Academy software for beauty educators in Canada
The workspace a Canadian training studio runs its teaching from: dated course groups with places and a waiting list, an application form per group, a register taken in the room, payment records in Canadian dollars, and certificates a salon owner in Halifax or Kelowna can check from the QR code.
Who this is written for
A lash artist in Mississauga who runs a two-day classic course once a month. A nail educator in Edmonton with two teachers and one training room. An esthetics studio in Halifax that teaches brow lamination on weekends. If you teach a beauty trade to people who pay you to be in the room, the academy side of Slotora is the tool for keeping track of them.
It is a separate workspace from the salon booking system. You can open an academy without ever running a salon on Slotora, and the academy sign-up asks for your academy's name, your trade, the country and the language you teach in — Canada is in that list, and choosing it sets Canadian dollars for your prices.
These pages are for the English-speaking provinces and territories. Québec is not open on the salon side yet, because its language law asks for French first, and we have not prepared the academy for Québec either; a Montréal school would find an English-only product.
What a Canadian academy gets
The same parts an academy in Manchester or Budapest works with, and what each one means for a studio here.
Programmes and dated groups
Write a programme once — say, Russian volume, three days, six seats — and start a new group of it whenever you like, with its own fee in Canadian dollars, deposit, deadline and dates. Duplicating a group moves every session to the new start and keeps the spacing.
A public page and an application form
Every published group has a web address you can put in your Instagram bio. Applicants tell you what they have done before; a salon sending staff can name itself as the payer, with its business number and address, for the invoice you write yourself.
Rooms, teachers and time off
One week view of every session, filtered by teacher, room or programme. Two bookings of one room, or a teacher on her day off, are named beside the session — and you can still save it, because a demo inside a theory block is sometimes intended.
The register, in the room
Each dated session has its own register, marked from the browser on your phone while you stand at the table. A teacher sees her own days and students and none of the money unless you give her that permission.
Certificates that can be checked
Your design, your wording and your own serial numbers. The QR on the paper opens a public check page that confirms the certificate; a serial typed in by hand confirms it without naming the graduate.
A portal for each student
She opens it from a link sent to her e-mail: her dates, what she still owes you and how to pay you, the handouts, the photos of her own work she may keep, and her certificate. Nothing to install, no password to invent.
From sign-up to the first group, in order
What happens on the screens, as built today.
Sign up
Name the academy and pick Canada
The academy form asks for the academy's name, the trade you teach, the country, the language and your login. Picking Canada fills in Canadian dollars and Eastern time by itself.
Set up
Put your places and your programme in
Add the studio or the rented room you teach in, then the programme. If you teach alone in one place, the teacher and the room are filled in for you and stay out of sight.
Publish
Open a group to applications
A group stays a draft, visible to nobody, until you publish it. Published, it appears on your academy page and in the course finder; set to unlisted, only people with the link can reach it.
Teach
Admit, record, mark, certify
Accept or decline each applicant in one press, record each payment as it reaches you, take the register on each day, and issue the group's certificates once the last session has been held.
Letters, and the texts it does not send
The academy writes to your students by e-mail, from Slotora, with your address as the one their replies go to. Each kind of letter is switched on centrally only after its wording has been approved, and your settings screen lists which ones actually go out today — two that are written, the receipt of a new application and the note that a certificate is ready, are still switched off, so for now the student sees both in her portal rather than in her inbox.
Nothing in the academy sends a text message to a Canadian number, or to any number: the academy has no connection to the text service at all. Group announcements go on the group's notice board in the portal, and a student who wants to answer writes to you privately from the same place.
What to know before you move your academy over
The gaps a Canadian studio will notice, before it finds them on a Monday morning.
- Eastern time, whatever your province
- The sign-up offers Canada with one time zone, Toronto's, and the academy settings show the zone without letting you change it. A Vancouver or Calgary academy will see letters timed and “today” counted on Eastern time. This is a gap we have not closed yet; write to us before your first group if it matters.
- No card payments for course fees
- You can record cash and bank transfers, which covers an Interac e-Transfer, but a student cannot pay a course fee by card through Slotora. If your students pay by card today, that stays on your own terminal or payment link.
- Not inside the Slotora app
- The academy runs in a web browser. That works on a phone in the training room, but the Slotora app for iPhone and Android does not carry the academy screens.
- Our certificate is your certificate, not a provincial one
- A certificate issued here is your academy's own document. It is not a Certificate of Qualification, a diploma from a registered career college or a licence, and the page that checks it says which academy issued it, nothing more.
Questions Canadian educators ask
Can a Canadian academy sign up today?
Yes, outside Québec. The academy sign-up lists Canada, takes your prices in Canadian dollars and needs no salon on Slotora. Teaching in Québec is a different question, because the product is in English and Québec's language law asks for French first.
Do I need to run a salon on Slotora to have an academy?
No. The academy is its own workspace on its own login. If you also run a salon in Canada on Slotora, that salon is on the Canadian subscription after its trial, and the academy does not change that.
Why do my students get no text reminders?
Because the academy does not send text messages at all, in Canada or anywhere else. Reminders and notices go by e-mail and into the student's portal.
Can my students pay through Slotora?
No. They pay you directly — cash, an Interac e-Transfer, your own card terminal or payment link — and you record the payment against their name. Slotora never holds course money and takes no share of it.
Can I bring my class lists over from a spreadsheet?
Yes. Paste a sheet in, check the preview, which names any row it cannot read, and import it. A student who appears on several sheets is recognised as one person with one history.
Is my academy registered with the province if I use this?
No. Using software registers nothing. Whether your programme needs to be registered as a private career college depends on your province and on its length and fee; the guide to provincial registration sets out the rules province by province.
Put one real group in before you decide
Open the academy, add next month's group with its real dates and fee, and send the page to one person who asked about it. You will know within a week whether it fits the way you teach.