Academy Explained: Teams, Coaches, Parents

This is the series' feature spotlight. It is not tied to a week. I am writing it on 12 October 2026 to explain one thing properly: the PersonaCart Academy. Everything below is built and on our staging branch. We are testing it on our own accounts, so I will not quote customer numbers.

In short

• The Academy is for people who run teams, classes or camps: rosters, schedules, attendance, parents and coaches in one place.
• It is separate from the online store. A family can pay fees through the store, but the Academy tools do not depend on you selling anything else.
• Coaches are free and cannot see your money.

Who it is for

A basketball club, a martial arts school, a yoga studio, a dance school, a fitness group or a soccer team. The pages for each are at /academy, for example basketball and martial arts. The sport words only change the examples. The tools are the same.

Teams, roster, schedule and RSVP

A team has a roster, a schedule and a season. Families answer whether their child is coming to an event, and the owner can see who has answered and ask again. When a child joins a team, the family hears about it. Rosters can be searched, printed and downloaded as CSV. Weekly groups can have a coach, a number of places and a waitlist when they are full. An owner can set a skill level on each group.

The coach app

A coach gets their own app screen, not the owner's dashboard. They see their groups and sessions, take attendance, write feedback and read messages. If a coach cannot make a session, they ask for cover and another coach can accept it. A coach can set when they can work and see hours this month. The app shows an offline banner and reminds a coach when attendance has not been saved.

Attendance, planned absence and make-up credit

Attendance is taken per session. A parent can plan an absence ahead of time. Planned absences and make-up credits are tracked together, and a credit has an expiry. The parent sees their make-up options and is told when a make-up session is booked. The owner sees past absences and the state of each credit.

Skill levels and feedback

Coaches write feedback on a child, by child or by skill, and can attach photos. Photos of children are held privately and shown through short-lived links. The owner can switch on approval, so a coach's post waits for the owner's OK before a parent sees it. Parents can say "no photos" for their child.

The parents' side

A parent has an inbox and receives announcements from the academy. Each parent sets quiet hours and which notifications they want. One login covers several children, in a family account with a timeline and progress for each child. A waiver is signed once per child before a place is bought.

Roles

There are three kinds of people: owner, coach and parent. The Coach role has no access to payments, orders, billing or settings. Parents see only their own children.

What the owner sees

An owner has a Today screen with a "Needs you" list for payment problems, a Reports page with seven reports you can download, and a daily mail of families who joined, paused or left. The details of the last two are in the week 19 post.

What it does not do yet

One location per academy. Several locations are on our list. Fees and plan limits are on pricing; I am not typing them here so they cannot go out of date.

What it means for you

Less chasing. The parent sees where the child should be and what to bring. The coach sees who is coming. You see who owes you money. Compare how this sits against general store tools on the comparison pages.

Want to talk? I am one of the co-founders of PersonaCart. If you have a question, an idea or something you want us to build, write to me directly: [email protected].

Vinod Morya, Co-founder, PersonaCart