See who owes, what was paid and what is still outstanding. Send a statement in minutes. Keep attendance, learner files and the DOE register in one place, on your phone.
Built by Siyabonga Ndlovu, who runs a 114-learner crèche in Hazyview, Mpumalanga.
Umthombo Demo CrècheSample data
Expected in September 2026
R18,450.00
Paid
R15,010.00
Outstanding
R3,440.00
Who owes
11 learners
R24
DBE subsidy per child per day — your register claims it correctly
2 min
Daily attendance on your phone — no paper, no Excel
1 click
DOE register built and exported at month-end
R0 to start
Free to set up — no card, no contract, no setup fee
The problem
Does this sound familiar?
Running a crèche is hard enough. The money admin should not be the hardest part.
A register with a gap is a claim you cannot make
The DBE pays R24 per child, per day, on a register that is complete and in the right format. A missing day is a lost claim for that child.
✓ Zande builds the register from the attendance you take each day
Chasing fees one WhatsApp at a time
Every month the same parents, the same conversations, the same half-promises. You know roughly who owes. You do not know exactly, and working it out takes an evening.
✓ Every balance on one screen, with WhatsApp reminders you send from it
A payment lands with a reference that matches nobody
An EFT arrives as "school fees". Which child? A parent asks for a statement and it waits until the weekend, because the balance has to be worked out first.
✓ Bank-statement matching, and a statement for any learner in minutes
Zande opens on one question: where does the centre's money stand this month? The answer is always the same four figures, in the same order.
Expected
Every active learner's fee for the month, added up. Reduced fees and sibling discounts already applied.
Paid
What has actually been recorded as paid: cash, EFT or card, with the date and method.
Outstanding
Expected minus paid. The number you would otherwise work out by hand at month-end.
Who owes
The learners behind that number, one tap away, each with a statement and a reminder ready to send.
Inside the app
This is the actual app.
Real screens from a demo centre with 60 learners and sample data, mid-month. Nothing mocked up, no customer's records.
Where the money stands, then what needs you today. The four figures first; below them, the tasks that move them.
Parents get their own page. What they owe, how to pay, and the exact reference to use — so the money lands matched.
R24
per child · per day · DBE subsidy
The money most centres miss
Registered with DOE? The DBE pays R24 per child. Most centres miss some of it.
For DOE-registered centres, the subsidy only pays out if your attendance register is correct every single day. Miss a day and you lose the claim for that child. Zande takes attendance on your phone and builds the register automatically — in the exact format your province requires.
How many subsidised places has your district approved?60 places
R30,240/month at full attendance
60 places × R24 × 21 days attended. That is the ceiling at full attendance, so a month with absences or a closure pays less. Not sure how many places you hold? Zande shows which learners are on your approved list and which are not.
Every tool an ECD owner needs — from the first enrolment to monthly admin — in one clean interface. Works for DOE-registered and private centres.
Attendance & DOE Registers
Mark attendance on your phone in under 2 minutes. Zande builds the attendance register automatically, in the format your district accepts. Submit at month-end — no reformatting.
Learner Management
Full learner profiles, age groups, fee classes, enrolment dates, and every child's documents scanned and stored in one place.
Fee Collection & Statements
Record payments, track outstanding balances, and send the statement straight to the parent on WhatsApp — by email too if they want it. Zande works out who to chase and writes the message, so you never chase manually again.
Statements out
1 tap
Reminders
Automatic
Compliance Tracker
Track every document, certificate, and inspection date. Get notified 30 days before anything expires.
Incident Reports
Log incidents, notify parents, maintain records. All timestamped and stored.
Staff Management
Staff records, roles, contact details and start dates — all in one place.
Financial Reports
Monthly collection summaries, outstanding reports, and audit-ready records exported in one click.
Fee Reconciliation
Upload the statement PDF straight from your banking app — Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank, ABSA or Nedbank — and Zande matches every EFT to the right learner. No more mystery deposits or ticking a paper list by hand. On another bank? Send us a sample and we'll add it within a week.
Online Enrolment Pro
Share one link. Parents apply online with their child's details and documents — applications drop straight into your pending list to approve, waitlist or decline in a tap.
Child Progress Growth
Track each child against the Early Learning Development Areas (ELDA). Capture observations through the year and produce a progress report parents can see.
Expense Tracking Pro
Log your centre's running costs and see income against expenses each month — the real picture of what your centre actually keeps.
Multi-Site Growth
Run several branches from one login. Each site keeps its own learners, staff and registers, and you see the whole group in one owner view.
Parent Portal Every plan
Give parents a secure login to see what they owe and why, month by month, with their invoices, receipts, statements and the daily class update. They sign in with their phone number and child's name. On every plan, from R99.
Free centre website Growth
Every Growth centre gets a clean, mobile-friendly website — your logo, classes, fees and an online enquiry form — so parents find you on Google and apply. We build and host it for you.
From adding your first learner to seeing what needs
attention, Zande shows you what to do next — on the screen where you
do it. No training, no manual to read first.
Why Zande exists
Built inside a working crèche.
Zande wasn't designed in an office park. It runs a real ECD centre every single morning.
SN
The founder
"I run Bethel Crèche here in Hazyview, 114 children. I got tired of chasing fees and rebuilding DOE registers by hand, so I built the software I wished existed. Every feature has to work at my centre before it reaches yours. Zande isn't built by a startup that never heard of the DOE. It's built by a principal, in rand, for South Africa."
Zande runs the daily attendance, fee tracking, and DOE registers at a real 114-learner crèche in Hazyview, Mpumalanga — the centre it was built in. Every month-end register you export, we export too.
Z
Our home centre
Hazyview · Mpumalanga · DOE-registered
Same problems
We didn't imagine these problems. We chase the same fees, reconcile the same unmatched EFTs, submit to the same district offices, and answer to the same DOE deadlines as you do.
Z
The Zande team
Built in Hazyview, made for South Africa
The test
Every feature has to survive a real morning at the centre — 6:45 drop-off, one phone, patchy signal, a queue of parents. If it doesn't work there, it doesn't ship.
Z
How we build
Phone-first · low data · no training needed
Software from inside the sector, not above it. Set up free today.
Across South Africa a place costs R250 to R370 a month, so R299 is one learner. It is also less than the DBE pays you for 13 children attending a single day. Set up your centre free, then unlock the full app from R99/month. No lock-in, no setup fees.
Billed monthly, in Rand. No annual contract.
Prices are in Rand, per month. Vuhosi Capital (Pty) Ltd is not VAT registered. No VAT is charged. A card subscription is cancelled from Settings; you keep access to the end of the period you have paid for.
Your parents keep paying the way they already pay.
EFT, cash, or a SASSA grant — straight into your own Capitec, FNB, Standard Bank or ABSA account. Zande matches the deposits to the learners. Nothing changes for the parent.
EFTCashSASSA grantNo card on fileNo debit order
Switching
Bring your spreadsheet. We load it for you.
Nobody starts from nothing. Send us whatever you already keep and we set your centre up for you.
10 minutes
Send us the file
Excel, CSV, or a photo of the register. Whatever you actually keep. WhatsApp it to us.
We load it for you
We do the work
We map your columns, set up your classes, and load your learners and fee history. Not a template you fill in yourself.
2 minutes every morning
You check it
You open Zande and your centre is already there. If something looks wrong, we fix it before you pay anything. After that it is two minutes a morning to mark the register.
Whatever you keep it in today
A hardcover attendance bookAn Excel fileA WhatsApp thread with the parentsA photo of the register on your phone
We recently set up a centre with over 300 children from a single fee spreadsheet — learners, classes, payment dates and eight months of payment history, loaded for them.
Import is free. Support is a WhatsApp message to a person in your time zone, not a chatbot in another country.
FAQ
Common questions
Yes. Take attendance on your phone each day. At month-end, click Export — Zande builds the register in the exact format your DOE office requires. No reformatting, no manual typing.
R24 per child, per day attended, paid on the subsidised places your district has approved, not on every learner on your roll. It is means-tested and capped by your provincial allocation. A centre with 60 approved places, at full attendance across 21 days, would reach R30,240 in a month, and less in any month with absences or a closure. The claim is built from your daily attendance register.
Sign up and add your learners for free. When you're ready, pay from R99/month and we unlock the full app — attendance, fees, statements, registers and reports. Pay by card and it activates instantly and renews each month, or pay by EFT and we activate you within a day.
Yes — Zande is mobile-first. No download or app store. Open your phone browser, go to zande.online, log in. Works on any Android or iPhone.
Yes. Export your Excel file as CSV and upload it during setup. Zande maps the columns. If you get stuck, WhatsApp us and we do the import for you at no charge.
Each centre's data is kept in its own database file, Zande runs over HTTPS, and backups run every night with a copy kept off the server. Learner records are never shared or sold. Two things worth knowing. Our servers are in Manchester in the United Kingdom, not in South Africa, and we will say so here before that changes. And you can export your attendance registers as CSV and your fee statements as PDF whenever you want, so your records are never locked in. For what your centre has to do under POPIA, read our POPIA guide.
Yes. Zande works for all ECD centres — DOE-registered, private, and community-run. If you don't receive the DBE subsidy, the DOE register is optional. You still get fee tracking, parent invoices, learner records, WhatsApp reminders, online enrolment, and all other tools.
No contract, no lock-in. Pay month to month. A card subscription is cancelled from Settings; you keep access to the end of the period you have paid for. Your statements download as PDFs and your reports export as CSV at any time.
Not ready to sign up yet?
Take the free templates — attendance register, fee policy, and arrears letters. No email needed, no catch.
