Jovial works with almost any accounting system, including Quickbooks.

Jovial is not designed to replace your existing accounting system. You will continue to run payroll, pay vendors, track budgets, report out, etc., using all of your current accounting practices. Jovial only replaces "accounts receivable" with respect to the families in your school.

Jovial makes it very easy to transfer your summarized receivables into your existing accounting system on a periodic basis (such as monthly).

Jovial is a collaborative tool designed to help everyone at your school with their job. Jovial provides various levels of access appropriate for staff, teachers, and parents, depending on their job. For example, teachers may only be allowed to view and edit class rosters.

A typical school will have one or more people designated as "administrator" who will be able to manage user access, view and edit all content, etc.

Jovial is easy to use and does not require IT expertise. We will help you set it up to work for your school.

Yes! Jovial has a "Family Portal". The Family Portal can be used to view billing information, make tuition payments (with optional E-payments), access up-to-date class rosters, check pending in-class requirements, review contact information, and more.

All you need is a computer with an internet connection and a relatively modern internet browser (Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, IE 10+, etc.). Jovial is also mobile- and tablet-friendly and will work well on iPhone and Android devices. Jovial is 100% cloud-based. There's nothing to download, install, or update.

Jovial uses Rackspace, one of the world's top cloud infrastructure providers. Our standards for data safety meet or exceed industry standards:

• We utilize data centers in Dallas, Chicago, and Sydney (Australia) to provide geographically redundant backups of all data.
• We backup all data daily. We maintain daily backups for 2 weeks, and weekly backups for 2 months. In the very unlikely event your account experiences any sort of critical failure, we are able to quickly restore your data from any available previous backup.
• We use an encrypted connection (https://) for ALL access to Jovial. This happens automatically, without you having to do anything.
• All access is through passwords, and all passwords are internally encrypted using the latest encryption algorithms.
• Each school administrator maintains the user access list for his/her school, and each user's access permission is individually customized.

If you decide Jovial is not for your school, it's easy to download your data into an Excel-compatible format (CSV) at any time, and take it with you.

Once we setup your Jovial account, we will hand-hold you through all the initial customization. Everyone's needs are different, but these are the typical things you can either do yourself, or we can help you setup:

• Import a list of your families/students from an Excel spreadsheet
• Configure Jovial with your school's tuition policies, including current rates, and Jovial will automatically calculate all billing for you
• Configure Jovial with your school's requirements -- such as immunizations for students, TB tests for parents, background checks, and anything else -- and Jovial will automatically track all requirements for you
• Upload your school logo, and customize the color-scheme of your account to your school's colors!

Jovial was proudly founded by Hermann and Helen Calabria, co-op parents, based in Seattle, Washington. We are on a social mission to improve preschools by providing very high-quality software at a very low price. Jovial is free to non-profits.

The inspiration behind Jovial was the combination of wanting to be involved with our co-op preschool, along with the daunting realization of the "time-suck" involved in all the backoffice work. Hermann and Helen felt the little time available for the co-op was better spent working in the classroom, supporting teachers, meeting prospective families, planning community and social events, or fundraising.

Hermann put his software engineering skills to use, and created the very first version of Jovial for his personal use only (as volunteer treasurer). Soon, other co-ops in the area started to show interest in Hermann's project. The feedback was so gratifyingly positive, Hermann and Helen decided to offer Jovial to any nonprofit co-op preschool that wants it.

Sustainability is important to Hermann and Helen. Jovial is very high-quality software, relying on decades of software engineering experience. No shortcuts are taken, and special efforts are made to ensure a user-friendly, beautiful experience.

Read our first Letter to Our Stakeholders

Hermann and Helen's family have gained so much from their co-op experience. It is their sincere hope Jovial is able to positively impact the nationwide preschool co-op community.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have. Please fill out the “Get Started” form below, and we will respond to you by phone or email within 2 business days.