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Managing multi-school competitions

Best practices for handling entries from multiple schools, managing payments, and coordinating with teachers to run smooth, profitable competitions.

Inviting Schools

Compz makes it easy to invite schools and track their progress:

  • Add schools from the system or create new school profiles
  • Send email invitations with unique, secure entry links
  • Track invitation status: Pending, Accepted, Submitted, Paid
  • Teachers receive a personalized link to enter their dancers

Understanding Fee Structures

Host School Fees

As the host, you set the base entry fees for your competition. These are the fees you charge participating schools.

Example Host Fees:

  • • Solo: £10.00
  • • Duet/Trio: £12.00
  • • Group/Troupe: £15.00
  • • Challenge: £8.00

School Markup

Participating schools can add their own markup to cover their costs (costumes, travel, administration). This is their profit margin.

Example with £2 markup:

  • • Parent pays: £12.00 (£10 host fee + £2 school markup)
  • • School receives: £12.00
  • • School owes host: £10.00
  • • School keeps: £2.00 per dance

Technology Fee (£0.50 per dance)

Compz charges a £0.50 technology fee per dance, automatically collected from parents. This fee covers the platform, live updates, and parent communication. It's added to the total at checkout.

How Payments Work

Two Payment Flows

1. Host School Parents (Direct Payment)

Parents from your own school pay directly to your Stripe account:

Parent pays: £10.50 (£10 entry + £0.50 tech fee)
You receive: £10.00 (minus Stripe fees ~2%)
Compz receives: £0.50 (technology fee)

2. Participating School Parents (Buffer Flow)

Parents from participating schools pay to their school first:

Parent pays: £12.50 (£10 host + £2 markup + £0.50 tech)
School receives: £12.00 (minus Stripe fees)
Compz receives: £0.50 (technology fee)
School transfers to host: £10.00 per dance (via BACS)

💡 This means you receive ONE lump sum transfer from each school, not 200 individual parent payments to reconcile!

Tracking Entries & Payments

Entry Dashboard

View all entries organized by school:

  • See how many dancers each school has entered
  • View dancer names, sections, and routine types
  • Track submission status (draft, submitted, paid)
  • Monitor payment progress in real-time

Finance Dashboard

Your finance dashboard shows:

  • Total entries and expected revenue
  • Payment status per school (paid/pending)
  • Amount owed by each participating school
  • Stripe transaction history

Best Practices

Set Clear Deadlines

Give schools a firm entry deadline (2-3 weeks before competition). This gives you time to build your programme and allows parents to plan.

Communicate Payment Terms

Make it clear when participating schools need to transfer funds. Typically, payment is due 1 week before the competition.

Track Progress Weekly

Check your entry dashboard weekly to see which schools have submitted and which need a reminder.

Provide Support

Be available to help teachers with questions about the entry process, sections, or payment setup.

Ready to manage your multi-school competition?

Compz handles all the complexity of payments, entries, and coordination.

Create Competition