School: launch in one day
The School section is record-keeping for private schools and courses: a language, music, kids or sports school, a tutoring centre or an online school. It holds students and paying parents, courses and groups, the schedule, the attendance and homework register, family accounts, invoices and reports.
The section turns on automatically when you choose the Education business type at sign-up. Open it under Admin panel → School (/school). Tabs live in the address (?tab=), so a refresh or a link sent to a colleague opens the same tab:
| Tab | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Schedule | a week of lessons for all groups: by day, by teacher or by room |
| Groups | course groups, their timetable, enrolled students and the waitlist |
| Students | students and families, cards, balance, invoices, the portal link |
| Register | attendance, grades, lesson topic and homework; “My lessons today” for teachers |
| Finance | the school’s money as a whole — screen in progress; family money is in the family card, summaries in Reports |
| Reports | money, debts, attendance, churn, group fill, teacher workload |
| Settings | absence policy, tariffs, invoices, online lessons, family portal, notifications — screen in progress (see step 3) |
For a location of another vertical (for example, a café running cooking classes) the school is switched on per location: the section shows “School is off for this location” and a “Turn on the school for this location” button, visible to the owner only.
What to prepare#
- A list of courses with a starting price and a short description — these are catalog items shown on your storefront and in the enrolment widget.
- Tariffs — how families pay: monthly, a pack of lessons, a whole course, instalments, per lesson. Details: Tariffs, absences and charges.
- An absence policy: whether an unexcused absence is charged, and how many hours of notice make an absence excused.
- Teachers and their working hours. A lesson cannot be placed over another lesson or a private booking of the same teacher.
- Students and payers: the student’s name and the payer’s phone or email. A child needs a parent’s consent to the processing of personal data, recorded separately.
No hardware is needed: the section works in a browser and teachers mark lessons from a phone.
Step-by-step launch#
1. Courses in the catalog#
Catalog → Add item of type “service”. For the Education vertical the editor has a “Course” block: format (in class, online, hybrid), level and a note (“A2–B1”), age from and to, number of lessons, lesson length and a syllabus — topics in order. There is no money in the block: tuition prices are the school’s tariffs.
2. Teachers#
Staff → Add, position “Teacher”. A login is optional: without one, the teacher is just a schedule column. With a login, they open the “Teacher” workspace and see only their own groups, schedule and register — no money and no family cards.
3. School settings and tariffs#
While the School → Settings screen is in progress, we set up the school’s policies and tariffs together with you during onboarding (the pilot comes with support). Until then the recommended defaults apply: unexcused absences are charged, excused ones are not, the notice window is 12 hours, the marking mode is “mark who came”, invoices go out on the 25th with 5 days to pay, the trial lesson is free.
Decide in advance:
- The absence policy and the notice window for excused absences.
- One or two tariffs per course. A tariff cannot be deleted (only archived) and its model cannot change after creation — start with what you will definitely use.
- The currency: it is locked once the first family is added.
4. Check the tariffs on an example#
Before enrolling everyone, walk through one month of one student with Tariffs, absences and charges: how much is charged for the month, what happens with an absence and with a lesson cancelled by the school.
5. A group#
School → Groups → New group:
- Settings — name, course, format, lead teacher (and up to 5 assistants), room, seats and minimum, dates, group tariffs, website publishing.
- Timetable — weekly rules: day, time, length (15–720 minutes). Exceptions are holidays and breaks.
After saving, the school lays out lessons eight weeks ahead and puts them into the booking journal. If the teacher or room is busy at that time, the lesson is marked “Conflict” — the group moves to the top of the list and the lesson window shows the reason.
6. Students and families#
School → Students → Add. A child needs a family (a payer with a phone or email) and parental consents; an adult can be their own payer. Siblings share one family: one balance and one invoice with a line per student.
Names, phones and emails are stored in the protected personal-data vault; lists and school documents show labels such as #K7Q2, and the name is revealed to staff with the right permission.
7. Enrolment#
In the group card, open Students → Enrol: student, “studying” or “trial”, tariff, start date, a discount by percent or amount, a custom price. If the group is full — “Over capacity” or “Add to waitlist”. After enrolment, charges follow the tariff automatically (a pack is sold at once, a monthly fee is charged for the month).
8. The first lesson#
School → Register: open the lesson, mark Present / Late / Excused / Absent, add the topic and homework. Then open the family card and check the charge and the balance. How a lesson is counted: Tariffs, absences and charges.
9. Family and website#
- Send the family a portal link — schedule, register, balance and “Pay”: Student and family portal.
- Your school website can use the “Course enrolment” and “Schedule” widgets under “My website”: Website widgets.
- Online groups get a Zoom/Meet link or a Jitsi room: Online lessons.
Who sees what#
| Role | Access |
|---|---|
| Owner | everything, including money, refunds and deleting mistaken records |
| School administrator | students and families, groups, schedule, register, invoices, taking payments at the POS; manual entries and refunds only with the Finance permission |
| Teacher | their own groups and lessons, the register and homework; no money, families or waitlist |
The section is marked sensitive in the role builder: it holds children’s personal data and family money.
What can wait#
- Online payment — until a provider is connected, record payments manually (cash, bank transfer) or through the POS.
- The monthly invoice run — in the first month it is enough to take payments in the family card; the run on the 25th issues invoices by itself.
- Notifications — turn them on after checking the schedule and tariffs with your own data.
- Rooms — if lessons always take place in the same classroom, room availability can be skipped.
Troubleshooting#
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| “School is off for this location” | a location of another vertical without the school flag | the owner presses “Turn on the school for this location” |
| A lesson marked “Conflict” | the teacher or room is busy at that time | move the lesson or change the teacher in the lesson window; “Retry sync” |
| “Syncing: N” on a group | lessons are not in the booking journal yet | wait a minute or press “Sync” in the group timetable |
| A child cannot be saved | no family or no parental consent | pick a family and record the pdn and parental consents |
| “Currency locked” | the school already has a family | support changes the school currency |
| The Settings or Finance tab is empty | these screens are in progress | settings via support; family money in the family card on the Students tab |
| The student list is empty after a network error | the index has not caught up | reopen the tab; an administrator can rebuild the lists |
FAQ#
Can I run private lessons? Yes. A regular timetable is a one-student group; one-off lessons are ordinary bookings with the teacher in the booking journal, posted to the student’s account.
Where are drop-ins and trial lessons? A trial lesson is a “trial” enrolment or a booking of a free seat in a lesson; afterwards there is an “Enrol” button.
Can I import students? Yes, on the Students tab — import from CSV.