Your first week

A brand-new school starts empty. Five steps fill it, and they have to happen roughly in this order — classes must exist before students can be put in them, and staff must exist before they can be given logins.

The Dashboard shows this as a Get started card with the five steps and how many are done. It disappears on its own once all five are complete, and you can dismiss it early with the × if you would rather work from this page.

The card only appears for people who can manage settings, and only once the sample data is cleared. While the demo students and staff are still loaded, the demo banner takes over that spot instead.

Step 1 — Set up your school profile

Add your logo, contact details and motto.

Sidebar → Admin → Settings. Your name, crest, phone, address and brand colours. These appear on report cards, receipts and the parent portal, so it is worth doing properly before anything is printed.

Full detail: School profile and branding.

Step 2 — Confirm the academic calendar

Check the term dates and set the reopening day.

Sidebar → Planning & Setup → Academic Calendar. Set the academic year, the current term, and the date school reopens. Almost everything else is stamped with the year and term that are current when it is created, so getting this right first saves a lot of correcting later.

Full detail: The academic calendar.

Step 3 — Create your fee structure

Add fee types and the amount billed per level.

Sidebar → Finance → Fees → Fee Structure. Define what you charge and how much, per class. You can record payments before this is done, but you will not get meaningful arrears or statements until it is.

Step 4 — Add your staff

Build the directory first — logins are granted in Users & Access.

Sidebar → People → Staff. This creates the staff record: their name, Ghana Card, SSNIT, the subjects and classes they teach.

Adding someone here does not give them a way to sign in. That is a separate step, and the distinction matters — see Adding staff.

Step 5 — Register your first students

Enrol students and assign them to a class.

Sidebar → People → Students. One at a time with Register, or a whole school at once with Import Excel.

Full detail: Adding students.

Once the five are done

The system is ready for daily use. The next things worth setting up, in rough order of how soon you will want them:

1. Users & Access — give your staff their logins and roles
2. Timetable — so teachers and students can see their week
3. Announcements — the fastest way to reach every parent and student