After-school nanny hours
After-school childcare is one of the hardest schedules to track. Your nanny picks up the kids on Monday at 4:15pm, Tuesday she doesn't come, Wednesday is a full day from 8am to 6pm, Thursday she stays until 8:30pm because you have a late meeting. There's no fixed weekly total — the hours genuinely vary every single week.
hōra takes all of that off your plate. Your nanny sends a quick WhatsApp message when she arrives and when she leaves. The AI extracts the times, applies your rates, and sends you a detailed monthly report on the 1st of every month. No spreadsheet, no mental arithmetic, no end-of-month dread.
After-school childcare sits at the intersection of two unpredictable schedules: the school calendar and your own work life. Schools have early dismissals, teacher training days, half-term weeks, and holiday periods — all of which change the length of the childcare day dramatically. On top of that, your own schedule means you sometimes get home at 6pm and sometimes at 9pm.
The result is dozens of WhatsApp messages building up across the month. “Here now,” “leaving in a sec,” “just picked them up from swimming.” By the time you sit down at month-end to calculate hours and work out any enhanced-rate hours, you've got 45 minutes of scrolling and arithmetic ahead of you. If you have a split rate — standard pay during the day, a higher rate after 8pm — it's even more work.
Many families pay a standard rate during the day and a higher rate for evening hours — typically from 8pm or 9pm onwards. This is especially common in after-school setups where late pickups happen regularly.
hōra handles this natively with a configurable cutoff time. Set it once in your dashboard — say, 8pm — and every monthly report automatically separates standard-rate hours from enhanced-rate hours, with the corresponding amounts. No more manually counting how many minutes past 8pm the nanny stayed each night.
School holidays flip after-school childcare on its head. A week where your nanny normally does 10 hours of evening pickups becomes a week of full-day care — potentially 40 or 50 hours. Half days and teacher training days add similar unpredictability.
For your nanny, nothing changes. She sends the same kind of WhatsApp message she always does: “Here from 8am, you're back at 6:30pm.” hōra calculates the hours from whatever times she reports — there's no mode to switch, no holiday setting to configure. The report at month-end reflects exactly what was worked, whether it was a quiet week of 90-minute pickups or a busy holiday week of full days.
Can I use hōra just for after-school care? Yes, that's the primary use case. hōra was built for families with variable after-school schedules: pickups at different times, evening care until parents get home, full days during school holidays. That's exactly the kind of schedule it handles best.
What about days when my nanny doesn't come? No message = no hours logged. Your nanny simply doesn't send anything on days she doesn't work. Nothing is recorded on either side.
Does my nanny need an app? No. Your nanny uses WhatsApp, which she already has. No extra app to install, no account to create, no training needed. Zero friction on her side.
What about early dismissal days? The nanny sends the actual time she picked up the kids. The AI adapts immediately — whether it's an early finish at 3pm for a teacher training day or a late pickup at 5:30pm. The monthly report reflects real hours worked.