The problem
Grading fees are collected by cash, envelopes and bank transfers, and someone chases the missing ones. If 60 students each take 4 minutes to collect and record for a grading, and a club runs 6 grading or seminar days a year, that's 24 hours a year, 2 hours a month.
What the AI does
Bookwhen's pricing page lists payments and discounts from the Lite plan, with 300 bookings a month, 2 team members and one booking page. Put each grading or seminar day on Bookwhen as an event. Parents book and pay online for their child. Card fees are separate from the plan price, through Bookwhen Payments (powered by Stripe), your own Stripe account or PayPal. Free bookings carry no fee. Lite doesn't include reminder emails or a waiting list. Those are on Standard. Collect only what you need to book: parent contact, child's name and grade. Do not collect medical information or photos here.
A worked example
A martial arts school in Peterborough has 60 students, mostly under 16, and runs 3 grading days and 3 seminars a year. Parents currently pay by cash and bank transfer.
Before
6 days a year, 60 students at 4 minutes to collect and record: 24 hours a year, 2 hours a month
After
About 1.5 minutes per student when parents pay online: 9 hours a year, about 0.75 hours a month
What it's worth
About 1.25 hours a month saved (2 minus 0.75 hours, 15 hours a year), worth about £31 at £25 an hour. Lite is €12 a month (about £10) excluding VAT; Bookwhen shows prices in your local currency, plus VAT, so check the price in pounds on its page. Card fees come on top. The plan covers 300 bookings a month, far above this club's 360 a year.
How to set it up
- Check Bookwhen's pricing page for the price in pounds plus VAT, and choose Lite for payments.
- Create one event for each grading or seminar with the fee, capacity and date.
- Add plain terms: what the fee covers, what happens if a student can't attend, and who to contact.
- Send the link to parents by your usual route and make a test booking yourself.
- Reconcile payments with the entries list after each day, before grades are recorded.
What goes wrong
- Children's data: take only what you need to book. Parental consent and your safeguarding policy apply, and no children's data goes into consumer AI tools.
- Don't use booking pages for medical forms or photo consent. Handle those separately, with explicit parental consent.
- Lite has no reminder emails or waiting list; Standard does, at €19 a month.
- Payment processing fees are on top of the plan. Decide whether the grading fee absorbs them.