Starting a new school year — or wrapping one up — involves a lot of moving parts: Enrollment Periods, Programs, Classes, payment plans, staff, and documents. This guide walks you through the entire lifecycle, from duplicating or building a new term, to preparing for the first day of Class, to closing out the year and rolling into summer. Follow the sections in order, or jump to the part of the cycle you're working on right now.
Before You Start
This guide moves quickly, so it helps to have a few things ready before you dive in. Take five minutes to gather the following — you'll save yourself a lot of back-and-forth later:
Admin access to your Enrollsy account. You'll need permission to create and edit Enrollment Periods, Programs, Classes, and Payment Plans.
A decision on your structure. Are you duplicating last year's Enrollment Period, or building a fresh one? Either path works — knowing which up front will save time.
Your Program lineup. A list of the Programs you'll offer this term, including any that are new, retired, or changing.
Class details. Schedules, dates, capacities, and Instructor assignments for each Class.
Once you have these in hand, you're ready to start with Step 1 below.
Step 1 - Set Up Your New Term or School Year
Already have an Enrollment Period, Programs, and Classes from a previous term? Duplicating them is the fastest way to roll into a new school year — you'll keep your structure and settings while only updating what's changed. If you're starting fresh, you can build everything from scratch instead.
Duplicate Enrollment Period
If your Programs stay mostly the same year over year and only need minor tweaks, duplicating your Enrollment Period is the most efficient option. Duplicating also lets you carry over Programs, Classes, Waitlists, and/or Enrollments in one step. See How to Create or Duplicate an Enrollment Period for a walkthrough.
Duplicate Program(s)
Copy existing Programs (current or archived) along with their settings, then adjust only what's changed. Duplicating an archived Program automatically files the copy under Current Programs. See How to Duplicate Programs for a walkthrough and video.
Duplicate Class(es)
If a Class shares similar schedules, dates, or capacities with an existing one, duplicate it instead of rebuilding from scratch. See How to Create & Duplicate a Class for a walkthrough and video.
Creating a New Enrollment Period from Scratch
If you don't have an existing Enrollment Period to duplicate — or if you have Enrollees moving into a new Class — create a fresh one. We recommend a separate Enrollment Period per school year, each labeled by year or term.
Creating a New Program from Scratch
With your Enrollment Period in place, you're ready to add Programs. See How to Create a Program for the step-by-step.
Creating New Classes
Once a Program is built, you can attach one or more Classes to it. See How to Create or Duplicate Classes for the steps.
That's it for setup! Your new Enrollment Period and Programs should be ready to go. If you hit a snag or want a second set of eyes, reach out anytime via chat — we're happy to help.
Step 2 - Prepare for the First Day of Class
With your new term built, here's how to make sure everything — and everyone — is ready for day one. We've grouped the checklist into three phases: before enrollment opens, while enrollment is running, and after enrollees are in.
Pre-Enrollment
Confirm the new year setup
Before opening enrollment, double-check that your Enrollment Period, Programs, and Classes are configured correctly.
Enrollment Periods are a great way to separate "school years." You can either create or duplicate an Enrollment Period.
Make sure every Program has its pricing (if applicable) and that every Class has a capacity. See How to Create a Program or How to Create & Duplicate a Class for more information.
TEST your Enroll Form to confirm everything appears correctly. If something is missing, troubleshoot here.
Review the Invoicing and payment event schedules inside each Enrollment Period and Program/Class. See our Support Center for help with pricing and Payment Plans.
Figure out the enrollment process
Decide how enrollees will actually sign up. Common options include:
Admin-led enrollment — Admin Users enroll customers directly. Note: if an Admin enrolls someone, you'll need to manually add Invoices and/or payment events afterward. Admins can also create an account for someone without enrolling them.
Embedded enroll links on your website. Learn how to embed links. (Enrollsy also offers web design that integrates directly with your account.)
Shared Enroll Form link — the general link for non-private Programs, which you can send via email or text. Learn how to share the Enroll Form link.
Private Program links — sent individually via email or text.
Once your process is set, make sure your Customers know how to enroll and use their Customer Portal. The portal is where they make payments, update info, view enrollments, access Activities, and more.
Enrollment
Once enrollment is open, you can sit back and watch sign-ups roll in. If anything looks off, message us via the chat button inside the Enrollsy Admin app.
Post-Enrollment
Check Payment Plans & Invoices
After enrollees are in, audit your Invoices and Payment Plans to make sure everything generated correctly. (Like any software, Enrollsy occasionally has bugs — please let us know via chat if something looks off.)
Helpful articles:
You may also need to adjust Payment Plans, add Invoices, or apply Discounts to individual accounts:
Confirm Documents
If any of your Programs require signed or E-signature Documents, you'll get notifications in the Notification Center as they're completed.
Helpful next steps:
Update Staff
The start of a school year is the right time to refresh your team's info:
Remove staff who are no longer there or not expected to return
Edit staff contact information
Edit staff roles & permissions
Update Instructor Class assignments
Add a photo or bio to your staff profiles
Setup Kiosk/Activities
If you're using Activities to check Enrollees and Instructors in and out, learn how to set up a Kiosk. Then review:
Instructors
Customers
Step 3 - Wrap up the School Year (and Roll into Summer)
As the term winds down, a few key steps will help you close the year cleanly and set up whatever comes next — whether that's summer Programs or a brand-new school year.
Review balances
Before the school year ends, review any outstanding balances. You can check these in several places:
For more information on how to view customer balances, see How to View Customer Payments & Balances. If someone has a balance that needs to be paid, you can send a Past Due Notice or create an Invoice and text or email it.
End Enrollment
When your current Enrollment Period(s) wrap up, you have a few options for closing things out:
Create Summer Enrollment Period(s)
Running summer Programs? Now's the time to create them. Helpful articles for setting up an Enrollment Period:
Once that's ready, build out your Programs and Classes:
Move current Enrollees
Need to move existing Enrollees into the new Summer Program? You have a couple of options:
An Admin User can enroll them. Admin can also add another Enrollee to an existing Account.
You can send out the Enroll Form, and they can enroll themselves
Other Important Tips
A couple of final reminders before summer kicks off:
Test Summer Program enroll links to be sure they are set up correctly