Parenting Time Calendar: Parenting Time Calendar lets you create a basic custody and visitation calendar and it keeps track of the time-share percentage that the child has with each parent.

To begin with, you fill out a template with the name of your calendar and the preferences for it.







As you can see, you can choose the colors that mark the custody time. With Parenting Time Calendar, you are only entering in Non-Custodial parent time. All of the time is set to the Custodial Parent and you put in the time for the Non-Custodial parent. I don't like this setup. It really limits the program because the scheduling is so simplistic. It doesn't allow for complicated scenarios or schedules, and that's a drawback.

On this page you can also put in the default stop and start times for day time visits and overnight visits. You can change the language of the calendar to say Custodial and Non-Custodial, Mom and Dad, and Mother and Father. The assumed times are the length of time that the visits last. This will apply for every visit unless you make individual changes. This is used in calculating the time-share percentages.

Once these are set, you get to the calendar. Depending on what version of the program you purchase, you will have a one or two year calendar to schedule.



If you look in the upper left corner you can see the mode. This is what you schedule when you click on the day of the calendar. You can choose between overnight and day visits.



If you want to schedule events by clicking on the day, you can. When you click on the day it will schedule the event you want. If you want to change the pick up and drop off times you can.



When you put in a day visit there is a little bar on the screen. When you put in an overnight visit the day is highlighted. The overnight interface was confusing because it only highlights the day of the night. So, if the child is scheduled to stay over Friday and Saturday and be picked up Sunday at 5:00 pm, only Friday and Saturday are highlighted. I thought that I had put in the data wrong because Sunday had no information. This could be improved on.

If you don't want to go through an entire two years and click on the days of visitation, you can go up to the Lists(Patterns) tab.



As you can see, you can choose to schedule custody and visits with day and weekly patterns and monthly patterns. This is the screen that comes up.



As I used this part of the program, I couldn't help but think that there has to be a simpler way to do this. The interface is confusing and it takes a good reading of the help file (pretty much the entire help file) to figure things out. Basically, the Odd and Even refer to the starting day of the schedule. So, if you select Odd and Monday it will schedule in the first Odd Monday in the month and then schedule every other Monday through the duration of time you select. You can also select all of the days and schedule in a week block of time. You can use this same template to set up day and overnight visits, or you can use the Monthly template.



This template is similar. You can schedule in the various days and overnights by choosing what week during the months. These templates are how you set up your repeating cycles. It is very tedious and time-consuming to set it up this way. It's also frustrating because the Remove List button only applies to the last list you created so it's hard to go back and delete (you have to delete it day by day in the calendar by pressing the shift key and clicking on the day).

Here's what the calendar looks like with visitation entered.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also schedule the holidays into your calendar under the Links(Patterns) tab.



You click on the side of the holiday that you want the Non-Custodial parent to have. You can also customize the Pickup and Dropoff times. This is the part of the program where only scheduling the Non-Custodial parent time is a real pain. The problem comes when the Non-Custodial's repeat visits fall on a holiday that they aren't scheduled to have. Like, if Halloween is on a Wednesday, and the Non-Custodial parent has visits every Wednesday, they are automatically given the holiday. If the Custodial parent has that holiday, you have to manually go through the calendar and change it. It's very annoying. You can't make a simple holiday schedule because you can to double check every holiday that the Non-Custodial parent doesn't have. There is definitely a way to make this easier for parents--it really shouldn't be this difficult.

The program also lets you make Custom Repeat Patterns and Custom Lists that you can add to your calendar. Honestly, I didn't find these features to be very helpful to making a schedule and it wasn't worth the time it took to figure them out. These features seem to be geared more towards attorneys because they are lists that you could use with a lot of different calendars.

Basically, the Custom Repeat Patterns lets you make a pattern of Day Visits, Overnights, and no visits that you can apply to a calendar.



You enter in whatever combination you want and you add it to your list. Then you go back to the Lists(Patterns) tab and you can apply the Custom Repeat Pattern.



This could be useful if you have a very specific repeating schedule that you want. It could also help an attorney who could create a few patterns and use them in multiple calendars. But, it is a complicated feature that makes it difficult to set up your schedule and I really think there are better ways to do get this done.

The Custom List is similar. With this, you can create a list that applies to multiple calendars. So, you can create a list of all the Jewish holidays and have them put on the calendar. The only advantage for this is for attorneys because if a parent wanted to put in the holidays they could just go through the calendar and enter them as visitation. It really isn't a great feature.



Once you've created your list, you can go through and apply the days you want.



The whole process is cumbersome and tedious.

After you've created your visitation time in the calendar you can print out the calendar by current month or all months and you can print out some reports on the time-share percentage. The monthly calendar looks like the one above. The multi-month calendar looks like this.



You can make the months bigger. The format isn't my favorite. It does give an overview of the visits, but it just seems to be lacking.

The program keeps track of three different time-share percentages. The Care Time means the exact time-share percentage that each parent has with the children. The Quality Time means that you can specify that sleep and nap time are taken away from the hours of custody and visitation and get that time-share percentage. The program also keeps track of the overnights and the percentage of overnights each parent has with the children. You can print out a report for each of these or export the information to Excel and print out a report there.

Care Time Reports





It would be better if you could print out a form that looks like the first screen. Unfortunately, that's just a preview to the graph. It would also be better if the program showed a list of the time-share calculations by day or week. So, this feature could be improved upon.

Quality Time Reports



 



These reports are sparse but okay.

Overnights: The program keeps track of the overnights in the top right corner of the screen.



This prints out to a report that looks like this.



I really don't like this report. It is very hard to read and it is confusing about what data is being shown. It doesn't look very professional at all and I don't understand why they even offer a report that looks like this.

Overall, I wasn't impressed with the custody and visitation calendar that you can create with Parenting Time Calendar. The whole process took a lot of time and the end result wasn't worth it.

Custody X Change: Custody X Change lets you create an entire parenting plan or custody agreement. The interface is very user friendly, and the program is built on layers so it's easy to make a custody and visitation calendar. The first layer in the program is deciding what type of repeating cycle of custody you want



The program has many options to choose from. You click the one you want and it applies it to however many years you want to see. This saves you a lot of time because you don't need to go through each day and allocate time. You can make a custom repeating cycle and put in any times that you want. This feature is very flexible and lets you create a completely personal calendar that works for your situation. The interface is also very user friendly and intuitive. You can quickly create a schedule because you don't have to do all the work of figuring out how to enter every little detail.

As you can see in the above picture, after the repeating cycle tab you can move on to vacation time and holiday time. With vacation time you can enter in the dates of your vacation as a specified vacation or put in an unspecified vacation clause into your agreement





This is a great feature because the program puts in the time for vacation if you already have it scheduled--you just enter in the dates. If you don't know your vacation then the program puts the information into your parenting agreement.

The program also lets you easily add holidays and divide them between the parents. You check on the box of the holiday and then you can put what parent has that holiday and the times the holiday lasts.



You can create a holiday schedule quickly and effortlessly and have it be exactly what you want. The holidays can last several days and you can put in the times that the holiday ends. This is what parents need when they are creating their custody agreement. The list of holidays is also very inclusive--it has pretty much everything that parents with school age children would want to consider.



 

The program also offers different defaults for different ages of children. You can add extra holidays onto the list, and you can have the program swap the holidays between parents by clicking on a button.

 

 

 

 

 

The benefit of the program about being built in layers is if that you ever need to make a change in the calendar you can easily do so without disrupting anything. Like, if you change the rotating schedule to start a week later, it doesn't change the holiday schedule.

Along with holiday and vacation time, you can add any type of special event. The program's interface really shines here. You can simply click on any day and drag to the times you want to event or visitation to last. It's so easy! You can also type in the times.



You can see here how I've added special events--and the special event bar off to the side. This is fantastic and allows you to create the exact schedule that you need. The program really focuses on letting the user easily create what they want.

At the bottom of the calendar, the program keeps track of the time share percentage of both parents. This is nice to know while you're creating your visitation times because you always know exactly how much time you have with the child.



Custody X Change does more than allow you to create a calendar. You can also create your entire agreement and print it out in legal terms. The program includes a long list of parenting provisions that you can read through and check if you want included



(these are just the first few provisions--there is quite a long list to choose from, and you can even add your own)

Once you check the provision, it prints out like this



Custody X Change then allows you to print off your entire parenting plan. You can choose if you want the plan to use the terms custody/visitation or child lives with (some states really care about this). The finished parenting plan is a nice, professional document written in legal terms.



The time-share and overnight percentage computation report is very professional and detailed. It shows the calculations for every day and then gives the total at the end. It is so clear and easy to understand!





This custody agreement covers all the bases and is completely thorough. It lays out the custody and visitation schedule, the vacation and holiday schedule, the parenting provisions, and the time-share calculations. You can also export the documents to Microsoft Word or PDF if you want to add something or edit it.This is all in addition to the calendar and schedule that you've created. You can print off however many months of the calendar that you want.

Custody X Change does everything better than Parenting Time Calendar. The software is designed better, easier to use, and it creates a much better finished product.

Parenting Time Calendar: As mentioned before, Parenting Time Calendar lets you print out a calendar and some time-share reports. This isn't a complete custody agreement and a parent that wants to use it in court would need to make and print extra documents like the written custody schedule, the holiday schedule, any provisions or stipulations and complete time-share records. The program really doesn't offer enough to make a parent feel confident about going to court. I wouldn't want to present my case using such rudimentary software.

Custody X Change: Custody X Change is better overall for parents who are preparing for court (or mediation or just a meeting with a former spouse). This is because of the phenomenal parenting plan that you can print that we discussed above. Parents can bring in a whole year of a custody and visitation calendar complete with holiday, vacation, and special event times. They can also have a list of provisions and stipulations to show the court. They even have an exact time-share percentage to show how much time each parent has with the children. Custody X Change also allows you export your plan into PDF and Microsoft Word. So, if you need to make any personal changes you can do so.

Custody X Change is also continually improving. The creator of the product has come out with several versions of the software--each one better than the last. The next planned feature to be added is integrative tracking. This is scheduled to come out at the end of summer 2009 and will be a nice addition to the software.

The parenting plan you can create is the thing you need in court--it shows that you have thought through your case and that you have professional documents to prove it. If I was going to court, I'd want Custody X Change to help present my case.

Parenting Time Calendar: Custody software in general is usually helpful for parents who are trying to work together. It seems to make the process of creating a child custody agreement a little more objective. It's also nice to create several different plans and for parents to make changes easily. However, creating a calendar in Parenting Time Calendar is so frustrating and difficult to that it is unlikely a parent will want to create more than one calendar, which takes away that benefit. The better the software, the easier it will be for parents to work together. Parenting Time Calendar doesn't have enough benefits to make the program worth the purchase.

Custody X Change: Custody X Change encourages parents to work together during the creation of their child custody agreement. They can easily make a custody and visitation calendar--and then they can easily make changes as they need to. The time share percentage is a great help because both parents know how much time they have with the kids. It's easy to export the information to PDF or Word and then email it to the other parent. Because Custody X Change lets you do more to create your parenting plan, it is the better option for parents who want to work together.

Parenting Time Calendar: Parenting Time Calendar does keep track of time-share percentage which many states use to calculate child support. However, they don't include a detailed time-share report which is important for the calculations. It would be hard to use the software to come up with different options for child support payments because it is so difficult to create the calendar.

This program could save you a little in legal fees because it lets you do some of the work that your attorney does. However the program doesn't do enough--you still need a lot of help from a lawyer or you need to do a lot of work outside of the program.

Parenting Time Calendar has three versions ranging in price from $49.99 to $69.99. This low price reflects the limitations and shortcomings of the program. I don't think it is even worth this much.

Custody X Change: Again, the time-share percentage and overnight percentage calculations are key for child support. These numbers are also extremely difficult to calculate especially for schedules with variation. Many courts and attorneys don't even bother to come up with the right amount. They make a guess. With Custody X Change though you have the exact amount--so you can make sure you are paying the right amount of child support. And, you can experiment with different custody and visitation schedules (which will impact the time-share percentage) so you can lower your support payments. This is a great feature.

Custody X Change actually does a lot of the work that parents pay their lawyers to do. (Many lawyers also use the program). Parents can take the time to create their own parenting plan and give it to the lawyer to make a few changes--this will save them quite a bit of money. Parents can even use the program to represent themselves in court--which would save even more money.

Custody X Change has versions ranging in price from $147-297. You have the option to pay in installments--you can make 1, 3 or 5 payments. The price is obviously higher than Parenting Time Calendar, but this is a case of getting what you pay for. Custody X Change costs more because it is better. It's worth the extra money to get a program that's easy to use and does everything you need.

Parenting Time Calendar: Parenting Time Calendar gives you a 10 day free trial of the program but you can only open the program 10 times during this period. It also provides a help file in the program, tutorials, a demo on the website, a FAQ page and an email address for questions.

Custody X Change: Custody X Change gives a 30 day free trial of the program. You can save one plan in the trial (in the program you can create multiple plans) but you cannot print or export the documents during the free trial.

Custody X Change offers instructional videos, a FAQ and help page, a help button, and an email and phone number for questions.