Poppies Daycare Nursery
Helping Poppies Grow Beyond the Nursery Walls & Streamline Their Finances
At a glance
Sector: Early Years Education
Team Size: 30 staff
Sites: Tidworth & Perham Down
Project Duration: 6 months (implementation), & ongoing partnership and support
Summit Services: Accounting & Bookkeeping Services and Business Consulting.
Key Results:
- Billing time reduced from 1 day → 1 hour
- Full automation of registers, funding, and invoicing
- Real-time financial visibility and management reporting
- Long-term business stability through pandemic recovery
Background & Legacy
Poppies Daycare Nursery runs two sites in Tidworth and Perham Down, caring for children aged 3 months to 4 years. Behind the scenes, however, the business was buried in spreadsheets: Attendance, lunches, extras, and funding were tracked by hand, leaving room for error and little time for insight. Financial data sat with a few individuals, meaning the owner had limited visibility of performance or profitability.
When Summit stepped in, the goal wasn’t just to tidy up the books, it was to bring structure, confidence, and clarity. Our Director & Head of Outsourced Accounting, Diane built a close partnership with the owner, guiding her through automation and financial transformation so she could focus on what she loved most: childcare and development.
The results spoke for themselves. Efficiency and profitability hit record levels, enabling investment in a third facility for after-school care in Tidworth.
Then the unimaginable happened. During the pandemic, the owner sadly passed away, leaving her husband and team to manage both grief and the business. Summit stayed by their side, securing funding, stabilising finances, and helping the nurseries survive through extraordinary challenges.
Today, Poppies Daycare Nursery is thriving again. A new management team of three, including Diane, leads the business with full visibility and confidence. The owner’s husband, Ian, has since retired knowing his wife’s legacy is in safe hands.
At Summit, we don’t just help businesses grow, we help them endure, adapt, and keep moving forward, even when the ground shifts beneath them.
Challenges & Goals
When we first met Poppies Daycare Nursery, their processes were… let’s say character-building.
Manual systems for everything; registers, lunches, funding, billing, all managed through endless spreadsheets.
Financial details were siloed: with limited visibility across management.
No structured reporting: no management insight, and no clear strategic direction.
Resistance to change: the team had purchased new nursery software (Connect) over a year earlier but never implemented it due to a “don’t fix what isn’t broken” mindset.
The Goals
- Automate and connect everything from child registers to billing.
- Gain financial understanding and management visibility.
- Build a culture of trust, enabling delegation and shared accountability.
- Empower the owner to step back from the day-to-day while still having clarity and control.
Ultimately, success meant one thing: turning chaos into calm.
Our Approach
We started with the numbers, but it was never just about the numbers.
Step 1:
Financial Clarity First
We reviewed company financials in detail to understand the true state of play, identifying inefficiencies, duplicated costs, and missing insight.
Step 2:
Bookkeeping Reboot
We worked alongside the existing bookkeeper to understand their processes, then rebuilt a system that made sense: categorised, consistent, and clear.
Step 3:
Technology That Works For People
We reconnected with the team at Connect (the unused nursery management software), studied the system inside out, and aligned it to Poppies’ needs. Once we confirmed compatibility, we handled setup and rollout ourselves.
Step 4:
Training and Change Management
We trained the team, supported them daily, and acted as a steady hand throughout the transition. Resistance turned into enthusiasm once staff saw the time saved and how much easier their jobs became.
Results, Lessons & Impact
Within six months, Connect was fully implemented across both nurseries. Building trust and shifting “old-school” habits took a little longer, but by staying present, patient, and practical, the change stuck.
The transformation was as much cultural as operational:
- Attendance and extras tracked were manually in spreadsheets → Now all child data recorded in Connect from day one.
- Funding was calculated by hand → Now funding is automatically allocated each term
- Invoices were created one-by-one in Sage, printed, and posted → Now invoices are itemised, generated, and emailed in a few clicks.
- Billing day used to = an entire day → Now a billing day = 1 hour.
But the numbers only tell half the story.
The Summit Difference
At Summit, we don’t see accounting as paperwork, we see it as partnership. From process overhauls to personal support, we help businesses find clarity, confidence, and calm in the middle of the noise.
Because at the end of the day, it’s never just about the spreadsheets. It’s about the people behind them.
