A school quote follows its own rules
A per-student price banded by number of participants, free places for the accompanying teachers, validity of the offer, cancellation terms. Every line changes the total the school takes to its board.
Who it's for
Software for operators who sell study trips to schools
Here the customer is two customers: the school that asks for the quote, approves it and signs, and the families paying the registration fee and the instalments. In between sit dozens of sign-ups, the personal data of students under 18, the accompanying teachers and a departure threshold to hold. DBJOY is built on that work.
The problem
With a school you run two customers in one booking file
The school works to its own calendar: request for quote or tender, board approval, a lead teacher collecting sign-ups. The families work to theirs: fee, instalments, their child’s paperwork. And the partner school wants firm numbers by a fixed date.
Consents, travel papers, allergies and diets
Parental consents, identity and travel documents, medical data, allergies and dietary needs. This is personal data about students under 18, sometimes falling into special categories: it cannot circulate by email or sit in a shared folder.
The rooming list changes until the eve of departure
A withdrawal, a late addition, two students who must be separated, rooms to build by gender and age, teachers to place. If the rooming list lives outside the booking file, every change has to be rewritten into four different documents.
The group is guaranteed only above the threshold
Below the minimum number of sign-ups the departure does not run, or runs at a loss. That threshold has to be watched while sign-ups come in, not recounted by hand every Monday when the school asks for confirmation.
How DBJOY works
From sign-up to departure, on the same data
Sign-ups arrive from the portal or from the lead teacher
Families and the lead teacher enter the student’s details in the sign-up portal, instead of paper forms collected at the school office and rekeyed by your staff. Parental consents, travel documents for minors, medical data, allergies and dietary needs arrive already attached to the booking file of the right group.
The teacher coordinating the group can see where it stands: who has signed up, who is missing, which documents have not been uploaded yet. Your office stops acting as a switchboard between the school and the families.
- sign-up portal
- school
- group leader
- family
- consents
Per-student price, family instalments, invoice to the school
The payment schedule does not belong to the group: it belongs to each family. DBJOY handles the registration fee that holds the place and the instalments that follow up to the final balance, with the position kept up to date student by student.
Who is up to date, who is behind and by how much is read on the booking file, not in a parallel spreadsheet. Reminders to late-paying families are based on the real position, and your finance team reconciles receipts knowing which participant each payment belongs to.
When the school pays for everyone, the invoice is issued in its name under the margin scheme (art. 74-ter) and the families keep their receipts: the place you read the group position stays the same, the booking file.
- per-student price
- instalments
- balance
- invoice to the school
- receipts
Rooming lists, matching and documents from the same file
Room allocation is built on the students already signed up, using the room types held on the partner school contract and the rules the group works to: students split by gender and age, accompanying teachers in single rooms, pairings requested by the school.
Vouchers, info sheets, student lists, school handover lists and insurance certificates come from the same data. If a student withdraws on the eve of departure, you update the booking file and the documents follow, with no copy-and-paste and no three versions in circulation.
- rooming list
- matching
- info sheet
- vouchers and insurance
Minors and confidentiality
Here minors’ data is the normal case, not the exception
On a school group the data subject is a child, consent is given by whoever holds parental responsibility, and the school is a third party taking part in the flow. The GDPR expects you to know at any moment what you collect, why you collect it, who can see it and how long you keep it.
DBJOY collects student details, consents and signed authorisations inside the booking file rather than in attachments travelling by email. They stay attached to the participant, with a record of who uploaded them.
- Data about a student under 18 collected together with the consent of whoever holds parental responsibility.
- Consents, authorisations and travel documents for minors kept in the booking file, not in shared folders.
- Allergies, diets and medical requirements visible only to the profiles that have to act on them.
- User profiles and permissions separating sales, operations and finance.
- A record of the messages sent to families and to the school.
This page describes how the software works. Deciding who is controller and who is processor, and on what legal basis each item of data is handled, remains a matter for the operator and its own adviser.
Thresholds, teachers and free places
The three numbers that decide whether the trip runs
A study trip is not confirmed because it looks good. It is confirmed when the numbers hold. DBJOY keeps the three that matter in view.
The guaranteed departure threshold
Every departure has a minimum number of participants below which it is not viable. The booking file shows where you stand while sign-ups come in, so you confirm, push sign-ups or reprice the offer before the partner school release date.
Teachers as group leaders
An accompanying teacher is a participant with a different role: their own accommodation, their own paperwork, their own commercial terms. In DBJOY they are separate records inside the same group, not lines added by hand at the bottom of a list.
Free places
The student-to-teacher ratio and the free places agreed with the school feed straight into the margin. Handling them inside the booking file means you see what one more free place does to the result of that departure while you can still discuss it.
Communication
Families want answers, not phone calls
In the week before departure your office answers the same question dozens of times: what time is the meeting point, what should they pack, which document is still missing, when is the next instalment due. Every answer given by phone is time that does not come back.
DBJOY publishes the group documents in the private area, for the school and the families, and sends messages driven by the booking file: confirmation of a sign-up, a reminder for an instalment falling due, a request for a consent or a document still recorded as missing.
- Group travel documents available to the school, the accompanying teachers and the families.
- Confirmations and reminders generated by the real state of the booking file.
- Automatic requests for consents and documents still recorded as missing.
- A post-trip survey attached to the booking file, to collect the school's verdict.
The modules you will use most
Where an operator working with schools starts
Students, groups and accompanying teachers
Student records, registration fees and instalment balances per family, rooming lists and matching, allergies and diets, guaranteed departure thresholds, teacher free places.
Travel documents
Rooming lists, student lists, info sheets, vouchers, insurance certificates and school handover lists come out of the booking file and follow it when the group composition changes.
Quotes and booking files
A school quote is built per student and in participant bands, with free places, thresholds and a validity date. Once confirmed it becomes a booking file with nothing retyped.
Partner schools and accommodation
Language courses, rooms, coach seats and activities sit on the partner school contract, with the remaining allocation and release dates in view.
Portal and messages
A private area for schools, lead teachers and families, with documents always available and automatic messages about instalments and paperwork still missing.
Data and confidentiality
Personal data of students under 18, consents and travel documents handled under the GDPR, with user profiles and permissions that limit who can open what.
Frequently asked questions
How is a quote for a school built?
The per-student price changes with the participant bands, and on top of it sit the free places for the accompanying teachers and the agreed student-to-teacher ratio. In DBJOY a quote is built on those parameters and shows the individual price and the group total together, with the validity of the offer and the cancellation terms. Once the school confirms it, it becomes a booking file with nothing retyped.
How does a study travel organiser follow family instalments without chasing emails?
Each family in a DBJOY group has its own payment position: registration fee, instalments with due dates, payments recorded and the outstanding balance. You see who is up to date and who is behind without adding up bank transfers. Reminders start from a figure held in the system, and the lead teacher gets the group-level picture rather than the financial detail of individual families.
Are language stays and work placement trips handled like other school trips?
Yes. The programme and the paperwork the school asks for change, the structure does not: one group booking file with the school as customer, the students signed up underneath, the language course and the accommodation bought from the partner school, the family instalments and the accompanying teachers with their free places. An educational visit with a language course is set up the same way.
How do I check the documents missing for minors before departure?
In DBJOY the required documents are expected on each student record: identity document, parental consent, travel authorisation for the minor, allergies and any relevant medical information. What is still missing stays visible on the group booking file, so the check before departure is not a manual review of a hundred folders. What is collected, and how long it is kept, is decided by the tour operator as data controller.
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