Studio settings

You never have to remember which tab a setting lives on. Click the Search box at the top of the dashboard — or press ⌘K (Ctrl+K on Windows) — and type what you are after: 'logo', 'billing date', 'timezone', 'payment alerts'. Every studio setting is in there; choose a result and Ida opens Settings on the right tab, scrolls to that exact setting, and highlights it briefly so you land right where you need to be.

On the Studio tab, set your studio name, email, phone, and address. These appear across the app and on every email your families receive.

Also on the Studio tab, tell Ida OS where your studio is located by picking its timezone — the picker is searchable, so typing a nearby city like Toronto or Chicago finds it fast, and your choice saves the moment you pick it. Every class and event time — on the calendar, in the mobile app, in booking emails, and on your public trial form — is shown in that timezone, so families always see times that match the clock on your studio wall. Monthly autopay also bills at midnight in your timezone.

For studios in Alberta and British Columbia: starting November 1, 2026, Alberta and most of B.C. stay on summer time year-round — clocks there no longer fall back. Ida follows the new rules automatically, so a 5 PM class stays at 5 PM on the calendar, in the app, and in reminders, even on devices that have not caught up with the change yet. There is nothing for you or your families to adjust.

Also in Settings, the Locations card is where studios that teach in more than one place put each site on record. Adding a second location switches on location pickers and filters across the calendar, the roster, and the trial widget — the Multiple locations page of this guide walks through how it all works. Studio settings in the iPhone app has a Locations screen too, so you can manage locations from your phone as well.

The Branding tab is where you make Ida OS look like your studio. Upload your logo — PNG, JPG, WEBP, AVIF, or SVG up to 2MB — and a crop tool opens so you can frame it just right: drag to reposition, zoom with the slider, and pick the shape that fits. Square sits as a neat tile beside your studio name; Wide suits logos that read as a banner and gives them the width of the sidebar header. SVG files skip the cropper and upload exactly as they are. Once saved, your logo appears across the dashboard sidebar, the family portal, your login screen, and the emails families receive — and the Crop button lets you re-frame the saved logo whenever you like, no re-upload needed.

If your logo already spells out your studio's name, flip off the 'Show studio name next to the logo' switch and the sidebar shows just your logo, without the text label beside it.

Then pick a color scheme — choose one of the curated themes or set your own exact brand color as a hex value — and it applies app-wide for every staff member and family: buttons, accents, links, and highlights all follow. A live preview of the real branded invitation email shows exactly what families will receive, so you can check your logo and colors in context before sending anything.

The Login screen card lets you design the page families land on when they sign in at your studio's address. Set a custom background (hero) image, write your own headline and supporting text, and choose a layout. A live preview — shown in both a desktop browser frame and a phone frame — updates as you edit, so you always see how it will look.

There are four layouts to choose from: Image left (hero on the left, sign-in on the right), Image right (the mirror), Full background (a full-bleed image with the sign-in card centered on top), and Centered (no image — a clean centered card on a themed background). On the split layouts, the hero image and copy show on larger screens; the Full background and Centered layouts carry your message down to phones too.

• Background image: upload a PNG, JPG, or WEBP (landscape images look best) — large photos are optimized automatically, so a full-size phone photo uploads without fuss; 'Reset to default' restores the standard image.
• Headline and supporting text: leave a field blank to show the default copy, or tick 'Hide' to show no text at all for that line.
• Layout: pick the arrangement that fits your brand — the preview reflects your choice instantly.

Every studio gets its own web address on Ida OS — a subdomain like yourstudio.idaos.co — and your logo, colors, and login screen all show there. If you'd like families to sign in on a domain of your own, you can also connect a custom domain (for example portal.yourstudio.com); reach out and we'll help you set it up.

Studios teach differently, so you define your own dance levels rather than using a fixed list. On the Branding tab, the Levels card is where you name the levels your studio uses and set their order. Those levels are what you assign to students and tuition plans, and they're what the calendar can color-code by — so the whole app reads the way your school actually works.

Every level in the card can be renamed or recolored, hidden, or deleted. Hiding is for a level with history: it disappears from the pickers you use for new assignments, while students, plans, and classes already on it keep their label. Deleting is permanent, so it only works when nothing uses the level anymore — if students, plans, or classes are still attached, the confirmation tells you so and asks you to reassign them first or hide the level instead.

Also on Branding, the calendar's building blocks are yours to shape. The Calendar event types card lets you rename any of the six built-in types — call rentals 'Studio hire', workshops 'Masterclasses' — hide the ones your studio never uses so they drop out of the legend and the new-event picker, and set each type's color. Classes are always shown (though you can rename them too), and a class tagged with a level uses the level's color instead, set alongside your dance levels. The workshop color reaches beyond the calendar, too: it tints the category badges on the Workshops page, for staff and families alike. Use 'Reset all to defaults' to start over.

Right below the built-in types, the Custom free event types card lets you add calendar types of your own — Performance, Show rehearsal, whatever your studio runs — each with a name and a calendar color. A custom type is always free: its events carry no prices, and families sign up at no charge. The types you add join the end of the calendar's type picker and its legend, on the web and in the iPhone app.

Each type in the list can be renamed or recolored, hidden, or deleted. Hiding a type takes it out of the picker for new events while events already using it keep their name and color, so it is the right choice for a type with history — deleting only works when no calendar events use the type.

In Studio details, 'Week starts on' chooses the first column of week and month calendars — Monday by default, Sunday if that is how your studio thinks, or any other day. It applies to staff and family calendars alike, on the web and in the iPhone app, and saves the moment you pick it. Staff can also change it from Settings → Calendar in the app.

On the Customizations tab, 'Birthdays on Home' shows a small Birthdays card at the bottom of the staff Home screen — web and the iPhone app — listing dancers with a birthday today or in the next 7 days. Open Calendar on that card for a month view of every birthday on the roster. It uses the birthdates already on each dancer's record. The card is on by default; flip the switch off if you would rather not see it. Staff can also change it from Studio settings → Customizations → Birthdays on Home in the app.

The Team tab manages your staff — the instructors who teach and the people who help run the studio. Add each person to the roster, then invite them to their own staff login when you want them working in the app.

The roster reads as a members table: each row shows the person's email, name, role, the family they book as (if any), and a status chip — 'Not invited' until you send their sign-in link, 'Joined' once they have a login, 'Inactive' when you have marked them so. Anyone who also books as a family wears a Student chip next to their role, so you can see at a glance who is both staff and a student — no need to open their menu. People still waiting on an invite sort to the top, so who to invite next is always in view, and a count above the table keeps track of how many members you have. Everyone who runs the studio is on it too: anyone with owner access appears automatically as an Owner, already marked Joined — you never need to add yourself.

When you add or edit a member, the role picker explains what each role can do as you choose: Owner is full access — revenue, payments, and studio settings included; Front desk covers the welcome desk — adding families and students, enrolling them, taking payment with a receipt, viewing a family's portal as they see it, and running the shop, with no studio revenue, banking, or financial reports; and Teacher and Junior instructor cover the day-to-day without any of that. Changing someone's role later updates their existing login to match the moment you save — no new invite needed.

Instructors get a scoped view: they can see the schedule, family and student rosters, attendance, documents, competition entries, and comms — but never revenue, the payments ledger, tuition, or studio settings. Those stay admin-only everywhere — on the web and in the iPhone app alike, family tuition, billing status, and registration fees are simply not shown to instructors, a booking request waiting for approval shows them everything but its dollar amount, and prices stay out of sight across the schedule too — the calendar and Workshops show instructors the events, packages, and who has signed up, never the rates, fees, or what anyone paid — so you can hand a teacher day-to-day access without exposing the studio's finances.

Front desk sits in between — the role for the person who greets families and takes payments without running the books. Someone on front desk gets everything an instructor sees, plus the roster's family actions and a household checkout: they can create and edit families and students, keep contacts current, set a family's trial status to Trialing or Full member, invite a family to the portal or share the studio's family sign-up link, add a walk-in trial to a class, send a registration-fee payment link or record the fee as paid, and take a payment on a family's record — billing the family or logging cash, a cheque, or an e-transfer they have collected — with the family getting the usual receipt. Because the desk is who a parent calls, front desk can also View as family: step into a household's own portal to see exactly what the parent sees on their screen, then Exit family view to come back to the roster. When your studio's shop is on, front desk runs that too: My Shop — products, orders, and inventory — appears for them on the web and in the iPhone app, and a new order alerts them just as it does owners. While helping a household they see that family's tuition and balance, but the studio's books stay closed: no revenue, no payments ledger or reports, no tuition plans, and no studio settings, on the web and in the iPhone app alike. Archiving or deleting families and students, changing billing or plans, waiving fees, and voiding or refunding payments stay with owners.

1. 1On the Team tab, add the person with their name and email.
2. 2Open their actions menu and choose Manage — or tap the Student chip if they already book as a family. The sheet has two tabs. Details is name, email, role, whether they are active, and their staff login: send or resend a branded sign-in link (you can also copy and share it), or Remove access to revoke their login while they stay on the roster.
3. 3They click the link, set up their account, and land in the staff dashboard with the view their role allows.
4. 4If they also take class or have kids at the studio, switch to the Family profile tab to link that login to their family.

Sometimes an instructor is also a student at your studio — an older dancer who teaches a junior class — or a parent whose own children dance. Ida OS lets the same login be both: keep their instructor access and also let them book, join classes, and register as a family.

From the instructor's actions menu choose Manage — or tap the Student chip on their row, which opens the Family profile tab. Details and Family profile are the two tabs on that sheet. Details is where you change their name, email, role, or mark them inactive, and where you send or revoke their staff login. Family profile only links their login to a household — pick an existing family, or create a new one and tick 'This teacher also dances' if they take class themselves. Add their children on Students and Families, the same place you add any other dancer. The roster shows a Student chip next to their role plus the family they book as. The same two tabs live in the iPhone app under Studio settings → Team.

Once linked, they keep their full staff view and gain the family side of the calendar: they can book slots for themselves, and with dancers on their family they can also join weekly classes straight from the calendar, exactly as a parent would — opening a class offers the same Join for their dancers, with the same tuition preview, the same approval step when the studio reviews joins, and the same Leave. This works on the web and in the iPhone app alike. They can also switch into the parent side of the same login — Switch to your family in the header (to the left of the cart) on the web, or the button at the top of More in the iPhone app — to see their household's home, payments, card, and autopay exactly as a parent does, then Switch to staff — the same header button on the web, or the banner or More button in the app — to come back. That switch is only their household: teachers never get View as family on anyone else.

A teacher with dancers on their linked family also gets your registration form. Registration appears for them — under My Studio in the sidebar on the web, under Your family in the iPhone app's More tab — as the same family form every parent completes: confirm dancers, accept policies, pay the fee. They only ever see it as a family; designing the form and reading responses stay with admins.

A linked instructor can also register their family for workshops and camps. A Catalog page appears for them — in the sidebar on the web, under More in the iPhone app — showing the same workshops, packages, prices, and checkout every family sees, and opening a workshop or camp date on the calendar offers the same registration in place. Paying and changing their mind work like any family's too: they pay at checkout — or settle a workshop charge they saved for later from Payments in the iPhone app — and backing out on the payment page, or cancelling a registration while it is unpaid or free, releases the dates just as it would for a family. This only covers their own family: registering or cancelling for any other family stays an admin action. Instructors whose login is not linked to a family see the Catalog entry too, but it simply points them back to Workshops until you link them.

The Payments & Bookings tab is organized as two short lists of settings. Under Payments, connect Stripe to receive payouts — the row shows whether your account is connected and ready, and where Stripe Tax stands: 'Tax configured' once GST/HST is being collected, or 'Finish tax setup' / 'Add tax registration' while something is still missing in Stripe. Buttons open your studio's Stripe Tax dashboard and, once you have finished setup there, Refresh tax — which starts collecting on everything by bringing your existing autopay subscriptions and open payment links up to date (a family whose tax location Stripe cannot determine shows Blocked in your roster's Autopay column, and their tuition holds until they add their address from Manage autopay). The same list manages your billing currency, your tuition billing date, and the registration fee. Under Bookings, choose Book and pay instantly, Staff approve, then parent pays manually, or Staff approve, then auto-charge (charges the family's card on file — usually from AutoPay — when you approve; families can turn auto-charge off on Payments, and failed charges stay outstanding) for each type of studio time already on the calendar — private lessons, open practice slots, rentals, workshops, and your custom free event types, which start on Staff approve, then parent pays manually so sign-ups come to you first — set the non-student practice rate (the hourly fallback used when a booker has no matching tuition plan rate), set the private lesson and rental prices families see when suggesting their own time, and choose whether families see which instructor is assigned to each class. Suggesting a brand-new time — practice, a private lesson, or a rental — always needs staff approval; you can choose parent pays manually or auto-charge after approval for those suggestions.

In the private lesson and rental prices, leave a duration blank to hide it from the suggestion form — leave both prices for a type blank and that type can't be suggested at all.

Private lesson prices can also follow membership. The 'Membership-tier private pricing' switch in the same card — off by default, so nothing changes until you turn it on — lets dancers on the tuition plans you pick pay a preferred private-lesson price: set the preferred 30- and 60-minute amounts, then tick which of your plans earn them, and everyone else keeps the standard prices above. What counts is the plan a dancer is billed on — the plan you select here, not the plan's name. Studios that price tuition by each dancer's classes can also turn on the plan-maximum rule, so a dancer whose latest tuition bill sits at the per-dancer maximum — the cap studios often label Unlimited — gets the preferred rate too, whichever plan they are on. Saving needs at least one preferred price and at least one rule (a selected plan, or the plan-maximum switch). The same switch and fields live in the iPhone app's booking settings.

Most of these save the moment you change them — pick a new value and a small confirmation appears — while amounts like the rates have their own Save button. The tuition billing date row chooses a fixed day of the month to bill recurring tuition, or leaves it on each family's own signup day. With a fixed day set, First tuition bill chooses whether someone who joins mid-month also owes this month in full or waits until next month, and a 'Parents can choose their day' switch lets families pick their own autopay day from a list of days you control — your default day is always on the list, and is used when a family does not pick. Changing these settings never moves families already on autopay. For tuition billed straight from a family's plan, the fixed day applies to monthly plans only — quarterly, 6-month, and yearly plans charge from their signup date — while studios that price tuition by each dancer's classes bill every period on the billing day, however long the period. A fixed day also brings a 'When families see the next bill' choice on the same row — post next month's charge as soon as this month's is billed, hold it to a set number of days before it's due, or to a fixed day of the month, with a plain-language preview of what families will experience. The Payments page of this guide covers how billing days, bill timing, and late fees work together.

Also under Payments, the Other charges card holds reusable names for the one-off fees your studio bills that are not merch or tuition — Costume fee, Recital, Photos, whatever you charge. Each has a name and an optional default amount that fills in when the charge is recorded (the amount can always be changed on the spot). You can also add a name from the Type list when you create a payment — it lands here too. Other charge is always in that Type list if you just need a one-off without saving a name. Families see the name you pick on the charge, at checkout, and on their receipt, and pay it online like any other open charge — the Payments page of this guide walks through recording one.

Each row's menu lets you edit a charge type, move it up or down the list, hide it, or delete it. Hiding takes it out of the picker for new payments while keeping it on hand to bring back later, and renaming or deleting never touches payments already billed — they keep the name they were billed with. Renaming, reordering, hiding, and deleting are for admins; anyone who can take a payment can use the names when recording one — and add a new one from the Type list right there.

Also under Payments, the Online fee switch lets your studio pass card processing costs on to families who pay online. With it on, every family payment collected through Stripe — a registration fee, an open charge, a workshop or camp, a shop order, a booking, tuition on autopay — adds its own 'Online fee' line at checkout, sized to fully cover card processing of 2.9% plus $0.30 on the card total, so the processing on the fee itself is covered too and the listed amount is what reaches you. Your listed prices don't move: they become your cash prices, and a family who pays by cash, cheque, or e-transfer pays exactly the listed amount. On a $100 charge, for example, the fee is $3.30 and the card total $103.30 — processing on $103.30 comes to exactly $3.30, leaving you the full $100.

Families always see the fee — before and after they pay: an open charge on their Payments page notes the fee under the listed amount, checkout itself carries the Online fee line, and once a card payment settles, the paid charge keeps naming the online fee it actually included, on the web and in the iPhone app. Tuition on autopay includes the fee on each invoice, and flipping the switch brings families already on autopay up to date on their next cycle — the fee joins or leaves their invoice without touching the tuition itself. Your ledger keeps the listed amounts throughout, so your revenue reads the same however each family chose to pay.

The Payments & Bookings tab also sets your studio's currency. Every price in Ida OS — tuition, trials, workshops, the payments ledger, on web and in the mobile app — displays in it. Before Stripe is connected you can pick any supported currency; once Stripe is connected, the currency is locked to what your Stripe account settles in, so charges always match your payouts.

The Payments list also carries your business country — where your studio legally operates, and therefore where Stripe registers your payment account. Confirm it before connecting Stripe: Ida asks rather than assumes, because Stripe fixes the country permanently once your account starts processing payments. Until then you can still change it — Ida discards the unfinished Stripe setup so you can start over in the right country; after payments have begun, a country change goes through support.

The Subscription tab holds your studio's own Ida OS plan — what your studio pays for the software, entirely separate from what families pay you. The card always shows where you stand — a Free trial badge with the days remaining, Active with your next renewal date, or a notice when a payment needs attention — and offers the one right action for that moment.

During your free trial, Add payment method opens the secure Stripe billing portal to save a card, and your plan continues automatically when the trial ends. Once a card is on file, the card says so — we'll charge it when the trial ends — and the button becomes Update payment method in case you need to change the card; the reminder that appears at the top of the dashboard in your trial's last days follows suit, so you are never asked to add a card you have already saved. On an active plan, Manage billing opens the same portal to change your card, switch between monthly and annual, or cancel. You can also switch Ida OS billing currency anytime (USD, CAD, GBP, or EUR): on a trial it switches immediately; on a paid plan the current subscription is canceled and replaced in the new currency (using the card on file when available, otherwise Checkout). If a renewal payment fails, the card flags it and Update payment method puts it right. Only when you have no live subscription — the trial ended without a card, or you cancelled — do you pick a currency and a plan, then press Subscribe (or Resubscribe).

Your studio's Ida OS plan is in the iPhone app too, for admins: open the More tab, tap Studio settings, and Ida OS subscription sits at the top of the Money group — the row shows your plan's status (Free trial, Active, and so on) before you even tap. The screen mirrors the web Subscription tab: where you stand, your billing currency (USD, CAD, GBP, or EUR), and the one right action for the moment.

With no live subscription — your trial ended without a card, or you cancelled — pick a currency and choose Monthly or Annual (each shows its price, and annual saves 10%), then tap Subscribe or Resubscribe: the same secure Stripe checkout as the web opens in a browser sheet and brings you back to the app. On a trial or an active plan, the button opens the billing portal instead — Add or Update payment method during your trial, Manage billing on a paid plan — to change your card, switch between monthly and annual, or cancel. Switching currency works like the web too: immediate on a trial, and on a paid plan the app confirms before your current subscription is canceled and replaced in the new currency.

When your subscription needs attention — your trial is in its last days, a payment failed, or the plan has ended — a reminder card also appears at the top of the app's Home screen for admins, with a button straight to this screen.

When a studio's free trial ends without a subscription — or a subscription is cancelled — Ida OS pauses access rather than carrying on quietly. The dashboard and the iPhone app close behind a single locked screen that says exactly where things stand. Owners see it with a way back in: pick your currency and Monthly or Annual right on the screen and Subscribe (or Resubscribe) opens the same secure Stripe checkout as the Subscription tab — and a 'Need more time? Talk to us' option books a call with the Ida team, with your details already filled in. Instructors and front desk see a note to ask the studio owner; families see a short message that the studio isn't taking bookings or payments right now, with the studio's contact details when they are on file, and a Sign out button.

Nothing is deleted — your families, classes, calendar, and payment history are all kept — and subscribing from the locked screen brings you straight back in, with everything as you left it. The lock covers signing in, not your money or your public pages: any family autopay already running keeps collecting on schedule, and your trial booking forms, registration links, family sign-up links, and calendar embeds all keep working.

Open Notifications from the user menu to control email alerts. Studio-wide payment alerts — a 'New payment received' summary to every admin whenever a payment lands, online via Stripe or recorded manually, on the web or in the iPhone app — and time suggestion alerts — emailed when a family suggests practice, a private lesson, or studio rental — are both on by default and can be turned off for the whole studio. Below the studio switches, each admin can mute either category for their own inbox without affecting anyone else — though a category turned off studio-wide stays off for everyone until the studio switch is back on. Families use the same page to manage their booking approval and cancellation emails and their workshop and registration fee confirmations. Mobile push for the same events is managed separately in the iPhone app.

Admins can also get push notifications the moment things happen: a 'New payment received' alert when a payment lands, and a new-request alert when a family suggests a time — the alert names what was asked for, whether practice, a private lesson, or a studio rental. Tapping an alert takes you straight to the right place — a payment alert opens Payments, a time suggestion opens the Calendar — even when the app was closed. Turn each alert on or off in the iPhone app under More → Notifications (admins can also reach the same screen from Studio settings): the Studio-wide alerts switches save as you flip them and apply to every admin on the studio, and a Preview button sends a sample notification so you know exactly what an alert looks like. A Your preferences card on the same screen lets you mute either alert for just yourself — your choice follows your account to every device you sign in on, while other admins keep receiving theirs. Push and email are independent: each channel has its own switch, so you can keep the email summary and skip the ping, or the other way around.

Each phone also has to allow notifications once. The first time you use the app, the Home screen offers an Enable notifications card — accept it, or tap Not now and the app will not ask again. You can always set it up later from the This device card at the top of More → Notifications: it tells you whether this phone can receive alerts, enables them with one tap, and if your phone has notifications blocked for Ida it sends you to the system settings to allow them.

Studio settings travels with you: open the More tab and tap Studio settings. It works like your iPhone's own Settings app — a menu of grouped destinations rather than one long page: Studio (profile, branding & appearance, locations, timezone, calendar), Money (your Ida OS subscription, billing, currency, booking), Alerts (push notifications), Integrations (Stripe and Instagram), and Team (instructors). Each row shows where things stand before you tap — your studio name, timezone, and currency, whether Stripe and Instagram are connected, which push alerts are on, and how many locations and instructors you have. Tap a row to open that one setting on its own screen, make the change, and save; the back arrow returns you to the menu, and the back arrow on the menu itself takes you back out to More. (The Locations, Calendar, and Notifications screens appear for admins.) Notifications also has its own row right on the More tab, under Settings — one tap away for everyone, families included.