At a kids' club the person paying is not the person coming. Parents pay for a month or a pack of lessons, children turn up after school, and the club has to keep the two together: whose month is paid, who came, who is about to run out.
What makes it hard
- Children don't have phones. Or email. Whatever you use at the door has to work without them.
- Parents ask. "How many lessons does she have left?" arrives by message on a Sunday evening.
- Siblings, groups, holidays. Two children from one family, a group on Mondays and Wednesdays, a three-week break in summer.
- Cash at the first lesson of the month, from twenty parents, to be written down somewhere.
How Abonatus handles it
- Check-in by name. The teacher finds the child by name in two taps and sees whether the pass is valid; nobody needs a phone or a card. Older children with a phone can show a QR code instead.
- Parents see it themselves. A child's card can carry a parent's email: the parent signs in and sees that child's pass, the lessons left and the end date, on their own phone.
- Passes for groups: 8 lessons in 30 days, an unlimited month, a single trial lesson. A break for a holiday or an illness freezes the pass, and it ends that much later.
- Every payment recorded when the pass is sold, cash, card or transfer, with who took it. The owner sees the month's takings without collecting notebooks.
- Who to remind. The list shows whose pass ends this week and who didn't renew; parents who sign in with their email get a reminder three days before.
- Moving over from a spreadsheet: names, phones and current passes come in from Excel in one go.
What it costs
Two months free during the pilot, with our help to set up. After that, one monthly price per club, with no fee per lesson.