Registration

Setting it up

Registration lives as its own page under My Studio in the sidebar, with three tabs: Form (what families fill in), Settings (how registration works), and Responses (every registration and how it was recorded). On Settings, turn the form on, then pick a registration type — Fee only, where families just pay the fee, or Full form, which collects their details and policy sign-offs before payment. The builder is for admins: a teacher whose login is linked to a family with dancers sees Registration too, but as their own family's form to complete — see 'Instructors who are also dancers' on the Studio settings page of this guide.

Then decide how long a registration lasts: One-time never expires; Annual renews each year, starting in the month you choose, and next season's registration opens 60 days before it starts — from then on new registrations and the registration fee are for the coming season, while families registered for the season still running can keep joining classes until it ends; Seasons lets you define the named windows families register for — a Fall and a Spring, say — and choose whether the fee is charged once per year or once per season. With annual or season-based registration, returning families are asked to register again each period. The registration fee itself sits right on this Settings tab too — turn on 'Charge a registration fee' and set the default per-family amount next to your form and season setup (the same setting also lives under Settings → Payments & Bookings; see 'How the fee works' below).

Your seasons live in a list right there on the Settings tab: each shows its dates and how many families registered, the season covering today wears a Current badge, and one you have switched off wears Off. Add season names a new window — 'Fall 2026', with its start and end dates — and the pencil on any season renames it, moves its dates, or turns it off: Off keeps the season in the list, but registration and fees skip it. Deleting asks first, tells you how many families registered (they keep the dates they registered with), and warns when you are removing the current season — families can't register or pay the fee until a season covers today again. When two seasons overlap, the one that started most recently is the current one, so a new season takes over the moment it begins. The Responses tab keeps you oriented too, with a card naming the current season — or telling you no season covers today. Admins can manage the same seasons from the iPhone app under Studio settings → Seasons, with the same badges, dates, and delete confirmations; choosing between One-time, Annual, and Seasons itself stays on the web.

Requiring registration before class signup

If families can join weekly classes themselves from your calendar, you can make finishing registration the first step. The Settings tab carries a 'Require registration before class signup' switch: with it on, a family must complete the current registration — including accepting your required policies — before they can join a class. Until then, opening a class shows them a short note — finish Registration first — with a link that takes them straight to it, and once they register, joining works as usual. This holds on the web and in the iPhone app alike, and it also gives a family whose dancer hasn't formally enrolled yet a clear path in: they are pointed to Registration rather than simply turned away.

The requirement follows your registration setup: with annual or term-based registration, the family must be registered for the current period, while one-time registration is satisfied once they have ever registered. A registration whose fee you waived or comped counts the same as a paid one. Staff are never blocked — you can still place any dancer in a class yourself — and the switch only applies while your registration form is on, so families are never locked out of classes with no form to complete. It is off unless you turn it on.

Designing the form

The Form tab is the form itself, rendered live — click any field to edit it, and open any dropdown to see exactly the choices families will get (clicking the class/level or tuition plan field also lists its choices in the editing panel). The essentials are always asked (guardian name and email, each dancer's name, and their class or level), while the other built-ins — guardian phone, home address, a second guardian, emergency contact, birth date, medical info, and optionally a tuition plan picker — can each be optional, required, or hidden.

Add your own questions anywhere with the + between fields: short or long answers, numbers, dates, dropdowns, multiple choice, checkboxes, or yes/no, each asked once for the family or once per dancer. Questions can be required, reordered by dragging, duplicated, and even shown conditionally based on an earlier answer. The Policies card holds the checkboxes families accept at the end — terms, photo consent, waivers. Each policy can link the full document as a 'View full agreement' link on the form: attach a file from your Documents library or point to a page on your website. Policies can also be conditional: show only for certain answers to a family or dancer question, or for certain class/level or tuition plan picks. When the rule is per-dancer, class/level, or tuition plan, each matching policy still appears once for the whole family if any dancer matches. Every submission keeps a snapshot of exactly what was agreed to, including the name of a linked document at the time. When the tuition plan field is shown, the plan they pick is what drives their monthly tuition and autopay. At studios with Ida's studio-wide change cards, you can also ask Ida to make these edits from chat — questions, policies, program rules, and shop add-ons arrive as a change card you approve; see the Ida AI assistant page of this guide.

Assigning programs from answers

A form answer can also place a dancer on the right program automatically. Click the class/level field, or any dropdown, multiple choice, checkboxes, or yes/no question, and use Assign programs in the editing panel: pick the answers the rule listens for, then the main program those answers should assign and — under Also add — any add-on programs to stack on top. A question that carries rules wears an 'Assigns programs' badge on the form, and you can add as many rules to a question as you need. Rules on a per-dancer question or on the class/level pick match each dancer by their own answer; rules on a family question apply to every dancer being registered.

When a family registers and a dancer's answers match, that dancer lands on the assigned programs and their tuition follows, exactly as if you had set the plan yourself — nothing is hidden from the family, either: a short note under the dancer, like 'This puts them on Competitive Team.', spells out what their answers assign before they submit, on the web and in the iPhone app. If your form also shows the tuition plan picker and the family picks a plan, their pick stays as the dancer's main program, with any add-ons from your rules still added on top; when a dancer matches several rules, the first main program wins — a dancer has one main program — while add-ons from every matching rule combine. This all works even when the tuition plan picker is hidden, so a level-only or question-driven form can still land every dancer on the right program.

How the fee works

The registration fee itself is set on Registration → Settings (also under Settings → Payments & Bookings, and in the iPhone app under Studio settings → Money → Registration fee): turn on 'Charge a registration fee' and set the default per family, with per-family overrides on Manage family → Billing — on the web and in the iPhone app. Saving the setting never charges anyone by itself. Changing the amount also keeps open charges honest: a registration charge nobody has paid toward moves to the new fee — its old payment link stops working, and the note under the field says so — while a charge someone has part-paid, one you edited by hand, or one a family is paying at that very moment stays exactly as it is, and nobody who already paid is ever charged again. One fee covers the whole family per period — lifetime, per year, or per term, depending on your setup — and families pay it right at the end of the form through Stripe checkout. Staff can still collect by hand from Manage family: send a payment link, record it paid outside Stripe, or waive it — recording it paid settles the family's open registration charge at that charge's own amount (the confirm names the exact figure first), and records a new paid payment at your fee only when no charge is open; see 'Collecting the registration fee' on the Families page of this guide. When registration renews per year or per term, all of this is per period: a waive covers the current period only, so a family you comped is asked again next season like everyone else. And between periods — after one term ends and before the next opens — registration simply rests: families opening Registration see a plain note that there is no active registration period, nobody shows as owing the fee, and sending a link, recording the fee, or waiving it waits until the next period opens.

A fee never locks families out of registering while your card payments aren't ready. If you charge a fee but your studio can't take cards online yet — say your Stripe account isn't connected or its setup isn't finished — the form still goes through: the family's registration confirms with the fee left owing, and you settle it your way from Manage family — record it paid when the cash or e-transfer arrives, or waive it. The one exception is shop add-ons: those can only be sold through the online checkout, so a submission that includes add-ons does need your card payments working first.

If you have set up Stripe Tax and an active GST/HST registration on your connected Stripe account, applicable tax is added on top at every family checkout — including registration, tuition, bookings, workshops, rentals, and private lessons. Payments settings distinguish unfinished Tax settings from a missing registration and link directly to your studio's Stripe Tax dashboard.

Shop add-ons

The Form tab also carries a Shop add-ons card: flip Offer beside any of your shop's active one-time products to sell it right on the registration form — a dress rental, a uniform kit, a welcome pack. Families pay for what they pick together with the registration fee, in the same checkout, and each paid add-on lands on your shop Orders page as a normal order to prepare and hand over. Families can see what they bought afterwards, too: their confirmed registration recap lists the add-ons with their order status and links to the order. Subscription products stay in the shop itself.

Each add-on has three settings. Optional or Required decides whether families can skip it. Per family asks once for the whole family, while Per dancer asks once for each dancer being registered — per-dancer items need Full form mode, since Fee only doesn't ask which dancers are registering. And you choose who is offered it: all registering families, or only families registering with your studio for the first time — handy for a one-time starter kit. Prices, sizes, and stock come straight from the shop product, so an option that sells out can no longer be picked.

Stock can even run out between a family picking an item and their payment going through — a bank payment that takes days to clear, or two checkouts racing for the last one. When that happens, the registration itself stays paid and confirmed: Ida refunds exactly what the sold-out items cost — to the cent, including their share of any online card fee — cancels the shop order, and sends the family a note that their registration is still paid and all set. You get an alert naming the family, the items, and the amount, and in the rare case the refund can't be sent automatically, the alert asks you to refund that amount from the family's payment yourself. Asking Ida about the payment explains the partial refund the same way.

Reviewing registrations

The tab keeps score of who still needs to register, too. A card at the top says how many families are in for the season and how many haven't registered yet — counting every family with a dancer who is still dancing, by the same rule the family's own Registration page goes by — and lists the first five families still to register, with Show all for the rest. Open any of them to jump straight to that household and send their registration link from there; when everyone is in, the card says so — 'Every family is registered' — and between seasons, when there is nothing to register for yet, it rests along with registration. (At studios with one-time registration, it counts who has ever registered.) You can also just ask Ida — 'Who hasn't registered for spring yet?', 'How many families are in for next season?' — and the answer comes back with the same counts and the family names. The card and the ask follow who can see Responses: owners and front desk, with names only, never contact details.

The Responses tab lists every registration, newest first — when each was recorded, the family, its dancers, the period, the fee, and a status badge. Load more to keep going past the first page. Filter Recorded to Form to see only what families submitted themselves, and filter Fee to pending to see submits that never finished checkout. A Recorded column tells you how each one landed there: Form when the family completed your registration form themselves, Paid by hand when you recorded the fee as paid outside Stripe, Paid online when the fee was paid through a Stripe checkout, Payment link while a link you sent is still awaiting payment, and Waived when you waived the fee (a waived row shows no fee amount). A registration the family submitted through the form keeps its Form badge even after you settle or waive their fee, so genuine form submissions always stay easy to tell apart from fees you recorded yourself. Expand any row to read the answers, any shop add-ons, and which policies were ticked, exactly as submitted. A family that submits the form again in the same period — say after an interrupted checkout — updates their existing registration with their newest answers rather than adding a second row, so each family shows once per period. Open a family name to jump to that household — Manage family → Details shows the same answers, including form submits that have not paid yet — so you can send the fee again, mark it paid, or place the dancer.

You don't have to come back to this tab to look a submission up, either. Each family's registrations — including form submits that have not paid yet — are replayed on their own record. Open Manage family → Details and their address, answers, dancer details, and accepted policies sit right under the family's details, on the web and in the iPhone app alike (see Students & families in this guide).

On the iPhone appiPhone app

Staff open the same Responses list from Registration responses under Studio. The same who-hasn't-registered card sits at the top — the counts, the first five families still to register, and Show all — and tapping a family opens their record to send the link. Filter to Form or Fee pending, load more to see older rows, expand a card for the answers, and tap the family name to open that household — Details shows the form recap even when the fee is still unpaid.