The Challenge
Running a children’s program is mostly not teaching. Every new class brings more forms to collect, more invoices to send, more emails to answer, and more “is my child actually enrolled?” messages.
The usual tools don’t fit well. A spreadsheet for enrolments, a separate payments tool and a mailbox for parent questions mean copying the same details between systems. General business software is often built around one-to-one tutoring, not a term of classes with limited spots, sibling discounts, make-up sessions and waitlists. And the information involved is sensitive: names, dates of birth, allergies, medical conditions and emergency contacts for children.
I wanted one place where a provider could set up their classes, and parents could do the rest themselves.
The Approach
I started with the year as a provider lives it: terms, classes with limited spots, families with more than one child, and money coming in on different schedules. I then worked out which jobs a parent can do themselves, and which ones should happen automatically in the background.
A few decisions shaped everything:
- Parents do the typing. Parents enter their own children’s details, medical information and consents, and the provider reviews rather than retypes.
- Real-life pricing. Providers can charge for a full term, per session, as a deposit, or for a one-off casual booking, because that is how programs are actually run.
- One provider, one set of records. Every provider’s data is kept apart from every other provider’s, by design rather than by filters.
- Plug into the books. Payments and accounting should talk to each other, so nobody enters the same sale twice.
The Solution
A web platform used by two groups: providers running their programs, and the parents enrolling their children.
For providers
- Classes and terms set up the way you run them: choose full-term, per-session, deposit or casual pricing, set the spots available, and handle terms and holiday closures
- Waitlists that work themselves: when a spot opens, the next family is offered it automatically, and a class can be switched to waitlist only
- Fair pricing for families: sibling discounts, and pro-rata pricing for children who join part-way through a term
- Payments without the chasing: parents pay by card or bank transfer when they enrol, and automatic reminders follow up unpaid balances. Money goes into the provider’s own payment account
- Accounting kept in step: invoices flow to Xero (accounting software) automatically, so there is no re-entering sales
- Make-ups and credits: missed or cancelled sessions can produce make-up tokens or credits that are applied later, without a spreadsheet to track them
- Attendance: staff mark attendance per session, and a sign-in kiosk lets parents check in with a PIN
- Re-enrolment for the next term: send invitations to current families in one go
- Emails that parents actually get: enrolment, payment and reminder emails are sent automatically, and providers can customise the wording
- A class list for their own website: providers can show their classes on their own site, with sign-in and payment always happening on the platform itself
For parents
- One account for the family: add each child once, with their medical details and emergency contacts, then enrol in classes and pay from one dashboard
- No password to remember: parents can sign in with a link sent to their email
- Clear pricing: sibling discounts and balances are shown before paying
Built to be careful with children’s information
- Kept separate: each provider’s records live in their own database, so one provider’s data is not mixed with another’s
- Scrambled at rest: sensitive details about children, such as medical information, are stored encrypted, using a different key for each provider
- A record of who did what: important actions are logged, so a provider can see what changed and when
- Safe to retry: payment and billing steps are written so that a repeated request or a flaky connection doesn’t charge a family twice
- Backed up: backups are taken on a schedule, with a written recovery plan
The Result
Foxloop is live at foxloop.app and has been built steadily since early 2026. A provider can open their enrolments, share a link with parents, and have families sign up, enrol and pay online, with reminders, waitlist offers and accounting entries handled for them.
I have kept this page to what I can stand behind. I have not put numbers on hours saved or families served, because I would rather add those when I have real figures from real providers.