Attendance
No line at the door,
and a warning before they drift
Members check in with their phone, a parent checks in the whole family with one scan, and every visit is kept. That history is also how you see a student slipping while a call still helps, because people stop showing up before they stop paying.
No line at the front desk.
A phone code that changes every 30 seconds, and one scan for the whole family.
The actual problem
Attendance is the quickest way to see who needs a call
Something to check off, prove for insurance, and never look at again. So it gets stored as a list of dates, and the only question it can answer is “did they come in?” Spotting a member who is slipping is then a manual job — filter the log, read it, notice something.
That works if you have forty members. At three hundred, nobody notices the boy who used to come three times a week and now comes once, and by the time the cancellation arrives the conversation that would have kept him is two months too late.
At the door
Check-in built for a queue, not for a desk
- A kiosk you leave running
- A check-in kiosk on a tablet, a desk computer or a TV at the front door. Members scan its code with their own phone, use their member card or tag, or find their name, and the kiosk clears itself for the next person. Twenty people move through it without anyone standing at a keyboard.
- The whole family at once
- Check-in works at household level as well as per member — which is what actually happens when a parent arrives with three children and a queue behind them.
- Tied to the class, not just the day
- Nearly every mark records which class it was, and which program the member is enrolled in. “Attendance is down” is not actionable; “Tuesday evening is down and Saturday is not” is.
- Check-out where you need it
- Optional per location. Where it is on, most visits carry a leaving time as well — which is not a nicety for after-school and childcare programs, where knowing a child left and when is the point.
What it is really for
A mark becomes a signal when you keep enough of them
One visit is a record. Every visit since 2011, each tied to a class and a program, is a pattern — and patterns are what tell you someone is drifting while there is still time to do something about it. The oldest attendance on this system was taken in 2011, and more was written this afternoon.
That is what separates attendance-as-compliance from attendance-as-warning. The first ninety days are where the industry loses people, and the drop-off shows up in the check-in data long before anyone announces they are stopping. Nothing is thinned out or rolled up after a year, because a cohort curve needs the whole record to be worth drawing.
In practice
How this runs in your business
Martial Arts
Family billing that collects on time, belts and promotions that track themselves, and a warning before a student quits. For every style, from Little Dragons to black belt.
Gyms & Fitness
Recurring revenue, real retention numbers, and a front desk that is not chasing failed cards.
Dance, Gymnastics & Cheer
Tuition, siblings, levels and competition season — handled on one account.
Swim, Music & After-School
Session packages, weekly and daily rates, pickup services and parents who need one bill.
Questions
The things people actually ask
How do members check in?
On a kiosk at the door: a tablet, a desk computer or a TV. Members scan the code on the screen with their own phone, use a card or tag, or find their name, and it clears itself ready for the next person, so a queue of twenty moves without anyone standing at a keyboard. It is a screen you leave running, not a page someone works through.
Does it record which class they attended, or just that they came in?
Which class. Virtually every mark is tied to a specific event and to the program the member is enrolled in. That distinction is what makes the reporting useful later — "attendance is down" is not actionable, but "Tuesday evening is down and Saturday is not" tells you where to look.
Can we record when people leave as well as arrive?
Yes, and it is a per-location setting rather than something forced on everyone. Where it is switched on, roughly six in ten visits carry a check-out time. It matters most for after-school and childcare programs, where knowing a child left and when is not optional.
What does attendance have to do with retention?
Everything. People stop attending well before they cancel, so a thinning attendance pattern is the earliest signal you get that someone is leaving — usually weeks before they say so. Attendance is what makes the first-90-day at-risk flags possible.
How far back does attendance history go?
As far back as your records go. The oldest marks on this system were taken in 2011 and it is still being written today. That accumulated history is the raw material for cohort analysis; nothing is thinned out or rolled up after a year.
Can a whole family check in at once?
Yes. Check-in works at the household level as well as the individual, which matters at the door when a parent arrives with three children and a queue behind them.
Included, like everything else
From $49 a month with every feature switched on. Free to try, no card and no contract.
Every student who quits unseen is tuition you do not get back.
The warning was in your attendance all along. Start the trial and see it on your own members.
- Switching is a file, not a project
- Import your members from your old system’s export, free at any size. You see every family before anything is saved, and you can undo it.
- No contract, no card to start
- Free to try. Export your members to CSV or Excel any time, without asking us.
- $49 a month, every feature
- Priced by the size of your membership. No setup fee, no per-staff charge, no feature held for a higher plan.
- English and Spanish
- Each person on your team picks English or Spanish, and emails go out in each family’s language.