--- title: "Send subsidy attendance to the state" description: "Connect a center to your state's child care subsidy attendance system, put children on the program, and keep every authorized day accounted for." type: setup updated: 2026-09-18 canonical_url: https://help.nestlicare.com/owners/settings/connect-state-subsidy-attendance roles: ["super_admin", "center_admin"] platforms: [web] --- Some states pay child care subsidies against attendance the state collects electronically. Texas is the first state NestliCare supports: once a center is connected, the sign-ins and sign-outs of the children on the program go from NestliCare to the state's attendance system, so the center can return the state's tablet. Everything else about the center's attendance stays as it was. This is available to organizations in the United States, in states where the state offers a path for child care software. The switch appears under **Settings → Integrations → State subsidy attendance** as soon as your state is open. ## Before you start - The state's credentials for the center: the provider ID, the password the state issued for electronic attendance, and the agency (the workforce board) that pays the center. - The list of children on the program, with the exact name and date of birth the state has on file. A spelling that differs from the state's record is the most common reason a child cannot be matched. - For each child, the first day of the current eligibility period, from the state's authorization or recertification notice. - A kiosk at the door with a camera, and location turned on for the browser or the app. The program requires a photo, a signature and the device location on every sign-in and sign-out of a program child. ## Setup 1. Turn on **Upload attendance to the state** in **Settings → Integrations → State subsidy attendance**. Choose weekly uploads (Monday, the default) or daily. 2. Open the subsidy page from the attendance page and connect the center: enter the provider ID, the password and pick the agency. **Test connection** confirms the credentials with the state. 3. Put children on the program with **Add a child**. The day you add them is the start of their stint; set an earlier date if their authorization began earlier. 4. **Match** looks each child up in the state's records by exact name and date of birth. A child the state knows under a different spelling shows suggestions from the state's own list: pick the one with the same date of birth. The state cannot correct its spelling; you bind our child to the record as the state has it. 5. Enter each child's **eligibility period from** date. The count of unexplained absences toward the program's limit runs from that day. ## How sign-in changes for a program child - Everything in this section applies only to the children you put on the program. Every other child at the center checks in exactly as before: no photo, no signature, no location. - **Only a parent or authorized pickup person signs a program child in and out**, at the kiosk. The parent app sends them to the kiosk. Staff buttons for that child are refused. - The kiosk takes a photo, a signature and the device location on each side. A day with both sides recorded is a matched pair; a day with one side or none is an unexplained absence in the state's count. - **When no parent is at the door**, for example because your center transported the child to or from school, or the child came by school bus, staff may record that one side. Choose the reason; it is reported to the state under the staff member's name. A parent must record the other side of the day. - **Absences:** mark the child absent with a type. Sick and holiday count as explained; so does a center closure on the calendar, which fills in every program child automatically. An absence without a reason counts against the family. **Parent sheet.** The subsidy page has a **Parent sheet** button: a one-page printout for the door, in English or Spanish, with both sides every day, the photo and signature, six days to fix a pickup, and absences. Print one per family the day a child goes on the program. ## Uploads, corrections and the state's answer - Attendance is uploaded on the schedule you chose. The subsidy page shows what will go: ready days, days that need something first, and days the state already has. - A parent can fix a missed or wrong pickup **within six days** at the kiosk, with a fresh photo and signature, and can enter a whole day nobody signed the same way (the kiosk lists the days with nothing recorded). With **Parents may sign a subsidy child in from their phone** on, the same fix is under the child's card in the parent app, with the phone's own signature, photo and location. After that the state no longer accepts changes. A day the state already accepted is sent again as a modification when it changes. - If you correct a time yourself, the corrected side goes to the state under your name, marked as corrected by the provider. - Staff cannot enter a past day for a program child, and cannot change or delete a side the parent recorded. Texas keeps backdating with the parent; the parent enters a missed day at the kiosk, or in the app when phone sign-in is on. Staff can still mark an absence with its reason, record the one side no parent performed (center transport), and correct a side they recorded themselves. - Rejections come back with the state's reason and what to do. Fix the day and it goes again on the next upload. ## What NestliCare tells you - The evening before an upload: unexplained days, days that cannot be sent, pickups still to record, children not yet matched. - After an upload with rejections, and if an upload could not run. - The two things the state requires a provider to report to the board: a program child absent five consecutive days with no contact, and a child who has not started within five days of the authorization date. - On the subsidy page, each child's unexplained absences in the eligibility period against the program's limit. The state's own count decides; this is your early warning. Turn these on or off under **Notifications → State subsidy**. ## Photos, signatures and locations They are collected only for children on the program, only at the moment of sign-in or sign-out, and sent to the state. Once the state has accepted a day, NestliCare deletes its copy after the retention window you set on the subsidy settings card (90 days by default). Times and who signed stay on the attendance record. ## Switching from the state's tablet Run NestliCare alongside the tablet for two clean upload cycles first, with the upload switched on, so you can compare what the state received with what the tablet recorded. Then ask the state's attendance support to switch the center to your software. From that day NestliCare is the only path for the center's subsidy attendance, so keep the notifications on for the first weeks.