INTEGRATIONS

Wired into the tools nurseries already use.

ParentLink ships with first-party connectors for Direct Debit, card payments, transactional email, SMS, HMRC funded codes, and a read-only REST API. No "Coming soon" — every integration listed here is live in production today.

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Every connector listed is live Per-nursery credential isolation GDPR + access enforced in the database
01
PAYMENTS

Real Direct Debit and real card processing, not a basket-handoff.

GoCardless for recurring Direct Debit (capped at £4 per payment, against Stripe's percentage fee on ~£900/mo nursery fees). Stripe for card payments (an invoice — extras and late charges included — or an online booking). Both providers can run side-by-side at the same nursery.

GoCardless Direct Debit
Recurring DD against parent bank accounts. Hosted onboarding flow → magic-link mandate setup. Webhook-driven status (active / failed / cancelled). Failures show on Needs you, and you collect them again from Finance. Mandate admin view in Manager → Finance. See the £-saving calculator vs cards →
Stripe cards
One-off card payments via Checkout. Per-nursery test + live mode keys (no shared platform account). Webhook-verified completion. Used for invoices (extras included) and online bookings. Failed payments show alongside DD on Needs you.
TFC reconciliation
HMRC Tax-Free Childcare payments land as BACS with a 13-digit reference. Upload your bank statement; the matcher proposes child-by-child applications. One click marks the matched weeks paid via TFC. No public HMRC API exists — this is the polished manual workaround.
Bulk mandate setup
Moving from another system? Upload a CSV of parents and ParentLink mints a Direct Debit setup link for each one — match is by email, parents with an active DD are skipped, and you get a results CSV ready to mail-merge.
02
MESSAGING

Email and SMS from ParentLink — or from your own providers.

Email goes out from ParentLink’s shared sender by default, in your setting’s name. On Pro, plug in your own Resend or SMTP account so mail comes from your own domain. Text messages can use ParentLink’s account or your own Twilio, Vonage or MessageBird.

Per-nursery email provider
Plug your own Resend API key (or any SMTP-compatible provider). Sent from your domain (DKIM + SPF on your DNS). Manual mode generates the email body for staff to paste into their inbox if no provider is configured — never blocks the send flow.
Texts to parents
Through ParentLink within your plan’s monthly texts, with packs if you need more — or, on Pro, through your own Twilio, Vonage or MessageBird account. Used for urgent messages, visit confirmations, document reminders and late-pickup alerts. Choose in Settings → Text messages. UK and Irish mobile numbers both work.
Web push notifications
Standards-compliant Push API (VAPID-signed). Parents opt in; new diary entries, photos, and urgent messages buzz the phone — in the browser, or from the app added to the phone’s Home Screen.
Send modal
A unified Send modal for any outbound message: email + optional SMS, with provider auto-detection ("Send via Resend", "Send manually — copy body"). Visit confirmations get a mailto: fallback so you can always escape the platform.
03
READ-ONLY REST API

A public /v1/* API on Pro — self-serve, no sales call.

On the Pro plan, mint a bearer token, scope it to the data you want exposed (children / attendance / invoices / rota / waiting-list), and you've got a clean REST surface for any external system. Per-token rate limit, every call recorded, SHA-256 hash at rest, one-time secret display. Designed to feed Xero, Slack, or your bespoke reporting dashboard.

Bearer tokens
Mint at Settings → API tokens. Returns the raw "pl_…" secret ONCE; SHA-256 hash at rest. Per-token scopes, expiry, rate limit (1-1000 requests/minute), revocation. Stripe / GitHub-style prefix so leaks are scannable in source code.
Five endpoints
GET /v1/children, /attendance, /invoices, /rota, /waiting-list. Pagination via limit (1-500) + offset. Invoice endpoint exposes per-child finance roll-up (total due / paid / outstanding) — not raw JSONB. Edge-function authenticated; scoped to the setting (or group) the token belongs to.
Every call recorded
Every call is recorded on our side with its IP, user agent, status and duration, and Settings shows when each token was last used, so dormant tokens are easy to spot and revoke. A rolling 60-second count drives the rate limit — no separate counter to drift.
Outbound webhooks
HMAC-signed POSTs the instant an event fires — child.signed_in / signed_out, enquiry.created, incident.logged, invoice.paid. Add an endpoint at Settings → Webhooks, pick your events, verify the signature. At-least-once delivery with retry + backoff and auto-disable on a dead URL. Push beats polling. Full docs at /developers.
04
REGULATORY HOOKS

HMRC funded codes + curriculum frameworks, jurisdiction-aware.

The funded-hours world is a per-nation maze: HMRC for England 30 hours + TFC; Funded ELC for Scotland; Wales LA codes; NI EA references. ParentLink keeps the funded-entitlement picker filtered to your nursery's jurisdiction, the verification lifecycle on the HMRC pattern, and the curriculum picker on whichever framework Ofsted/CIW/CI/ETI actually expect.

HMRC 30-hours verification
Format-validates 11-digit codes; verification timestamp + portal deep-link; flagged on Needs you when verification is older than 90 days (HMRC's reconfirmation cadence). Note: the public HMRC childcare-service API was deprecated in 2018, so this is a polished manual-portal workflow, not an automated check.
Curriculum frameworks
EYFS (England) / CfE with Realising the Ambition (Scotland) / Curriculum for Wales and the funded non-maintained nursery pathways (Wales) / pre-school guidance (NI) — picker scoped to your jurisdiction, observations + journals follow the right framework, inspection-prep view rolls up the right standards.
Funded entitlement engine
England 15h universal / 30h working parents / 15h eligible 2-year-old / Scotland 1140h ELC / Wales / NI Pre-School Education. Each child can inherit the nursery default or override per-child. The billing engine respects the cap.
Audit log
Every consent change, role grant, refund, mandate setup and manual stage move writes to the activity log with actor + before/after, kept for 24 months.
FAQ

Common questions

Do I need my own GoCardless account?
Yes, by design. Per-nursery credentials means payments land in your bank account, not a shared platform sweep. Set up free at gocardless.com; paste the token at Settings → Payments.
Do you take a cut of payments?
No. ParentLink's subscription is the only revenue we take. GoCardless's and Stripe's own published fees go directly to them — we don't layer anything on top. GoCardless Direct Debit is 1% + 20p a payment, capped at £4 (plus 0.3% on a payment over £2,000; their prices exclude VAT); Stripe cards are 1.5% + 20p for standard UK cards, 2.8% + 20p for premium UK cards, 2.5% + 20p for EEA cards and 3.15% + 20p for international cards (29 October 2026).
What's the API rate limit?
The API is part of the Pro plan. Per-token, 1-1000 requests per minute (you set it when you mint the token). The default is 60/min. Each call is counted against the token's calls in the last 60 seconds before allowing each new request.
Is there an outgoing webhook?
Yes — live and in production, on the Pro plan. Subscribe at Settings → Webhooks to child.signed_in, child.signed_out, enquiry.created, incident.logged and invoice.paid. Each delivery is HMAC-signed (verify with the per-endpoint secret), retried with backoff, and a dead endpoint auto-disables. Full docs + a verification snippet at /developers.
Can I move from Famly, Blossom, Connect or another system?
Yes. Export your children and parents as spreadsheets (CSV) from your current system and use the Children and Parents imports — common headings such as first name, surname and date of birth are matched for you, and you match the rest. Parents you import can then be invited to the app in one step, and we'll help with your first import. The Bulk Direct Debit setup at Settings → Payments takes a parents CSV and mints a GoCardless mandate-setup link for each parent in one shot.
What if my parents already have a TFC reference?
TFC is bank-statement reconciliation — there's no API. Add the 13-digit reference on the child profile; upload your bank statement at Finance → TFC reconciliation; the matcher auto-pairs received BACS with the matching child for one-click confirmation.

Plug it in. Stay in control.

Per-nursery credentials, scope-gated API tokens, manual-mode fallbacks.Try the integrations free for 14 days — no credit card required, and your data downloadable in one file from Settings whenever you want it.

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