First Steps

This is a recommended checklist for getting your camp set up in Campflow. You don’t have to do everything at once, but working through these steps in order will get you up and running smoothly.

1. Fill In Your Camp Profile

Start by going to Settings > General in the sidebar. This is where you enter your camp’s basic information:

• Camp name, phone number, and email — This appears on registration forms, statements, and parent-facing pages.
• Camp address and mailing address — Used for statements and correspondence.
• Camp gender — Whether your camp is for boys, girls, or co-ed.
• Main color — The accent color used on your registration forms and parent-facing pages.
• Camp logo — Displayed on registration form headers. Square images work best.

You’ll also see your own personal info at the top of this page (your name, email, and phone number). Make sure that’s up to date too. This email address is also your login. If you change it here, your login email changes too.

For more details, see Camp Profile & Branding.

When your camp was first created, Campflow added a few sample families so you can see how things look. You can delete these at any time — just go to the Families page, select them, and remove them.

2. Configure Your Season

Every piece of data in Campflow — campers, enrollments, payments, grades — belongs to a season. You’ll see a season picker at the top of every page. Your first season is created when you sign up, but you’ll want to configure it properly.

On the Settings > General page, scroll down to the Camp Season section to set:

• Season name — For example, “Summer 2026.”
• Season dates — The start date, first half end, second half start, and end date. These control how terms (full season, first half, second half) are calculated.
• Default pricing — The base tuition for a full season, per month, per week, and per day.

To learn more about season configuration, see Creating a Season.

3. Set Up Departments & Grades

Still on the Settings > General page, scroll further to the Departments & Grades section. This is where you define the age groups for your camp.

• Departments are top-level groupings (like “Elementary” and “High School”).
• Grades are the age groups within each department (like “3rd Grade” or “Bunk Aleph”).

You can drag to reorder them and assign colors for easy identification. You’ll need at least one department and one grade before you can enroll campers.

For details, see Departments & Grades.

4. Add Approval Statuses

Approval statuses let you track where each camper is in your enrollment process — for example, “Approved,” “Pending,” or “Waitlisted.” You define the statuses that make sense for your camp.

Set these up in Settings > General under the Approval Statuses section.

See Approval Statuses for details.

5. Add Your Families

Once your season and grades are set up, you can start adding families. There are a few ways to do this:

• Manually — Go to the Families page and click New family in the top right. See Adding a Family.
• Import from a spreadsheet — If you have existing data, go to the Import page in the sidebar to bring it in.
• Registration — When parents register online, their families are created automatically.

6. Set Up Registration (When You’re Ready)

If you want parents to register online, go to Settings > Registration to configure your registration form. This includes choosing which fields to show, what documents to collect, setting registration dates, and configuring payment options.

See Setting Up Registration for the full guide.

7. Apply for Payment Processing

If you plan to accept credit card or ACH payments, you’ll need to apply for payment processing. Reach out to support through the chat in the bottom-right corner of your screen and we’ll send you the application link. Approval usually takes one to two business days, so it’s a good idea to get this started early.

8. Set Up SMS Brand Verification

If you plan to send text messages to families, you’ll also want to start the SMS brand verification process as soon as possible — it can take a week or more to get approved. This is a regulatory requirement handled by a third party, not something we control. See Setting Up SMS for how to get started.

9. Invite Your Team

If other people at your camp need access, go to Settings > Users to add them. You can control exactly what each person can see and do with roles and permissions.

See Managing Users for details.

Good to Know

• You can always come back and adjust settings later. Nothing here is permanent.
• If you’re moving from another system, the Import page can save you hours of manual data entry.
• The season picker at the top of every page controls which season’s data you’re looking at. If something looks wrong, check that you’re viewing the right season. If things still seem off, try reloading the page. See Switching Seasons for more.