How to run class registration and a waitlist

In this guide

1. What a spot is
2. The registration form
3. Payment holds
4. The waitlist
5. Seasons and booking windows
6. Other rules to settle
7. A checklist
8. Questions

Decide what a spot is before you open registration

A club that has only ever used a sign-up sheet tends to think of capacity as one number per class: twelve children, full stop. Real timetables are messier. A competitive group meets three evenings, a family may buy two of them, and a parent-and-tot class has a ratio set by your insurer rather than by the size of the room. Before you build anything, write down for every class what a place actually means: which sessions it covers, how many places there are, and what happens when a family wants fewer sessions than the class offers.

In Gympillar a class is built once, with its programme, building, floor area, coach, days, times, season and price, and the sessions are generated from that. Capacity is tracked per class, and the number of spots a parent sees on your site is the number that exist, not a figure someone updated by hand last Tuesday. The scheduler also refuses to save a class that double-books a coach or a floor area, which is a problem you would otherwise discover when two groups arrive for the same trampoline. The details are in the scheduling and capacity section of the features page.

Put the registration form on your own site

Families should register from the club's own website, in the club's own look, not through a third-party marketplace page with somebody else's name on it. Gympillar builds each club a public site, and the registration form is a page on it. A parent picks a class, adds one or more children, agrees to your terms, and submits. One submission creates the family record (if that email is new to you), a record for each child, an enrolment or a waitlist place, an invoice, and a consent record stamped with the exact version of the terms on screen.

Registering is also what creates the parent's account, so there is no separate sign-up. A household with two children in two different classes registers twice, once per class, because a class decides which form, which waivers and which price list apply. Our registration section covers the mechanics; the point here is that the form is the one front door, and staff use the same one.

Holds: how an unpaid registration stops blocking a class

The failure every club knows is the family who registers on Sunday night, says they will e-transfer in the morning, and holds a seat for a fortnight while a keen family is turned away. The fix is a payment hold with an expiry. When a registration is taken, the seat is held; if the invoice is not paid inside the club's hold window, the seat is released and the next family can have it. The window is the club's choice (the default is forty-eight hours), and it should be a number you have thought about: long enough for an e-Transfer to be sent and reconciled, short enough that a popular class does not sit half-empty.

Two caveats. A household that has had a payment recorded against its bill by staff is treated as confirmed rather than released, because a person at the club made that decision. And a family is warned before the seat goes: a short series of reminders counts down to the end of the hold, so losing a place is not the first they hear of it. If you take Interac e-Transfer, read how matching works before setting the window, because the deposit has to be matched before the hold is judged paid. Card payments are built on Stripe, but we have not yet run a live production card payment, so ask for the current position in a demo rather than assuming.

How the waitlist should behave

A full class takes a waitlist place instead of turning the family away, and the form says so. The useful rules are small ones:

• Say how the queue works. Families accept a queue they can understand, so put the rule on the page.
• Promotion should be automatic and visible. When a place frees up, the next family is promoted, emailed, and given a held spot with an expiry. A child who gets in actually hears about it.
• The offer expires. If the family does not act, the spot moves on, so one unanswered email cannot stall the list.
• Staff can see the queue. The class page lists who is enrolled, who is holding a place and who is waiting.

A waitlisted place is not a place: no registration invoice is raised for it and no paperwork is requested until the child is actually in, which keeps families from being billed for a class they do not have.

Seasons and the booking window

A season such as Fall 2026 carries two separate dates: when classes run, and the window in which families may book. A club announcing September in June does not have to publish an empty timetable. A season that is announced but not open is listed with the date registration opens and the date of the first lesson, and no register button, so the page matches what the form will accept. Closing a season's registration leaves its classes listed without a button, which suits a season that has finished.

Moving a season's dates moves its classes, and the form says so before you save. If a class deliberately starts a fortnight late, know that before you change the season around it.

The other rules to settle first

Make-ups

A make-up is a lesson owed back, and whether to give one is the club's call, not the software's. Decide your policy (how long a credit stays good, whether a missed class earns one) and set the default expiry once. Credits are given on the child's record or from the session they missed, and placed through the child's calendar.

Siblings

Choose between a percentage and a fixed amount for the second child, and remember it comes off every child but the dearest, so three children get two discounts. The rate is described to parents on the form before they add a second child, so nobody learns about it only after taking it.

Waivers and paperwork

Decide which documents are tick-box terms agreed at registration and which are PDFs a parent signs separately. The tick box records the version agreed. A signed PDF is asked for once a child has a place. Gympillar shows what is outstanding but does not turn a child away on a missing signature, because it cannot know a parent signed on paper this morning.

Joining part-way through a month

If a child starts on the 10th, you need a position: charge the month, charge only the lessons left, or charge the month and give make-ups for the lessons already gone. The setting is a ladder of bands by day of the month. Decide it once and the invoice states which answer applied.

Classes that need a look first

For a squad or a levelled class you may want to speak to the family before offering a place. A class can be set to take an application instead of a booking: it asks far less, hands out no seat and raises no invoice until staff decide.

A checklist before you open registration

1. Every class has a real capacity, a coach, a floor area and a price.
2. The season has a booking window and the page says when it opens.
3. You have picked a hold window and know how you will confirm e-Transfers. If you are still choosing how families pay, read term or monthly pricing.
4. Your terms and privacy policy are written and switched on. If you email families about more than their classes, read CASL and privacy for clubs; that is background, not legal advice.
5. You have placed a test registration yourself, cancelled it, and watched the waitlist promote.
6. If you are coming from paper or sheets, moving from spreadsheets covers inviting existing families.

Gympillar is used by one club today, so we would rather show you a test registration than quote numbers. Pricing is by athlete count; see the pricing page. If you run a specific kind of club, the pages for gymnastics, martial arts, dance, cheer, swimming and ninja and parkour clubs say how classes, levels and seasons are modelled for each. US clubs should also read card and ACH payments for US clubs.