Setup Guide
This guide covers every step of setting up your music school in Conductly. Whether you're migrating from another system or starting fresh, working through these sections will ensure your school is fully configured and ready to operate.
Conductly's Getting Started checklist (the Setup pill in the app footer) tracks 11 setup tasks and checks them off automatically as you complete them. If you dismissed it, re-enable it under Settings > Setup Guide. This guide follows a similar order but goes into more detail.
1. School Information
Start by telling Conductly about your school. Navigate to Settings > School Information.
School Name and Logo
- School Name — This appears throughout Conductly, on invoices, in emails to families, and on your online store. Use your official business name.
- Logo — Upload your school's logo (up to 5 MB). It will appear on invoices, email communications, and your storefront.
Time Zone
Setting the correct time zone is essential for scheduling. All lesson times, invoice due dates, and notifications are based on this setting.
- Select your time zone from the dropdown (13 time zones are available: eight North American zones plus UTC, London, Paris, Tokyo, and Sydney).
- If your school spans multiple time zones, use the time zone where most of your operations happen.
Changing your time zone after scheduling lessons can shift how existing events display. Set this correctly before you start scheduling.
School Address
Enter your school's primary mailing address (US and Canadian addresses are supported). This appears on invoices and in your store. If you operate from multiple locations, enter your main office or headquarters here — individual teaching locations are configured separately.
2. Locations and Rooms
Locations represent the physical spaces where your school operates. Navigate to Teaching > Locations to manage them.
Adding a Location
- Click Add location.
- Enter a name (e.g., "Main Campus," "North Side Studio").
- Choose the Category: Building or Room.
- For a building, add the street address. You can also set a capacity and description.
- Save the location.
Adding Rooms
Rooms are locations that belong to a building. They help you schedule lessons in specific spaces and prevent double-booking.
- Click Add location.
- Choose Category = Room and enter the room name (e.g., "Studio A," "Piano Room 2").
- Select the building the room belongs to.
- Save the room.
If you teach in a single room, you don't need to create rooms — just use the building itself. Rooms are most useful when you have multiple instructors teaching simultaneously in different spaces within the same building.
Location Tips
- You can have as many locations as you need — great for schools that operate in multiple buildings or cities.
- Each lesson on the calendar can be assigned to a specific location or room, so your instructors always know where to go.
- Whether a room conflict blocks scheduling or just warns you depends on the Prevent double booking setting under Settings > Calendar.
3. Instruments
Instruments help organize courses, instructors, and students. Navigate to Settings > Instruments.
Enabling Instruments
Conductly maintains a platform-wide list of instruments. You enable the ones your school teaches by toggling them on — there is no way to create your own instruments from this page.
- Find each instrument your school teaches (e.g., Piano, Violin, Voice, Drums).
- Toggle it on.
To stop offering an instrument, toggle it back off — it's hidden from selection lists, not deleted.
If an instrument you teach isn't in the list, contact support@conductly.com to have it added.
How Instruments Are Used
| Where | How |
|---|---|
| Courses | Each course is associated with one or more instruments. |
| Instructors | Assign instruments to instructors so you know who teaches what. |
| Students | Track which instruments each student is learning. |
| Filtering | Filter students, instructors, and the calendar by instrument. |
4. Billing Rates
Rates define how much you charge for lessons. Conductly supports a flexible rate system that lets you set organization-wide defaults and override them for specific courses, sessions, groups, or individual students.
Navigate to Settings > Rates and Tuition.
Understanding the Two Pricing Models
Conductly offers two ways to price lessons:
Lesson Rates (Per Meeting)
Charge per lesson based on duration. Best for schools whose courses bill Per Meeting. Each rate is either Per meeting (flat) or Per hour (pro-rated).
| Duration | Example Rate |
|---|---|
| 30 minutes | $40 |
| 45 minutes | $55 |
| 60 minutes | $70 |
Tuition
Charge a flat amount per billing period regardless of how many lessons occur. Best for schools whose courses bill as a Subscription (a predictable monthly, semester, or yearly fee).
| Duration | Example Tuition |
|---|---|
| 30-minute lessons | $160/month |
| 45-minute lessons | $220/month |
| 60-minute lessons | $280/month |
Setting Your Default Rates
- Click New rate (or New tuition for flat tuition pricing).
- For a rate: choose Per meeting (flat) or Per hour (pro-rated), pick the duration (Default, 15, 30, 45, 60, or 90 minutes), and enter the amount. For a tuition: enter a name and the amount per billing period.
- Set the Effective date — this is when the rate takes effect. You can also set an Expires date.
- Save.
Rate Overrides
Leave the override fields blank to create an organization-wide default. To charge differently in specific situations, scope a rate to a Course, Session, Student, or Group — Conductly always uses the most specific rate it can find for a given student and session. Tuitions support the same overrides plus a Semester Override for semester-specific pricing.
You can create future-dated rates to schedule price increases. For example, set a new rate with an effective date of January 1st, and Conductly will automatically start using it on that date. When saving a tuition, the "Apply to existing unpaid invoices" option can update outstanding invoices to the new amount.
5. Payment Settings
To collect payments from families, you need to choose a payment processor, open an account with them, and connect that account to Conductly.
Choose Your Processor
Conductly supports two options:
- Evolv — Interchange+ pricing, typically the lowest effective rate at higher volumes. Conductly works with Evolv on your behalf to set up your merchant account, so plan for a few business days for underwriting.
- Stripe — Flat 2.9% + $0.30 per successful card charge in the U.S. (ACH is 0.8%, capped at $5.00). Self-serve sign-up at stripe.com — you can be processing payments the same day.
For a full comparison and detailed setup steps, see Payment Settings.
Entering your Gateway Provider and API keys requires an active paid Conductly subscription -- the 28-day free trial does not qualify. If you're still on your trial, the Payment Gateway fields are disabled with a link to subscribe (Settings > Subscription, owner-only). You can still complete every other setup step during your trial; gateway credentials are the one thing that waits until you subscribe.
Connecting Your Gateway
- Open an account with Evolv (via Conductly support) or Stripe.
- Once approved, copy your API keys from the processor.
- In Conductly, go to Settings > Payments and scroll to the Payment Gateway section.
- Set Gateway Provider to Evolv or Stripe, then paste in your Public/Publishable key and your Secret/API key.
- Run a small test charge to confirm everything is connected end-to-end.
What Families Experience
Once your gateway is connected:
- Families can pay invoices online through a secure payment link.
- Families can save a card during payment for faster future payments.
- You can charge a saved card directly from an invoice with Charge card on file.
Conductly can also generate, email, and charge invoices for you automatically — off by default, and any school can turn it on under Settings > Invoices. See Billing Automation. Payment Reminders for overdue invoices (3, 7, 14, and 30 days past due, by email and/or text) live under Settings > Reminders.
You must complete payment gateway setup before you can send invoices with online payment links. You can still create invoices without it, but families won't be able to pay online.
6. Team Members
Team members are the people who help run your school. Navigate to Settings > Team.
Adding Team Members
- Click Add team member.
- Enter their first name, last name, and email address.
- Send the invitation — you'll see "Invitation email sent," and the invite link is valid for 30 days.
Every invited team member joins as an Admin — there is no role picker. If the person also teaches, use Add instructor role in their row menu so they can be assigned to lessons. Instructors who don't need admin access should instead be added under Teaching > Instructors and invited with Send Login Credentials on their profile.
Role Summary
| Role | Can Manage Students | Can Manage Schedule | Can Send Invoices | Can Access Settings | Can Manage Subscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Owner | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Admin | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Instructor | Own students only | Own schedule only | No | User Profile & Calendar Sync only | No |
For a detailed breakdown of what each role can access, see Roles & Permissions.
7. Email Templates
Conductly has two customizable system emails, both under Settings → Emails & SMS:
- Lesson reminder — sent to families before upcoming lessons. It also has an editable text-message version. Turn reminders on and choose their timing (an advance slot and a same-day slot, each with its own email/text toggle) under Settings → Reminders — see Reminder Settings.
- New enrollment instructor notification — sent to an instructor when a student is enrolled with them.
Other transactional emails (invoices, receipts, password resets, etc.) are sent automatically and are not editable as templates — but they carry your school's name and logo from Settings → School Information.
In addition to the system emails, admins can create custom email templates (General and Registration templates) for sending manual emails to students, guardians, instructors, or groups. Create these from Settings → Emails & SMS.
Customizing Templates
- Select the template you want to edit.
- Modify the name, subject line, and body text.
- Use merge tags to insert dynamic content (e.g.,
{student_name},{recipient_name},{recipient_first_name},{organization_name}). - Save.
Registration templates pair well with your registration forms — a warm, branded welcome email sets the tone for new families.
8. Additional Settings
Once the essentials are in place, explore these additional settings to fine-tune your school's configuration:
Semesters
Define your school's academic periods (Fall, Spring, Summer, etc.) under Settings > Semesters — each has a name, start date, end date, and sort order. Semesters are a billing concept: they power semester-frequency Subscription tuition and semester-specific rate and tuition overrides. They do not control scheduling, sessions, or enrollment windows.
Calendar Settings
Configure your calendar preferences under Settings > Calendar. There are four settings:
- Prevent double booking — When on, conflicting events are blocked; when off, you get a warning and can schedule anyway.
- Starting hour — The earliest hour shown on the calendar.
- Apply make-up credits when scheduling — Enables the make-up credit panel in the event form.
- Availability color — The color used for the instructor availability overlay.
School closures live on their own page: Settings > Closed Dates. Each closed date is a single, year-specific date — add one entry per date.
Invoice Settings
Billing configuration is split across three pages. Settings > Payments covers how families pay:
- Payment toggles — "Force users to save their credit card" and "Accept ACH bank payments."
- Payment Gateway — your Evolv or Stripe connection (see section 5).
Past-due Payment Reminders (email and text, for invoices 3, 7, 14, and 30 days overdue) live on their own page, Settings > Reminders, alongside lesson reminders — see Reminder Settings.
Settings > Invoices covers how invoices are calculated:
- Invoice Details — "Show session dates on line items" and "Carry forward previous balance."
- Tax Settings — a single org-wide Tax Percentage, applied to courses marked Taxable.
- Credit Card Fee — an optional card surcharge (percentage + flat amount); Evolv schools only, never applied to ACH.
- Late Fees — off by default; charges a flat amount or a percentage of the balance on invoices that are still unpaid after their due date, with a configurable grace period — see Fees & Discounts.
Settings > Fees includes a fee rule alongside your fee list — "Only apply fees to students with active enrollments" — see Fees & Discounts.
There are no invoice-numbering settings — numbers are assigned automatically.
Store Settings
If you plan to sell classes online, configure the storefront under Settings > Store:
- Store Appearance — your brand and banner colors, storefront fonts, and the accent colors for Private Lessons, Group Classes, and Programs (Product Type Colors).
- Online Booking — choose Instant booking or Request to book for self-booked lessons (requests are approved on the Lesson requests page).
- School Policies — rich-text policies published on your storefront; checkout requires families to agree to them.
Your store description and banner are edited directly in the store editor at Marketing > Store, where everything autosaves.
Notifications
Control which notifications you and your team receive under Settings > Notifications. Each notification type has In App and Email toggles (in-app on and email off by default); email notifications are batched into digests.
Setup Checklist Summary
Use this checklist to make sure you've covered everything:
- School name, logo, and time zone configured
- School address entered
- At least one location (and rooms, if applicable) added
- Instruments toggled on
- Default billing rates or tuition set
- Payment gateway connected
- Team members invited
- System emails customized
- Semesters defined (if you bill by semester)
- Calendar settings configured
You don't have to complete everything before you start using Conductly. The most important steps are school information, at least one location, and your billing rates. You can always come back and refine the rest later.
Next Steps
With your school configured, you're ready to start day-to-day operations:
- Add your students — Build your student roster.
- Create courses and sessions — Define what you teach.
- Schedule lessons — Fill your calendar.
- Send your first invoice — Start collecting payments.
- Set up your online store — Let families purchase classes online.