-mix problem, not a demand problem. Watch the overcapacity flag as a compliance alarm, not a win. The sample here uses fully synthetic data — anonymized center names and made-up capacities — so you can explore the finished report with no real records.
Metrics it tracks
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Total Enrolled Seats | Count of filled seats across every classroom — SUM of enrolled children. |
| Total Licensed Capacity | Sum of each classroom's state-licensed maximum — the seats you're allowed to sell. |
| Fill Rate | Enrolled ÷ licensed capacity — the share of allowed seats actually filled. |
| Open Seats | Empty, revenue-bearing seats still available to sell (licensed capacity minus enrolled). |
| Full-Time Equivalent Enrollment | Capacity consumed in FTE terms — full-day counts as 1.0, part-day fractionally. |
| Overcapacity Classroom Count | Classrooms where enrolled exceeds licensed capacity — a ratio and licensing risk flag. |
Used by: Center directors and multi-site owner/operators
Frequently asked questions
What is a good fill rate for a childcare center?
Most operators aim to keep licensed seats in the high-80s to high-90s percent filled — high enough that the fixed cost of rent and ratio-driven staff is well covered, with a little headroom for turnover. A persistently low fill rate points to a marketing, waitlist, or age-mix problem; the value of the report is seeing which rooms and sites carry the empty seats.
What's the difference between enrolled count and FTE enrollment?
Enrolled count is a headcount of children in a seat. FTE (full-time equivalent) enrollment weights each child by how much of a full-day seat they consume — a part-day or two-day-a-week child is a fraction of an FTE. Capacity is really consumed in FTE terms, so reading both keeps a roster of many part-time children from looking fuller than it is.
Can I build this on my own enrollment data?
Yes. Export your classroom roster and licensed capacity from Procare, Brightwheel, Kangarootime, or Famly and use this as a template — we model it into a Power BI report you open in Power BI Desktop. The sample uses synthetic data, so there's no real family or child information in what you see here.
Build this report on your own data
Clone this Childcare centers template — describe it and we’ll generate sample data so you can try it free, or upload your own export. You get a fully modeled, branded Power BI project that opens in Power BI Desktop.
Use this as a template →