Students & families

Browsing the roster

The roster is one table with two views — Families and Students — flipped with the switch above it. The Families view lists households: a Primary contact column shows that person's name, email, and phone — expand any family to see the rest of the household, the emergency contact, and the students attached to it. Each household's row leads with its photo — the picture the family adds from their portal Profile — or its initials on a colored circle until one is added, and the same photo follows the family into the search results and the Manage family dialog. An Account column shows whether they can sign in — Has 1 login or Has 2 logins once portal logins exist, Not invited until then — and, when your studio charges a registration fee, a Registration column shows Paid, Due, or Waived for each family. Families still on a trial wear a Trial badge on their name. The Students view lists every dancer across the studio with their family, weekly classes, level, status, and attendance — and wherever a level appears on the roster, in the Students view or beside a dancer inside an expanded family, it shows as a chip in that level's calendar color, so the roster reads in the same colors as your schedule. In the Students view every dancer's name is also a link to their household: point at it and it underlines, click it and Manage family opens already on its Students tab — so a dancer you found by search is one click from their family's contacts, billing, and payments.

The roster also shows each dancer's weekly classes — the recurring classes on your calendar they are enrolled in. The Students view carries a Classes column, and inside an expanded family each dancer's classes appear under their name; the same list shows under each dancer on the Students tab of Manage family. Each class sits on its own line, and each carries the weekly day and start time it meets. In the roster lists — the Students view and inside an expanded family — just the name shows, so rows stay easy to scan: point at a class name (or click it, or tap it in the iPhone app) and its day and time appear, like 'Tue 6:00 PM'. On the Students tab of Manage family the schedule is written out beside the name instead — 'Ballet · Tue 6:00 PM' — so when two classes share a name you always know which one a dancer is in, and weekly practices carry their day and time the same way in both places, on the web and in the iPhone app alike. Every class a dancer is on is included, however many they take: classes with an upcoming session appear, a class a family has joined shows even before its next dates land on the calendar, and classes that have ended drop off on their own. A dancer on a trial shows the class they booked here too — and when their trial covers more than one class, the count follows on its own line (say, '8 classes'), so a dancer trying a whole series or on a class pass never reads like a single-night drop-in. The trial class holds their booked dates, too: it wears a dotted underline, and the same point, click, or tap that shows a class's day and time also lists the dates and times that dancer is booked in for — each with its weekday — in your studio's timezone — wherever the name appears, in the Students view, inside an expanded family, and on the Students tab of Manage family. Only classes actually booked are listed, including dates already past in a trial still under way — never every future date of a recurring class — so you can tell when a trial dancer is coming in without opening the class. The list is purely informational — it never changes what a family is billed; to change which classes a dancer takes, edit the dancer (see 'Changing a dancer's weekly classes' below).

Weekly practices show up the same way, kept apart from classes so the two never blur. At studios that run weekly practices, the Students view adds a Practices column listing the practices each dancer attends every week — through a weekly Join or a spot on the practice's roster — and inside an expanded family (and on the Students tab of Manage family) those names appear on their own Practice line under the dancer. Current and upcoming practices show, ended ones drop off on their own, and like the class list it is display only: practice names never mix into a dancer's classes or change what a family is billed. Studios without weekly practices simply never see the column.

Both views are searchable and sortable, and filters narrow the list to exactly who you are looking for. Search, the Families / Students switch, Filters, Export, Send Sign-up link, and Add New Family sit on one row above the table. How names alphabetize is yours to choose: the Families view starts in last-name order — households are filed by the primary contact's surname, so 'The Jane Doe family' sits under D — while the Students view starts on first names. Clicking the Family or Student column heading cycles through the orders — A–Z, then Z–A, then the same two by the other name — and pointing at the heading names the order the list is in, like 'Last name, A–Z'; the Students view's Family column follows the same choice. The order you pick stays with you as you flip between the two views, and it is kept in the page's web address so a sorted list survives a refresh and can be shared. Search matches class and practice names as well as people, so typing a class's name pulls up every dancer enrolled in it. In the Families view, one Filters menu nests Autopay, Account, Membership, a Paused choice that can hide paused households, and Registration (when your studio charges a fee) — plus home location at multi-location studios. Hover a row to pick On, Has login, Trial, and so on; the button counts how many are applied. In the Students view, Filters nests status, level, and membership — pick Full member to keep to dancers in full-member households — along with the same Paused choice to leave out dancers from paused households, and sorting the list by level follows the order of your studio's levels rather than the alphabet. The Students view's filters are kept in the page's web address, so a filtered list survives a refresh and can be bookmarked or shared with a colleague — and clicking a level on the dashboard's 'Students by level' chart, or any count on its Students & families card, brings you here the same way, with exactly that group already showing. 'Show archived' brings archived families back into view, and Clear filters resets the menu. A count row stays pinned to the bottom of the table: in the Families view, how many families match your filters and how many students they hold — plus this month's tuition for those households, so a filtered list has its own run-rate. Households billed quarterly, every 6 months, or yearly are folded into that monthly total. In the Students view, the same row counts how many dancers are showing and how many families they span. Narrow the list and the numbers follow — so a search for one class doubles as a quick head-count — and with nothing applied it reads as your full active roster.

Exporting the rosterWeb dashboard

When you need the roster outside of Ida — class lists for the front desk, a printed sign-in sheet, or a spreadsheet to work in — use the Export button at the top of Students and Families. It builds a file from the same roster you are looking at, either as a spreadsheet (CSV that opens in Excel or Google Sheets) or as a print-ready roster you can save or print as a PDF.

You choose how the file is laid out. 'By class' lists who is in each weekly class, one group per class — a dancer taking three classes appears under all three, and dancers with no weekly class gather at the end under 'No weekly class'. A Class picker sits below the choice: leave it on All classes, or pick a single class to export just that group — handy for a costume list or a recital sheet. At studios that run weekly practices, 'By practice' does the same for practice groups: one section per weekly practice, a Practice picker for every practice or just one, and dancers with no weekly practice gather under 'No weekly practice'. Studios without weekly practices never see that layout. In the printable version, a 'New page for each class' or 'New page for each practice' switch (shown once you have picked the printable file and a grouped layout) decides how groups flow: leave it on and each class or practice starts on its own page, ready to hand out or pin up as-is — turn it off to pack the groups together onto fewer pages. 'By student' gives one row per dancer instead. You also choose who is included — the current roster (active and trial dancers) or everyone including inactive dancers, with archived families off unless you switch them on — and which columns come along: family, level, birthdate (as YYYY-MM-DD, for competition entries), status, classes, and the family's primary contact, email, and phone. At studios with weekly practices there is a Practices column too, already ticked for you, with each dancer's practice names kept separate from their classes — studios without practices never see it. Owners and front desk can bring three more columns along when a list needs them: Medical info puts each dancer's current medical notes in the file, Registration answers adds the family's latest registration — the period it was for and every custom question on your form, with a dancer's own answer winning over the household's — and Policies lists what each family agreed to and declined, in two columns of their own. Tick one and its data loads on the spot — the download waits until it is in, and if the read fails a Try again link sits right there — and the three only appear for people allowed to see them, so an instructor's export never offers medical notes or registration answers.

1. 1

   On Students and Families, choose Export.

2. 2

   Pick the file (spreadsheet or printable PDF), the layout (by class, by practice when your studio runs weekly practices, or by student — and for a grouped layout, all of them or just one), and who is included. For a printable grouped roster, choose whether each class or practice starts a new page.

3. 3

   Toggle the columns you want — the footer counts what the export will contain as you adjust.

4. 4

   Choose Download CSV, or Open PDF to get a print-ready roster in a new tab with the print dialog ready.

Exporting the roster from the appiPhone app

The same export travels with you: on the Families tab, tap the share button next to search. The sheet offers the same choices as the web — spreadsheet or printable, by class, by practice when your studio runs weekly practices, or by student, all classes or practices or just one, whether each group in the printable starts a new page, current roster or everyone, archived families, and which columns to include — the Medical info, Registration answers, and Policies columns included, for owners and front desk, loading when you tick them just like the web — and hands the finished file to your phone's share sheet, so you can AirDrop it to the front-desk computer, text it, email it, or save and print it from there.

Adding families and students

Admins and front desk staff can create a family by hand, and admins can also import many families at once. (Ida AI can do both for you as well — ask it to add a household, or hand it a roster right in the chat; see the Ida AI assistant section.) Invites happen per person: open Manage family → Details and choose Give login from a contact's ⋯ menu — create their setup link, then copy it, share on WhatsApp or text, or email it with a button that names exactly who will receive it. Creating the link never sends anything by itself, and a household with two parents can have a login for each. (There is a third way, too: share your studio's family sign-up link and let households create their own accounts — see below.)

A new family's billing status starts as Manual (e-transfer / cheque) — nothing is billed automatically until the family sets up autopay themselves. You can instead mark them Past due or Paused as you create them; Active (Stripe autopay) is not offered here, because it switches on by itself once the family completes card setup.

1. 1

   In the Families view, choose Create family (or Import to bring in a list).

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   Fill in the family name and contacts, plus the household's home address when you have it. The address and emergency contact are both optional here — add either whenever you like, now or later from Manage family → Details.

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   Open the family and use Add student to attach each dancer with their name, birthdate, an optional gender (Female, Male, Non-binary, or Prefer not to say — it can always stay unset), level, anything medical worth knowing — allergies, conditions, accessibility, in the same field families fill in when they register — and your own staff notes, kept in a separate field of their own.

4. 4

   When you are ready, invite each parent from their contact on Manage family → Details: choose Give login from the contact's ⋯ menu, create the setup link, then copy it, share on WhatsApp, or email it — creating the link never sends anything by itself.

Let families sign up themselvesWeb dashboard

You do not have to invite every household one by one. Your studio also has a family sign-up link — a page in your studio's branding where a family creates its own portal account with just a name, an email, and a password, then continues to Registration. Before any account is created or linked, the page confirms the email is really theirs: Ida sends a 6-digit code to that address (in your studio's name), and the family types it in to continue — so nobody can sign up with an address that isn't their own. Share it however suits you: in a welcome email, a WhatsApp group, a newsletter, or a poster at the front desk. Owners and front desk staff can both share it from the Sign-up link button on Students and Families; turning it on or off stays with owners. At studios on Ida's newest look that have connected their Instagram, the sign-up page also shows your newest Instagram posts under the form — the same card families see on their Home — so a new family meets your studio's real life before they've even joined.

A family that signs up this way appears on your roster right away as a household with no dancers yet, with billing set to Manual — so nothing is billed until you add their students and set their levels. If the email matches a family already on your roster that has no portal account, the sign-up connects to that existing family instead of creating a duplicate — matching counts an address on the household or on a parent or guardian contact, never one you keep only as an emergency contact, and an address that appears on more than one household is never guessed: the page asks that family to contact you, and you get the notice below. A household that already has a login cannot be joined from the public page, though — when a second parent wants their own sign-in, give them one from their contact on Manage family → Details instead.

The sign-up page is also how a roster family that never created a login gets in on their own. When someone asks for a password reset or an emailed sign-in code — on the web or in the iPhone app — and their address is on your roster with no login yet, Ida emails them your studio's one-time set-up code: the email opens your sign-up page with their address already filled in, and typing the code connects their new login to the family you already have. When Ida can't set an address up on its own — your sign-up link is off, the address appears on more than one household, the family already has a login, or the address can't be used here — no code goes out, and owners and front desk get a quiet in-app notice, 'A set-up code couldn't be sent', naming the address and what to do next (at most one per address per day). Inviting them from their family page is always the sure path.

1. 1

   On Settings → Classes, find the Family sign-up link card (self-signup is on by default — turn it off if you prefer invite-only).

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   Optional: turn on Registration form on the sign-up link if you want families to create their account and complete your registration form in one step on that public page, then go to the calendar. You can flip that from Sign-up link on Students and Families (there’s a live preview) or from Settings → Classes. This only takes effect while the registration form itself is on. What the one-step page asks follows your registration type: Full form collects the family's details, dancers, and policy sign-offs before payment, while Fee only goes straight from creating the account to accepting your policies and paying the fee — a brand-new family finishes without entering any dancer details, and you add their dancers afterwards.

3. 3

   Copy or WhatsApp the link from Settings, or from Sign-up link on Students and Families.

4. 4

   Families open the link and either complete everything on that page (account plus registration, then the calendar), or create an account and then finish Registration in the portal — depending on that setting.

A family's login email

The email on a contact is the address they type on the sign-in page. Open Manage family → Details and expand that person's card — change Email there to fix a typo or follow a parent to a new address. On the phone, tap the contact on Details. Saving writes the same email onto their login. Their password stays as it is. If they forgot the password, choose Reset password in the contact's ⋯ menu and hand them the details. Resetting also signs that login out everywhere it was signed in — any device still holding the old password is out within the hour, and the confirmation says so — which makes it the right move when a family worries someone else has their password. Owners and front desk can also just ask Ida — 'make a login link for Sarah' or 'reset Sarah's password' — and the link or new password shows once on Ida's card for you to share, never emailed (see the Ida AI assistant section).

A family invited by link without an email on file can use that link to get in, but has no email login yet. Add their address on the contact and save — from then on they sign in with that email, and it is the username if you set them a password.

Who in a household can pay

A household with two parents can have a login for each — and some families want only one of them handling the money. Every login carries a Can pay flag, on by default: expand the contact's card on Manage family → Details (or tap the contact in the family's record in the iPhone app) and untick Can pay to take the money actions away from that login, or tick it to hand them back. You can also set it as you give a contact their login, so a second parent can start out view-only from day one.

A login that cannot pay still sees the household's full Payments page — the balance, every charge, the history, and receipts — but the paying itself belongs to someone else: no Pay now on charges, no starting or changing autopay, no billing-day pick, no card changes or billing portal, and no booking auto-charge switch. In their place, a short note says another parent on the household manages the card and payments. Your side is untouched — you can still charge the family's saved card or record payments as usual, and staff using View as family can always act on the household's behalf.

Registration follows the same rule when there is something to pay: a registration with a fee — or required shop add-ons — asks the parent who pays to complete it, and a login that cannot pay is told exactly that rather than being taken to checkout. A registration with nothing to pay can be submitted from any login.

Managing a family

Everything about a household is edited in one place: open the family's actions menu and choose Manage family. Rename the household from the pencil next to its name in the dialog header. The dialog has four tabs — Details for contacts (including each parent's portal login), the family's home address, emergency contact, notes, and (for studios with more than one location) a home location; Students for adding and editing the family's dancers; Billing for tuition, billing status, and the registration fee; and Payments for that family's outstanding charges and past payments, with the same mark-paid, void, refund, and create-a-payment actions as the studio ledger — plus a Charge button that collects the family's outstanding charges on their saved card, greyed out until they have one on file. Each contact on Details is its own card, with a chip showing where their portal login stands; expand the card to edit their name, email, phone, and preferences. The card's ⋯ menu holds the login itself: Give login to invite them, or — once they have one — Reset password or Remove login (you confirm first) without deleting the contact. When a contact's email already has a family login that isn't connected to any household — an invite that never finished, say — their chip reads 'Account not linked' instead, and a Link their account button connects that existing login to this family in one click, with no new invite and no password change; the same button sits on the contact in the iPhone app. Removing the contact itself also deletes their family portal login, after a confirmation, and anything they wrote in Messages stays in the thread under their name; a teacher who also books as a student keeps their studio login. Their email on that contact is how they sign in. Each tab saves on its own, so fixing a phone number never touches the money. Front desk staff work from this same dialog: Details, Students, and taking a payment on the Payments tab are theirs to use, they can send or record the registration fee, and they can mark a family Trialing or a Full member from the Trial status setting on Details — while plan and billing changes, waiving fees, and voiding or refunding stay with admins.

Details is also where a family's registration lives on. The home address fields hold the address the family gave on your registration form — and they are yours to fill in or correct by hand, so a household that moves, or one you added yourself, always has a current address on file (it also matters for tax on studio charges). Below the details, a Registration section replays each confirmed registration exactly as the family submitted it: the period, when it was submitted and where the fee stands, the family's answers to your questions, each dancer's details — class or level, tuition plan, birth date, medical notes — any shop add-ons they bought, and the policies they accepted, each with a tick. It is the same recap the family sees on their own Registration page after they register, so 'what did we put on the form?' is answered without leaving the family — and while the recap keeps what was submitted at the time, the address at the top stays current if they move.

Open any family from anywhereWeb dashboard

You do not have to be on the roster to open a family. From any dashboard page, click the Search box at the top — or press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) — and start typing a family name, a guardian's name, an email address, or a dancer's name. Matching families appear as you type; choose one and Manage family opens right where you are, with the same tabs as always, so you can check a phone number or a balance mid-task and close the dialog without losing your place.

See the portal as a family sees it

When a parent calls about something on their screen, the quickest answer is to look at exactly what they see. Owners and front desk can step into the portal of any family that has a portal account: choose 'View as family' from the family's row menu on the roster, or the 'View as' button at the top of Manage family. The dashboard switches to that family's own view — their home page, schedule, payments, documents, and notifications, exactly as they see them — with a banner across the top reminding you whose view you are in. Choose 'Exit family view' in the banner to return to your roster.

Nothing you do in there is ever mistaken for the parent, though. A booking, payment, or registration made while viewing as a family is recorded as yours: staff screens — Home's requests, the calendar, the family's payments, registration responses — carry a line like 'Booked by Sam (front desk) for the family', while the family's own confirmations say someone at the studio acted for them ('Sam at the studio booked this for you'), so a request never reads as if the parent sent it. This holds on the web, in the iPhone app, and when you make a family's change through Ida.

Viewing as a family in the appiPhone app

The iPhone app does the same on the go: on the Families tab, touch and hold the card of a family with a portal account and choose 'View as family', or pick the same action from inside their family record. The app flips to that family's member experience with the same banner along the top; tap Switch to staff in the banner to come back to your Families tab.

How tuition is set

Tuition is driven by each student's plan, not a single number on the family. By default a student's level chooses their plan: set their level (one of the dance levels your studio defines under Settings → Classes) and they bill on that level's plan, with its own price and billing interval (monthly, quarterly, every 6 months, or yearly). A family's tuition is simply the sum of its active students' plan prices, so a household with two dancers at different levels bills the combined total automatically.

You change what a family pays on each student's record (open a family and edit or add a student), not by typing a family-wide amount. Usually that means setting the student's level — they bill on that level's plan. When a level has more than one plan, or a dancer needs a specific package, use the student form's Tuition plan field to put them on an exact plan instead: the dancer then bills that plan, and their level follows the plan automatically. The field also says plainly what happens when you don't pick a plan: at studios with a default plan (see 'Default on registration' on Tuition plans) that choice is named 'Studio default' with the plan's name, and an unpinned dancer bills the default — the default plan is also marked '(default)' in the list; at studios without one it reads 'None — bill by dance level' and clearing the field returns the dancer to their level's pricing. Either way, a note under the field spells out which plan the dancer will actually bill, including when a plan you pick overrides the studio default. If your studio marks some plans as add-ons, the same form also lists them under 'Additional classes' — tick the extras a dancer takes and each is billed on top of their main plan (see Tuition plans in this guide). On the roster, the tuition column shows each family's amount with how often it bills (like /mo or /quarter); a family whose students sit on plans with different billing intervals is marked 'Mixed intervals', and a family on a seasonal break (a $0 month) shows a small 'Resumes' note with the month tuition picks back up and the amount — so a paused family never looks like one with no tuition set.

Each dancer's record also carries a 'Tuition starts' month — the first month their tuition bills. New and returning dancers get it from your First tuition bill setting, so you rarely touch it; set it yourself when a dancer really started earlier or later than the day they were entered. The family's bills follow the change on their own: open bills re-price, and moving a start later clears what the move left unowed — an automatic tuition bill still open for a month that no dancer on it now owes comes off the ledger by itself, so a family entered early never keeps owing September after you've said their dancer starts in October. Only bills Ida raised itself are cleared this way: a charge you entered by hand stays put, and so does any bill with money already recorded or a payment on the way. It works the same from the web, the iPhone app, or by asking Ida.

Changing a dancer's weekly classes

At studios where families join weekly classes from the calendar, staff can change what a dancer takes without opening each class one by one: edit the dancer — Manage family → Students on the web, or tap them in their family record in the iPhone app — and Edit student carries a Classes panel beside their details. A 'Now' line sums up what they take today, and under it every weekly class and practice the dancer could be in appears as a checklist, searchable by name, with practices kept apart from classes. Every entry is labeled with the day and time it meets each week — 'Level 3 · Tue 6:00 PM', with each slot listed when it meets more than once a week — so two classes that share a name are never mistaken for each other. Tick what they should be taking and untick what they are leaving — a class that is full or has no upcoming dates says so and stays unticked, and a join the family already has awaiting approval shows 'Request pending'.

Nothing changes until you save — press Confirm class changes, or simply save the student, which saves any pending class changes along with their details — and before you do, the panel prices the change: what class tuition becomes per month, with a line-by-line breakdown, and when the change lands partway through a billing month, this month's reduced amount alongside the regular amount that follows, like 'September 2026 is $52.50, then $70/mo.' — the same math as a family's own mid-month Join, for drops just as for adds: at studios that price tuition by how many classes a dancer takes, the month is priced the way you'd quote it over the counter — what the family was paying for the days before the change, plus (or minus) the tier step for the part of the month after it, with the classes they keep staying at the price they already had. Practices never change class tuition, and the panel says so when practices are all you changed. Confirm, and everything takes effect the same day: the dancer is on the ticked classes and off the unticked ones from today — unless you chose an earlier start date, covered next — and the family's tuition — including an open tuition bill for the month — follows on its own.

When a family has scheduled a leave from a class, the panel lists it — and if the dancer changes their mind after a month is already paid without that class, the family can't take the leave back themselves, so the studio owner steps in here. Keep on first prices the change, then says exactly what it will do: 'Keep on and bill the difference ($X)' cancels the leave and bills only what the paid month left out — the month is never billed twice — or plain Keep on when nothing more is owed. It works the same in the iPhone app and by asking Ida, and a dancer whose leave has already happened is said so plainly instead.

Placing a whole level into its classes

A dancer's level sets what they pay — it never puts them in classes by itself, because tuition follows the seats dancers actually hold. So after an import, or at the start of a season, a studio can have dancers at a level who aren't yet on that level's class rosters. Owners can place them all at once instead of opening each class: at studios on Ida's newest look, Place in classes in the Families header seats every unplaced dancer at a level in that level's weekly classes — one level at a time, or every level together — and when Ida notices dancers waiting to be placed, a card under Home's 'Needs you' offers the same thing.

Nothing is written until you have seen exactly what it will do. The preview lists who gets which classes and — because seats drive tuition — every bill it would open or change, family by family: a new bill, an open bill re-priced with the before and after, and bills already paid, which are never billed again. The confirm button carries the total, like 'Place 12 dancers · +$940.00 in bills', and it only ever runs the plan you previewed — if families or classes change in the meantime, it asks you to look again instead of writing something you never saw. Dancers it can't place — on a trial, inactive, without a priced plan, or at a level with no classes — are listed as left out, and dancers already in their classes are never touched.

The same action lives in the iPhone app and in Ida: ask to place a level's dancers in their classes and the same preview arrives before anything is placed.

Starting a dancer on an earlier class date

Sometimes a dancer has been coming to class for weeks before anyone enters them — and starting them from today would miss the classes they already attended. At studios that use calendar Join for weekly classes, the Classes panel handles this: tick a weekly class that has already met recently and a Start from choice appears under it — pick Today, or any date that class actually met in the last 90 days. A dancer already on the class can have their start moved back the same way, with a 'Move start to' choice next to their started date (its first option, Keep current start, leaves them alone). The same choice sits in Manage roster on the calendar: a Start from picker applies to dancers you add there, with a 'Move …'s start' checkbox for each dancer who started later than the date you picked. Either way, a preview line says exactly what will happen before you save — like 'Starts Sep 1 · adds 3 past classes to their roster, billed separately as catch-up tuition.' — and once saved, the dancer appears on the class roster and attendance for those past dates.

Whether the family pays for the missed classes is a money call, so it belongs to owners and the front desk. An instructor can still start a dancer earlier, but their save never bills: instead of the choice below they see 'The missed classes aren't billed. Ask the front desk if they should be.' — on the web, in the iPhone app, and through Ida alike. For owners and front desk, an 'Also bill the missed classes' checkbox — ticked to start — puts them on their own separate bill, labeled Catch-up tuition: one bill per billing month, priced as exactly the difference those classes would have made to the family's regular tuition for that month, under your studio's usual pricing. Regular tuition bills that already exist — open, paid, or on autopay — are never touched, and the family is notified and pays the catch-up bill like any other open charge from Payments. Untick the box and the dancer keeps the past dates on their record with no charge. A date the dancer was already in the class some other way — a trial or a drop-in, say — is left out of both the roster change and the bill, and a class already on a live catch-up bill is never billed twice.

Family-level tuition overrides

When a household needs something different from the per-student sum — a discount, a flat family rate, or a custom seasonal schedule — open Manage family and set a tuition override on the Billing tab. An override replaces the summed student plans for that family rather than layering on top of them, and it keeps their live Stripe subscription in step automatically. If their autopay can't be brought in line for any reason, the save still goes through and says so plainly — 'Monthly tuition was saved, but Stripe autopay was not updated' — so you can review the family's autopay before their next charge instead of finding out on billing day.

What billing status really means

The Billing tab opens with a plain sentence describing what a family's billing actually is right now — on autopay, paying each charge themselves, paused, or flagged past due — so the label never hides the reality underneath. Two statuses are kept truthful automatically and are never yours to set by hand: a family becomes Active only by completing autopay card setup, and flips to Manual when their autopay is cancelled — unless you have paused them, because a pause always holds until you resume it.

The statuses you can set do real work. Past due flags a family on your roster. Paused genuinely stops collection: for a family on autopay, choosing Paused pauses their Stripe subscription (the save confirms it) and it stays paused until you set them back to Active, which resumes their card charges. Nothing else takes a family off pause: while they are paused, the family's own Set up autopay button waits with a note to ask the studio, a card saved during the pause is kept on file without starting any charges, and their autopay ending leaves them Paused rather than switching them to Manual — resuming them yourself is the one thing that starts billing again. And a pause that ends partway through a month never bills the family that whole month: taking a family off Paused is treated like a fresh start, so their first month back is billed exactly the way a brand-new family's first month would be — your First tuition bill setting decides whether billing picks up this month or next, your first-month pricing decides full or reduced, and tuition priced by each dancer's classes counts only the classes left from the day they return, with sibling discounts and custom rates applying as usual. A month already billed or paid is always left exactly as it is, and from the next full month the family bills their regular amount. In the rare case that first month back can't be set, the family simply bills as before and the save says so plainly — each dancer's 'Tuition starts' month (on their student record) puts it right by hand. The same rules apply in the iPhone app and when you ask Ida to resume a family, so a status set from your phone means exactly the same thing. The screens stay honest about it too: a paused family's billing summary says plainly what resuming will bill — the first month back the way a new family's first month bills, per your First tuition bill setting — their tuition breakdown labels the paused figure as a full month at their rate ('A full October'), never a promise of what resuming would charge, and when you do resume, the confirmation tells you how that first month was handled, on the web and in the iPhone app alike.

Sometimes one card charge should be skipped without letting the month off the hook — a family has arranged to pay it themselves, say. Pausing is too blunt for that: it stops everything, late fees included. Instead, the Billing tab of a family on autopay carries a 'Skip card charges due before' date. Set it, and tuition due before that day is not collected on their card, but the family stays Active — if your studio charges late fees, they still count — and the skipped month's tuition becomes a normal open charge: the family sees Pay now, and you can Mark paid or Charge card like any other charge. Autopay resumes with the first cycle on or after the date, all on its own — whatever the family's billing schedule, monthly through yearly. And Paused still outranks the date: pause or archive the family while a skip date is set, and they stay paused past it until you set them back to Active. Keep the date in place after the family pays — clearing it early can hand the skipped month back to their card — and leave the field blank for normal autopay; a date that isn't a real day is refused with a plain message rather than quietly clearing the hold. The same date field sits on the family's record in the iPhone app, and Ida can set or clear it from chat.

The roster's Autopay column reads richer than those settings, because it shows what collection is actually doing: On (a family on a seasonal $0 month reads 'On · seasonal pause'), Blocked when Stripe cannot determine the family's tax location — the next charge will not collect until they add their address from Manage autopay, and a month whose card charge was already stopped for it goes back to a normal open charge with Pay now, where paying online collects the address — Past due, Ending when autopay is scheduled to cancel but still collects until that date, Off, Paused, and Held while a 'Skip card charges due before' date is actually holding something — a skipped month's bill still open, or the next charge due before the date. A skip date never dims the whole family: once the skipped bills are settled and the next charge falls on or after the date, the family reads On again with their next charge, even before the date arrives — and it is one word wherever the family appears, so the roster, their family record, the studio Payments page, the iPhone app, and Ida's answers all say the same thing. A family's record also spells out the real next charge rather than leaving you to count from the billing day — when the next tuition bill is made, and when the card is actually charged: 'On hold until Wed, Nov 11 · next run Tue, Dec 1' under a skip date, the last charge when autopay is ending, a note when a $0 seasonal month charges nothing, and 'Stripe sets each run' for plans billed per quarter, 6 months, or year — on the web, in the iPhone app, and in Ida's answers about the family. Hover a status for the plain-language explanation, and the Autopay filter picks out any of them — Blocked, Ending, and Held included. The app's Families tab shows and filters the same statuses, with the explanation written out on families that need attention. At studios on Ida's newest look, families whose autopay won't collect normally also gather on the Payments page's Autopay view — one row per family with the reason and what to do about it in plain words, like 'The last card charge didn't go through. Ask the family to update their card in Manage autopay.', and a Review button that opens their billing — on the web and in the iPhone app alike, and asking Ida about the family gets the same reason and next step.

Collecting the registration fee

If your studio charges a registration fee, Ida OS tracks it per family. Turn it on and set the default amount on Registration → Settings ('Charge a registration fee'), or under Settings → Payments & Bookings; each family then carries a clear status — due, paid, or waived — and nothing is ever billed automatically. With the registration form enabled, families can pay the fee themselves from their portal, and if your registration renews each year or by term, the status resets each period so returning families are asked again — a waived fee included, so a comped family is asked again next season. Between periods the fee simply rests: nobody reads as due, and the link, record, and waive controls wait until the next period opens — see the Registration page of this guide.

To collect by hand, open Manage family and use the Registration section of the Billing tab: create a secure Stripe payment link, record the fee as paid outside Stripe (cash, e-transfer), or waive it. Creating a link never emails anyone by itself — the link appears first, and you then choose whether to copy it (to share by text or WhatsApp) or email it, with the button naming exactly who will receive it. A family that should pay a different amount can carry its own override of the studio-wide fee — the override wins everywhere, including the family's own portal checkout — and setting it moves the family's open registration charge to the new amount when nobody has paid toward it, telling you plainly when a part-paid or hand-edited charge is left as it is.

Mark paid records exactly what the family owes. When the family already has an open registration charge — one from a link you sent, say, or a charge you edited down to the balance left after a deposit — Mark paid settles that charge at its own amount; only when no charge is open does it record a fresh paid payment at your fee. You see which it will be before anything is written: the confirm — on the web and in the iPhone app alike — checks the family's charges and names the exact amount, and the message afterwards repeats what was recorded. And if that open charge is paid online or voided at the very moment you confirm, Mark paid steps back instead of recording the money twice — refresh and you'll see the charge already settled. When there is nothing to collect — the family's fee is $0, or no fee is set and no charge is open — the payment link and Mark paid say so and step aside instead of recording a payment that never happened: waive a $0 fee instead, or set the family's fee (or a studio fee in Settings) first. That guard holds everywhere the fee is collected, asking Ida included.

At a studio whose registration renews per year or per season, a fee payment can occasionally arrive without landing on a season — paid on an old link after the next season opened, say. When that happens, the family's registration fee card wears a 'Needs a look' note: the money is in, but the season still reads owed. A studio owner can put it right from the same card — Attach to season links that paid fee to the family's open season and marks the season's fee paid. The charge must be exactly the season's fee, and nothing is ever charged: a payment that doesn't fit — a different amount, a refund on it, or a season already settled by other money — is refused with the reason spelled out, so you sort it out in Payments instead. And if the season was still carrying an open registration bill of its own, attaching closes it where it safely can so the family isn't asked to pay twice, telling you plainly when one is left to void. The note and the attach work the same on the web and in the iPhone app, and you can simply ask Ida to attach the fee from chat.

Merging two families

Sometimes one household ends up on two family rows — a parent registered twice, an import brought in a second copy, or an old row was never cleaned up. Owners can fold the two into one: choose 'Merge with…' from the family's row menu on the roster (at studios on Ida's newest look it reads 'Merge with another family…', and also sits in the family's danger zone), pick the family to keep — the search shows each family's guardian, email, and dancers, so two families with the same name are easy to tell apart — read exactly what will move, and type MERGE to confirm. The same merge lives in the iPhone app on the family's record, and owners can ask Ida to do it from chat, where it arrives as a change card with the same preview.

Everything moves as it is: dancers with their classes and enrollments, contacts and parent logins (the kept family's primary contact stays primary), bills and credit, registrations, bookings, and their messages all join the kept family — no one is charged or refunded, and the money totals don't change by a cent. The kept family keeps its name, card, tuition plan, and billing, tuition re-prices as one family from the next bill, and either family's paid or waived registration stands for the merged household. The family that goes away loses its saved card and payment profile — the preview says so plainly — and a note on the kept family records the merge.

A merge that could get the money wrong is refused before anything moves, with the next step spelled out: autopay still on for the family that would go away (turn it off on their Billing first), an open payment link (merge once it has been paid or expired), both families holding the same season's registration or the same late fee (settle or void the duplicate first), tuition for the same month on both with a bill still open, or a tuition run in progress that moment. Nothing is ever half-merged — if anything can't move, nothing changes at all.

Archiving vs. deleting

When a family or student leaves, prefer Archive (for families) or Mark inactive (for students). This keeps their history and stops billing without erasing anything. Permanent deletion is available but deliberately blocked when there is payment or booking history — Ida OS will tell you to archive instead so your books stay intact. Deleting a family also deletes their portal logins, so that email can sign up again; a teacher who also books as a student keeps their studio login. Your conversations are not rewritten by a deleted login: messages that person sent stay in Messages under their name (an older message with no name on record shows as 'Former contact').

Marking a dancer inactive is just as easy to take back: the same menu offers Make active again, on the web and in the iPhone app, and the dancer returns as they were — back on their tuition plan — with a note when the family's tuition or autopay amount changes as a result.

On the iPhone appiPhone app

The Families tab carries the roster with you: search by the family's name, any of its students' names, or a class or practice name, and each card lists the household's dancers. A First name / Last name button beside search chooses how the lists alphabetize — families start filed by the primary contact's last name ('The Jane Doe family' under D) and dancers by first name, and one tap flips to the other order, with the A–Z section index regrouping to match. The Students view shows each dancer's weekly classes under their name, one per line — tap a class and the day and time it meets each week appear, and for a trial dancer the same tap lists the dates and times they are booked in for, in your studio's timezone — with any weekly practices on their own Practice line, kept apart from the classes, and with a trial covering more than one class carrying its count on its own line like the web. Open the family's record and the schedule is written out beside each name instead — 'Ballet · Tue 6:00 PM' — where tapping a trial class still shows its booked dates. Cards lead with each family's photo — or their initials on a colored circle until they add one — and the photo carries into the family's record when you open it. For admins and front desk, each card also shows the family's tuition total at a glance, labeled with how often it bills (like /mo or /quarter), and badges appear only when something needs you — past due, paused or held, a registration fee still owed, or a family not yet invited to the portal. The add button is there for admins and front desk alike: Add family creates a household on the spot, and Send Sign-up link — also for admins and front desk both — opens your studio's family sign-up link ready to send — the sheet shows whether self-sign-up is on, Preview opens the public page exactly as a family will see it, and Share hands the link to the iPhone's share sheet so you can text it, WhatsApp it, email it, or copy it from there. Owners can also flip Registration form on this link right in that sheet — account and registration in one step on the public page, then the calendar — while turning the link itself on or off stays with owners, in Settings → Classes on the web. (Importing a whole roster stays on the web dashboard — or hand a list to Ida AI right in the app's chat.) Opening a family shows the same panes as the web — Details and Students for everyone on staff, Payments and Billing for admins and front desk — with a summary bar that keeps the status and tuition amount in view. On Billing, admins get the full tab, while front desk sees the family's autopay billing day (it saves the moment you pick it) and the registration fee with its payment link ready to share or email; marking the fee paid, waiving it, and setting a family's own fee amount stay with admins, and that per-family fee override now works from the phone just like the web. For admins and front desk, editing a dancer on Students carries the same Classes checklist as the web at studios that use calendar Join — change their weekly classes and practices, see the tuition preview, and confirm right from your phone. Admins editing a dancer also get Mark inactive and Make active again right on the sheet — the same archive and restore as the web's row menu, with the same note when the family's tuition or autopay amount changes. Portal logins live on each contact: tap a person on Details to invite them, or — if they already have a login — reset their password or remove it without deleting the contact, and the same Can pay switch as the web sits on each login, deciding whether that parent can pay for the household or only see Payments. Their email on that contact is how they sign in. The Details pane carries the household's registration record with it, too: their home address, and a card for each confirmed registration replaying what they submitted — when and where the fee stands, their answers, each dancer's details, and the policies they accepted. Edit details updates the address right from your phone, Add family asks for it as well, and a dancer's medical notes show under their name on Students, with the same separate Medical and Staff notes fields as the web when you edit them. Who sees medical notes is the same on the web and the app: the owner and front desk see every dancer's, an instructor sees them only for the dancers they teach (a class or event they're assigned to) and reads "Ask the front desk" for the rest, and families see their own dancers'. Instructors see the roster without any of the money: the families, their dancers, and who still needs a portal invite, but no tuition amounts, billing status, or registration fees.