Martial Arts SoftwareApril 11, 20260 Comments
The number one reason martial arts school owners don’t switch software isn’t price. It isn’t features. It’s this: “How do I get all my members into the new system?”
It’s a fair question. The traditional answer involves collecting member data, formatting it into a CSV spreadsheet, importing it, fixing the errors, importing it again, and spending days of staff time on a process that has nothing to do with running your school. It’s the kind of friction that keeps school owners stuck on software they’ve outgrown for years longer than they should be.
OnMat just eliminated that problem entirely.
Introducing OnMat Self-Registration — Your Members Do the Work
OnMat’s new self-registration feature lets your existing members onboard themselves into the system in under two minutes — no CSV, no data entry by your staff, no imports, no errors.
Here’s how it works from the school owner’s side: in the Membership Packages admin screen, you create an OnMat Registration package. The system generates two things instantly — a shareable URL and a QR code. That’s it. Your setup is done.
From there you have options. Email the link to your member list. Print the QR code and display it at the front desk. Put it on a screen in your lobby. Post it on your school’s Facebook page or website. However your members communicate, there’s a delivery method that fits.
The Member Experience — Simple, Branded, and Secure
When a member scans the QR code or clicks the link, they land on a branded registration page showing your school’s logo. The page clearly explains what OnMat is and why they’re being asked to complete the form — no confusion, no friction.
They enter their name, email, phone, and date of birth. If they have children or family members training at your school, they add them in the same session — one account holder can register multiple students at once. No separate forms. No coming back to the front desk.
The registration includes a $1 enrollment fee. This isn’t a charge for the sake of charging — it’s how OnMat securely vaults the member’s payment method through PCI-compliant processing for future billing. Only the last four digits of the card are retained on record. Card data never lives on OnMat servers. The $1 serves a real purpose: it confirms the payment method is valid and ready for automated billing the moment you need it.
School owners can also offer promo codes to waive or discount the enrollment fee — useful if you want to incentivize members to complete registration quickly.
On successful registration, members see a confirmation message directing them to download OnMat Edge, the member and parent portal app. From day one they’re connected to your school digitally — they can view their attendance, check upcoming classes, and watch their child’s belt test grades in real time.
Why This Matters — The Migration Problem Is Gone
Think about what the old process actually required. A staff member had to contact each member to collect their information, or hope that paper forms came back complete and legible. Someone had to format that data into a CSV with the right column headers. The import had to be run, errors identified, corrected, and re-run. Duplicate records had to be cleaned up. Payment methods still had to be collected separately.
For a school with 150 members, that process could take days. For a school with 300 members, it could take weeks. And throughout that process, the data being entered was only as accurate as the person doing the data entry — not the member who actually knows their own date of birth, preferred email address, and which family members train at the school.
Self-registration puts data entry where it belongs: with the member. They know their information. They enter it once. It’s correct the first time.
For Families — One Session, Every Student
Martial arts schools run on families. A parent brings two kids, maybe trains themselves. The old way meant multiple forms, multiple records, multiple opportunities for error.
With OnMat self-registration, one account holder registers the entire family in a single session. All students are added under one account. One payment method vaulted. One confirmation. The family is in the system completely, accurately, and without any staff involvement.
Full Control for the School Owner
The self-registration form is configurable to fit your school’s needs. You control whether the form collects a full date of birth or just age — useful if your state or association has specific data collection requirements. You can set a redirect URL so that after registration, members are automatically sent to a custom thank-you page, a waiver form, or any other destination you choose. And promo codes give you flexibility to run a registration drive with an incentive if you want to get your member list populated quickly.
From Zero to Fully Onboarded in 48 Hours
Here’s what a realistic onboarding looks like with self-registration:
Day one: you set up the registration package, copy the URL, and send an email to your member list with a subject line like “Two minutes to set up your OnMat account — scan or click here.” You print the QR code and tape it to the front desk check-in area.
Day two: members who trained last night have registered. Members who saw the QR code at the front desk have registered. Members who got the email have registered. Your member list is populating automatically with accurate data and vaulted payment methods — without a single staff hour spent on data entry.
Within 48 hours of sending that email, most active members are in the system. The ones who haven’t registered yet will see the QR code at their next class.
The Real Cost of Staying on the Wrong Software
If the migration has been the reason you’ve been putting off making a switch, the math is worth doing. Every month you stay on software that doesn’t give you attendance data connected to belt testing, automated billing with pass-along fee options, AI-powered retention alerts, and end-to-end belt testing with report cards — is a month of revenue leakage, manual work, and missed retention opportunities.
OnMat self-registration removes the last major barrier to switching. There’s no migration project. There’s no staff overtime. There’s no CSV. There’s a QR code, an email to your members, and 48 hours.
Try OnMat free for 30 days. No credit card required. No setup fee. No contract.
Want to see everything OnMat can do? Explore OnMat’s full feature set or contact our team — we respond within 24 hours.
