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Academy management where the parent pays and the child plays

An academy's software problem is that the customer and the participant are different people. One adult pays; two children attend, in different squads, on different nights, with a sibling rate that somebody has to remember. Add a term structure and a register, and most booking systems start needing workarounds.

What academies need first

  • Family accounts — one payer, several children, one invoice, sibling rates as a rule.
  • Squads by age group with their own capacity, coach and session pattern.
  • Term billing monthly or up front, renewing automatically each term.
  • Registers taken by the coach on the day, feeding re-enrolment.
The operational reality

What academy admin actually consists of

Four jobs. Between them they account for most of the hours an academy manager loses to the laptop.

01

Chasing the term fee

Monthly collection against a term commitment is the standard model and the standard headache. Auto-renewal through your own gateway plus a visible list of failed payments turns it from a chase into a short weekly task — and stops the awkward version, where a child has been training unpaid for three weeks and nobody noticed.

02

The register that never reaches the office

Attendance marked on paper at the pitch and typed up later is attendance that doesn't get typed up. Coaches marking their own squads on a phone means the data exists the same evening — and attendance is the single best predictor of whether a family re-enrols next term.

03

Re-enrolment season

Every term ends with the same question: who's coming back? Knowing which families haven't re-enrolled, which children have stopped attending, and which are due to move up a squad — while there's still time to do something about it — is worth more than any new-signup campaign an academy can run.

04

Coaches, pitches and the clash

Squads need a coach and a surface, and both are finite. When academy sessions live in a separate diary from public bookings, the pitch gets sold underneath the squad. Putting squads on the same calendar as everything else removes the clash rather than reducing it.

How it works

Squads, terms, families, coaches

Set the structure once per season; the term rolls from it.

Step 1Squads

Age groups and ability squads, each with capacity, coach, venue and weekly session pattern.

Step 2Term calendar

Dated blocks with holidays and closures excluded once, applied to schedule and price together.

Step 3Families & billing

Parent accounts with several children, sibling rates as a rule, monthly or up-front collection.

Step 4Coaches & registers

Coach logins scoped to their own squads, taking attendance on the day.

FAQ

Academy questions

Can we bill parents monthly for a full term?

Yes. A term is enrolled as one commitment and can be collected monthly, up front, or in instalments through your own payment gateway, with auto-renewal at the start of the next term. Failed payments are visible as a list to work through rather than something you discover when a child turns up unpaid.

How do sibling discounts work?

Because several children sit under one paying adult, a discount can be applied at the family level rather than by manually editing each child's invoice. The second and third child rates are a rule on the account, so nobody has to remember to apply them at re-enrolment.

Can coaches take the register on their phone?

Yes. Each session has a roster and coaches can be given a login that shows only their own squads, so attendance is marked at the pitch or court rather than transcribed later. Attendance then feeds the re-enrolment view, which is where it earns its keep.

How do we handle trials before a child joins a squad?

A trial is a single bookable session against the squad, paid or free, that does not create a term enrolment. If the child joins, they convert into the squad and term billing starts; if not, you keep the contact and they show up in your prospect segment rather than being lost.

We run squads at several venues. Does that work?

Yes, though multi-branch operation sits on the Custom plan. Squads, coaches and pitches can be organised per venue with reporting that separates them or rolls them up, and a family with children at two sites still has one account and one invoice.

Keep reading

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One payer, several children, one invoice.

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