Help Center

Creating your account

Visit alinaflow.com and click Start Free. Enter your business name, pick a workspace URL (e.g. myschool.alinaflow.com), and set your password. The whole process takes under a minute and no credit card is required.

• Sign up with email or Google OAuth
• Choose a unique workspace subdomain
• Verify your email to activate your workspace
• You can change your workspace name later in Settings

Onboarding wizard

After signup, alinaflow shows a guided checklist that walks you through setting up your business. Each step has a direct link — click it to jump straight to the relevant page. Your progress is tracked automatically.

• Create your first location with address, timezone, and branding
• Add courses with schedules, levels, and pricing
• Invite your team and assign roles
• Configure billing and connect your payment provider
• You can complete steps in any order — the checklist updates in real time
• Dismiss the checklist when you're done, or access it again from Settings
• New workspaces start with a simplified menu showing only essential items. The full menu unlocks automatically when you complete all setup steps, or click "Unlock full menu" at the bottom of the sidebar

Free plan & limits

alinaflow is free up to 25 active students. The free plan includes the Student CRM, scheduling, attendance tracking, and basic communication. No time limit, no credit card.

• Up to 25 active students
• Unlimited teachers and staff accounts
• Core modules: Students, Scheduling, Attendance
• Upgrade anytime to unlock Payments, AI Agents, and more

Inviting your team

Go to Settings > Team and click Invite Member. Enter the email address and select a role: Admin, Editor, or Viewer. Team members receive an email invitation with a link to join your workspace.

• Admin - full access including billing and settings
• Editor - can manage students, classes, and attendance
• Viewer - read-only access to dashboards and reports
• You can change roles or revoke access at any time

Global search

The search bar in the header lets you find any student or family account instantly from any page. Start typing a name, email, phone number, or account number — results appear as you type.

• Click the search bar in the top header or use the keyboard shortcut
• Search across both students and family accounts simultaneously
• Results show name, account info, and status — click to go directly to the profile
• Works from any page in the system — no need to navigate to the student list first

Student profiles

Each student has a comprehensive profile organized into 5 tabs, with fields that adapt to your business type (music schools see instrument and level fields, sports training centers see position and team fields, etc.).

• Personal Info — Photo, name, date of birth, gender, contact information, location, and vertical-specific fields. Add notes and custom fields.
• Enrollment — Current status (Active, Lead, Trial, Inactive), enrollment and drop dates, referral source, and churn reason with feedback. Track scheduled leaves and drops.
• Pre-Enrollment CRM — Pipeline status for prospective students: track where they are from first inquiry to enrolled, with dates, loss reasons, and notes.
• Health — Emergency contacts, healthcare provider, allergies, dietary restrictions, and health notes.
• Account — View and navigate to the linked family or client account.
• Search students from the global search in the header, or use the student list with filters for status, location, and more

Family accounts

Family accounts (called "Client accounts" for adult programs) group related students under one billing profile. One family, one invoice, regardless of how many children are enrolled.

• Navigate to Families (or Clients) in the sidebar to view all accounts
• Each account has 4 tabs: Details (contacts table with roles), Students (linked enrollments), Billing (invoices and payment history), and Notes
• Add contacts with roles: Parent, Guardian, Emergency Contact, or Other
• Mark one contact as Primary — they receive all communications and invoices
• Upload contact photos and set portal access for each contact individually
• Account terminology adapts to your vertical — "Family" for children's schools, "Client" for adult programs
• Use the global search in the header to find any family by name, email, or phone

Importing students

Migrating from another system? Go to Students > Import and upload an Excel or CSV file. alinaflow maps columns automatically and lets you review before confirming. Duplicate detection prevents accidental duplicates based on name and email.

• Download the Excel/CSV template for the correct column format
• Map columns manually if auto-detection misses a field
• Preview and fix errors before the import runs

Course definition

Courses are the foundation of your academic catalog. Each course has a name, a short identifier (shown in grids and badges), an emoji, and a color for quick visual identification.

• Navigate to Courses in the sidebar and click Create
• Enter a name, identifier (e.g. "GTR" for Guitar), and pick an emoji and color
• Choose a scheduling format: Weekly (Always Available) for continuous courses, Weekly (Start/End) for term-based courses, or Specific Dates for workshops or intensive programs
• Set the enrollment mode: Anytime (students can join at any point) or Before Start Only (enrollment closes when the course begins)
• Courses appear with their identifier badge and color across all grids, schedules, and reports

Course types

Course Types let you categorize courses by format. You can assign multiple types to a single course — for example, a course can be both "Group" and "In-Person".

• Go to Settings → Course Types to create and manage types
• Common types: Group, Private, Workshop, Online, In-Person, Hybrid
• When creating or editing a course, select one or more types from the multi-select field
• Use Course Types to filter courses in grids and reports

Levels & skills

Define structured progression within each course by adding levels and skills. This lets you track where each student is in their learning journey.

• Open a course and go to the Levels tab
• Create levels in order (e.g. Beginner → Intermediate → Advanced)
• Within each level, define specific skills students should master (e.g. "Read basic notation", "Play major scales")
• Levels and skills are used for student progress tracking and can be linked to resource materials

Resource library

Upload and organize academic materials — sheet music, worksheets, videos, and documents — and link them to specific courses and levels. Control who can access each resource.

• Navigate to Resource Library in the sidebar
• Click Create and upload one or more files (drag and drop supported)
• Link each resource to a course and optionally to a specific level
• Toggle Internal only to restrict access to instructors, or leave it off to share with students too
• Files are stored securely in the cloud — students and instructors access them through the platform

Tuition & fees

Define what you charge for each course at each location. alinaflow supports three fee types and three pricing modes to match how your business bills families.

• Fee types: Tuition (recurring charge for a course), Enrollment Fee (one-time fee per course), Registration Fee (one-time fee per location, not tied to a course)
• Pricing modes: Per Class (charged per individual session), Per Month (flat monthly rate), Per Course (total price for the full course — only for courses with defined start/end dates)
• Navigate to Tuition & Fees in the sidebar and click Create
• Select the fee type, course, location, and pricing mode, then enter the amount
• Fee names are auto-generated (e.g. "Guitar | Downtown | Monthly | Apr 2026")
• When you change a fee amount, the old price is automatically saved in the Fee History tab so you always have a record

Contract types

Contract types categorize how your instructors are employed. They are used when assigning pay grades and filtering instructor lists.

• Go to Settings → Contract Types to view and manage types
• Default types are created automatically during setup: Full-time Employee, Part-time Employee, Contractor, and Volunteer
• Add custom types or rename existing ones to match your organization
• Contract types appear as a filter in the instructor grid and as a field on instructor profiles
• Each contract type supports custom fields for additional data specific to your business

Pay grades

Pay grades define compensation levels for your instructors. Each grade has a pay mode, a rate, and can be scoped to specific courses, locations, and contract types.

• Navigate to Staff → Pay Grades in the sidebar
• Built-in presets: Trainee, Junior, Senior, Senior II, Elite — customize names and rates to fit your structure
• Pay modes: Per Hour, Per Lesson, Per Month, or Per Student
• Scope a pay grade to a specific course, location, or contract type — or leave them as "All" for a global rate
• The system prevents duplicate combinations of course + location + contract type
• Pay grades are sorted by location, contract type, then course for easy scanning

Running instructor payroll

Compute monthly pay for your instructors from confirmed lesson attendance. Goes to Staff → Payroll → Instructors. Two views: Detailed (one row per class, for internal records and dispute resolution) and Summary (one row per instructor, exportable as bank-ready CSV).

• Pre-flight blocker — payroll won't run until every lesson in the period has confirmed attendance. Pending lessons are listed inline with a link to fix them.
• Per-class rate lookup — for each lesson the calculator finds the pay grade assigned to that (instructor, course, role) on the instructor's Courses & Pay tab. Substitutes are paid using their own pay grade.
• Monthly Per Class — for recurring courses: pay-per-lesson = monthly rate ÷ (occurrences of the class weekday in the month, summed across multi-day-per-week schedules) × actual lessons taught. No ceiling — extras and makeups pay over nominal.
• Per Lesson Fixed — for one-off activities: full rate paid per occurrence.
• Filters — narrow by location, contract type, or specific instructor before computing.
• Finalize locks the run so you can hand it off to the bank. Void with a reason if you need to recompute — the period unlocks for a fresh run.
• Exports — bank CSV (one row per instructor with totals + ID/contact) and detailed CSV (one row per class for audit trails).
• Calculator warnings (missing assignment, missing pay grade, course-less lesson) surface in the run notes so you know exactly what to fix and re-run.

Creating classes

Go to Scheduling > New Class to create a class. Set the name, subject, teacher, room, capacity, and time slot. Classes appear on the calendar immediately and students can be enrolled right away.

• Assign one or more teachers to a class
• Set max capacity to control enrollment limits
• Choose between group classes and private lessons
• Add class-level notes visible to staff

Recurring schedules

Set up classes that repeat daily, weekly, or on a custom pattern. Define a start date, end date (or no end), and the recurrence rule. alinaflow generates all sessions automatically and keeps them in sync if you update the series.

• Weekly recurrence on specific days (e.g. Mon, Wed, Fri)
• Edit a single session or the entire series
• Cancel individual sessions without breaking the series

Conflict detection

alinaflow checks for scheduling conflicts in real time. If a teacher or room is already booked at the requested time, you will see a warning before saving. This prevents double-bookings and keeps your calendar clean.

• Teacher conflicts: same teacher in two places at once
• Room conflicts: same room assigned to overlapping classes
• Student conflicts: a student enrolled in two simultaneous classes

Payment methods

alinaflow integrates with five payment processors so families can pay by credit card, bank transfer, Direct Debit, or payment link. Connect your processor in Settings > Integrations and start accepting payments in minutes. Only one processor is live per workspace at a time — connecting a new one soft-disconnects the previous.

• Stripe — cards, ACH, SEPA, autopay with off-session PaymentIntents, save-card + retroactive autopay enablement
• PayPal — Orders v2 checkout, Vault v3 autopay, refunds, and settlement sync
• MercadoPago — per-country rails for AR, BR, CL, CO, MX, PE, UY with Checkout Pro + preapproval autopay
• GoCardless — Direct Debit via Billing Request Flow with save-mandate + charge-on-file
• QuickBooks Online — push invoices and payments to your accounting system
• Manual payments can be recorded for cash or check; NSF smart-retry handles failed recurring charges

Connecting a payment processor

Go to Settings > Integrations and pick the processor that fits your country. Each connect flow uses OAuth or partner-referral onboarding, so you authorize alinaflow on the processor's own site and come back to a fully configured workspace.

• Stripe, PayPal, and GoCardless cover North America and Europe
• MercadoPago covers Latin America with per-country rails
• QuickBooks Online is independent of the payments processor — connect it alongside any of the above
• The Integrations tab shows live status per connection, plus a unified Settlements view across every processor

Invoices & receipts

Generate professional invoices with your business's branding. Invoices are created automatically when a payment is due or can be created manually. Receipts are sent to families by email after each successful payment.

• Customize invoice template with your logo and colors
• Set payment terms and due dates
• Download invoices as PDF or share via link
• Automatic email reminders for overdue invoices

Multi-currency billing

On Growth plans and above, bill families in their local currency. alinaflow supports USD, EUR, GBP, BRL, MXN, and more. Set a default currency for your workspace and override it per student or invoice when needed.

• Set your workspace default currency in Settings
• Override currency on individual invoices
• Exchange rates are handled by your payment provider

Marking attendance

Open any class session and mark each student as present, absent, late, or excused. Teachers can take attendance from the mobile-friendly interface during class. Bulk actions let you mark the entire roster at once.

• Tap a student's name to cycle through statuses
• Use Mark All Present and then adjust exceptions
• Add notes to individual attendance records
• Attendance auto-saves as you go

Attendance reports

Track attendance trends across students, classes, and time periods. The attendance dashboard shows rates, streaks, and students at risk. Export reports as Excel or CSV for your records or for sharing with stakeholders.

• Filter by date range, class, teacher, or student
• View attendance percentage per student over time
• Identify students with declining attendance early

Messaging parents

Send messages to individual parents or broadcast to an entire class from the Communication module. Messages are delivered by email and logged on the student's profile so your team always has context.

• Send to one parent, a class, or a custom list
• Attach files up to 10 MB per message
• View full message history on the student profile
• Parents can reply directly by email

Email templates

Create reusable templates for common messages like welcome emails, payment reminders, and class cancellations. Templates support merge fields so each message is personalized automatically with the student's name, class, and dates.

• Use merge fields: {{student_name}}, {{class_name}}, {{date}}
• Save templates for one-click sending
• Share templates across your team

Notification preferences

Control which notifications you and your team receive. Each user can configure their own preferences for email and in-app notifications. Parents manage their preferences from the parent portal.

• Toggle notifications for attendance, payments, and messages
• Set quiet hours to pause non-urgent notifications
• Parents opt in or out from their portal settings

Front Desk agent

The Front Desk AI agent handles routine parent inquiries automatically. It answers questions about class schedules, policies, and enrollment, and it can route complex requests to a human. Messages go out under your business's name and branding.

• Responds to parent questions via email within minutes
• Uses your business's tone of voice and policies
• Escalates to a human when confidence is low
• Available on Growth plans and above

Churn prediction

The Churn Prediction agent monitors attendance patterns, payment behavior, and engagement signals to flag students at risk of leaving. It surfaces early warnings so you can take action before a student drops out.

• Scores each student's churn risk weekly
• Alerts you when a student crosses the risk threshold
• Suggests retention actions based on the student's pattern

Reviewing AI actions

Every AI action is logged with full reasoning in the AI Activity feed. You can see what the agent did, why it did it, and the outcome. Override any action or adjust the agent's rules from Settings > AI Agents.

• View a timeline of every AI-initiated action
• Read the agent's reasoning for each decision
• Approve, reject, or modify future behavior rules

Inventory management

Track every item and every individual unit your business owns. Assign requirements to event types, specific events, and weekly class schedules so the system knows what to deliver and when. A daily location checklist tells staff exactly what to ship, pick up, and return each day.

• Items and units — Create item templates (e.g. "Yamaha Keyboard") and register each serialized unit separately. Move units between warehouses and rooms with full history.
• Requirements per event / class — Say "this event needs 2 keyboards" once on the event type and every event created from it inherits the requirement.
• Daily location checklist — A printable list per location per day showing what to receive, stage, and return, grouped by where each unit currently lives.
• Consumption and depreciation — Record consumption during lessons and events; track asset value with built-in depreciation schedules.
• Calendar integration — The lesson/event drawer shows an inventory sub-panel with live availability preview and conflict warnings.

Portal for instructors & families

Non-staff users (instructors and family contacts) have their own mobile-first surface at /portal. Instructors see their weekly Agenda as the start page; families see a card for every student in their account. The portal is designed to be wrapped with Median.co for branded iOS and Android native apps.

• Surface-aware home — Instructors land on their Agenda; families land on the household card view.
• Self-service photo uploads — Families upload profile photos for any student in their account; instructors upload their own. Access is row-level enforced.
• Action banner — A visible orange banner at the top of every portal page flags outstanding action items (missing photos today) with a one-click "Fix now" link.
• Tailored terminology — Labels adapt to the vertical. A sports training center sees "Portal for Players"; a language school sees "Portal for Clients".
• Adaptive layout — Tile menu on phones, persistent left-rail sidebar on desktop with workspace-branded header.
• Enabling portal access — Staff enable portal login per instructor and per contact from their respective detail pages. The user gets a one-time temporary password to share.

Workspace settings

Configure your business's core settings in Settings > Workspace. Set your business name, timezone, default language, date format, and logo. These settings apply across all modules and affect how information is displayed to your team and parents.

• Upload your logo for white-labeled emails and invoices
• Set default language (English, Spanish, or Portuguese)
• Choose your preferred date format and timezone
• Configure your workspace subdomain

Terminology

Every school uses different words. A music school says "Students" while a sports training center says "Athletes." Go to Settings > Workspace to customize how entities are named across your platform. Each business type comes with a preset, and you can override any term.

• 7 configurable entities: Students, Instructors, Courses, Classes, Enrollments, Levels, and Disciplines
• Presets for each vertical (Music, Dance, Sports, Languages, Art, Coding, Tutoring, Summer Camps)
• Overrides are reflected everywhere: sidebar, forms, billing, and notifications
• Specify singular forms - plurals are generated automatically

Flexible & custom fields

Go to Settings > Fields to control which fields appear for each entity. Each business type has a default set of visible fields (e.g. Instrument for music schools, Belt Level for martial arts). You can toggle fields on or off, reorder them, and add custom fields.

• Toggle built-in fields on/off per entity (Student, Instructor, Course, Class)
• Drag to reorder fields in forms and profiles
• Add custom text or long-text fields for anything unique to your business
• Custom fields appear in create/edit modals and on profile pages

Locations & rooms

Manage your business's physical spaces from Settings > Locations. Each location represents a branch or campus, and rooms are the spaces within each location where classes take place.

• Create locations with address, phone, email, and fiscal information
• Each location gets a color and 3-letter identifier for quick recognition in grids
• Add rooms within each location with name, capacity, and color
• A default room is created automatically when you add a new location
• Upload email header and footer images per location for branded communications
• Mark one location as headquarters — it becomes the default for new records

Field configuration

Control which fields appear in grids and forms for each entity. Go to Settings > Admin > Fields to configure visibility, required status, and column order per role (Admin, Editor, Viewer).

• Toggle field visibility — hide fields you don't use to keep forms clean
• Mark fields as required — mandatory fields show an asterisk and block save until filled
• Show or hide grid columns — choose which columns appear in list views
• Reorder fields — drag fields up or down to match your workflow
• Configure per role — Admins might see fiscal fields while Editors see only the basics
• Show total row count — toggle the record count at the bottom of grids

Non-working days

Define holidays and non-working days so the system automatically skips them when generating attendance sessions. Go to Settings > Non-Working Days to manage them.

• Add days globally (all locations) or per specific location
• Mark days as annually recurring — they repeat every year automatically
• National holidays are pre-loaded based on your country when you complete onboarding
• Filter by Active (upcoming + recurring), Past (one-time days that already passed), or Deleted
• One-time days cannot be created in the past — use recurring for historical dates

Subscription & billing

Manage your plan directly from Settings > Billing. View your current plan, compare options, upgrade or downgrade, and manage payment methods - all self-serve, no support ticket needed. Payments are processed securely through Stripe.

• Compare plans side-by-side with student limits and features
• Upgrade immediately or schedule a downgrade for end of cycle
• Cancel your subscription with a clear timeline (access until cycle end, data deleted 14 days later)
• Manage payment methods and view invoices via the Stripe Customer Portal
• Warning banner appears when your business approaches its student limit

Feedback system

Have a feature request, found a bug, or want to suggest an improvement? Use the feedback button (available on every page in the app) or the contact form on the website. We read every submission and respond within 48 hours with a YES/NO and an estimated delivery date for accepted requests.

• Click the feedback button in the bottom-right corner of any page
• Choose a category: Feature Request, Bug, or General
• Describe what you need - the more detail, the better
• We respond within 48 hours with a decision and timeline

Roles & permissions

alinaflow uses role-based access control with three built-in roles: Admin, Editor, and Viewer. Assign roles when inviting team members and change them at any time. Permissions determine which modules and actions each role can access.

• Admin: full access, billing, settings, team management
• Editor: manage students, classes, attendance, payments
• Viewer: read-only access to dashboards and reports
• Role changes take effect immediately
• Location filtering - assign team members to specific locations so they only see relevant data

Imports / Exports — your data, every night, in your Google Drive

Go to Reports & Data > Imports / Exports to connect your destination once and let alinaflow ship a full daily snapshot of your data there forever. Today supported: Google Drive (OAuth). SharePoint and SFTP plug into the same pipeline — coming soon. Your data is yours.

What gets exported every night

• Flat CSV snapshots — eleven files in a date-stamped folder (2026-05-02/): students, families, instructors, courses, classes, lessons, attendance, enrollments, invoices, payments, and tuition & fees. Every row carries created_at + updated_at so your BI tool can compute deltas downstream.
• Signed documents — PDF copies of every signed contract for students, staff, and instructors, organized by person.
• Study materials — files attached to levels and skills, organized by level.

Connecting Google Drive

1. Click Connect Google Drive on the Imports / Exports page.
2. Grant the drive.file scope (alinaflow can only see files it creates — not your personal documents) plus drive.readonly (so the folder picker can show your existing folders).
3. Pick a destination folder and you're done. Tonight's export lands automatically.

Schedule, retention, and the full historical backfill

• Choose what time the daily export runs (default 02:00 in your workspace timezone).
• Pick how many days of dated snapshot folders to keep on Drive (default 14 days). We only auto-delete the dated folders — signed documents, study materials, and your full historical backfill are NEVER auto-deleted.
• Click Run full historical backfill to ship every record you've ever had into a one-shot historical/ folder. Runs in the background; you can keep working.
• Click Run tonight's snapshot now for an ad-hoc export.

Need to import from your old system?

Email support@alinaflow.com. Our team migrates you for free — send us your spreadsheets, school-management exports, or database dumps and we'll have your workspace ready.