School management platforms tend to sit at one of two extremes. The ones built for large institutions carry price tags, implementation timelines and training requirements that no small school can justify. The ones aimed at smaller schools often turn out to be too limited, leaving the office to fill the gaps with spreadsheets and separate logins that never quite talk to each other.
Daviah is built for the person who holds all of this together: the front-office administrator, the school secretary, the bursar. It keeps student records, fees, departments, meetings, minutes and the school website in one office. You can sign up without a card, build everything on the free plan and only pay when you are ready to go live.
A platform a small school can afford to start — and afford to leave
Signing up is free and asks for nothing beyond a name, an email address and a password — no card, no phone number, no domain required. On the free plan you can build and save your entire website and view it through a private preview link for as long as you need. Nothing expires.
When you are ready to publish, both paid plans run month to month with no contract. Paying yearly costs less, but nothing locks you in. If a payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days and the school receives three emails before anything stops. If the school stops paying entirely, all records stay readable and CSV exports for students, fees, payments and officers continue to work. Everything comes back as soon as a payment is made.
- Free sign-up — no card, no phone number, no domain
- Build and preview the full site before you spend anything
- Month-to-month on paid plans — stop whenever you need to
- Student records, fees and officer exports remain readable if you lapse
When something goes wrong, someone answers
Every school on any plan — including the free plan — can report a problem or ask a question from inside the office and follow the reply there.
You can also reach Daviah directly by phone at (530) 377-3049 or by email at admin@daviah.io.
Student records, Departments and officer history in one place
The office keeps a record for every student, with a dated history of every change made to it. Students can be brought in from a CSV spreadsheet — columns are matched automatically, and duplicates and problems are shown before anything is saved.
Departments can be recorded and written to as a group. Officer roles — Principal, School Secretary, Bursar, Staff Lead — are tracked year by year, so you always know who held each role in a previous year. The school's current staff can be shown on the public website, drawn from those same officer records.
Reports on membership, officers, attendance and fees are counted live from the records. Students, fees, payments and officers can all be exported to CSV.
- Dated history of every change to a student record
- Bring students in from a spreadsheet — duplicates caught before saving
- Departments recorded and messaged as a group
- Officer terms kept year by year — Principal, Secretary, Bursar and more
- Live reports and CSV export for students, fees, payments and officers
Fees raised, tracked and paid in one place
The treasurer raises the year's fees for every student in one step. Each student can then see what they owe in their portal and pay by card from there. A payment is only recorded once Stripe confirms the money has moved.
Cash and check payments can be recorded by hand, each with a receipt number that runs in sequence per year. Waiving, voiding or correcting a charge is the treasurer's decision, and every correction is written to the audit trail with a reason.
Card payments go straight to the school's own Stripe account. Daviah takes no cut of the money.
- Raise fees for all students in one step
- Students pay by card from their own portal
- Cash and check payments recorded with sequential receipt numbers
- Every correction or waiver recorded in the audit trail with a reason
- Card payments go directly to the school's Stripe account — Daviah takes nothing
A daily schedule, attendance and meetings without the paperwork
A weekly class schedule can be set up once, and each day's sessions are created from it automatically. Officers can take attendance at any meeting from the office.
A tablet at the door lets students sign themselves in by finding their name. It shows only a first name and an initial, and any officer can switch it off at any time. Check-in notes quietly if someone owes fees, but it never prevents a student from signing in.
Meetings are recorded with a minute book that moves from draft to submitted to approved. Approved minutes can be amended, with a recorded reason kept alongside them.
A school website the office can keep up to date
A website is created for your school the moment you sign up, ready to edit — with a front page and pages for your sections, built from a design. There are eight designs to choose from, and the design can be changed from the office.
Pages are built from a library of 42 ready-made sections that your own people add, reorder and edit without writing any code. You can give a staff member a Website Editor role that lets them update the site without access to fee records or student data.
Unpublished pages can be previewed through a private link before they go live. On the Website and Members plan, your own domain is connected for you — the Daviah team registers it and the school adds one DNS record.
- Website ready to edit from the moment you sign up
- 42 ready-made page sections — no code needed
- Website Editor role keeps site access separate from fee and student records
- Preview any page privately before publishing
- Custom domain connected for you on the Website and Members plan
Messages to parents and the student portal
The office can email all students, all officers, a department, an event's attendees, students with unpaid fees, or newsletter subscribers. Messages can be written now and scheduled to send later, and are guaranteed never to be sent twice.
Every student portal is on the school's own website. Students sign in to see their record, pay what they owe, reply to events, and open members-only documents and photographs. Every design includes a newsletter sign-up box in its footer, and on a paid plan those addresses can be written to.
- Email all students, a department, fee-outstanding students or newsletter subscribers
- Schedule messages to send later — guaranteed never sent twice
- Students update their own details and pay fees from the portal
- Newsletter sign-up on every page of every design
Questions
What does it cost to get started?
Signing up is free and needs no card. On the free plan you can build and save the entire school website and preview it privately — nothing expires. The Website plan is $29.99 a month (or $300 a year). The Website and Members plan, which adds the full office for students, fees, meetings, minutes, departments and messages, is $79.99 a month or $819.99 a year. Both paid plans are month to month with no contract.
Can a non-technical staff member keep the website up to date?
Pages are built from 42 ready-made sections that anyone can add, reorder and edit without writing code. A staff member can be given a Website Editor role that lets them update the site without seeing fee records or student data. Unpublished changes can be previewed through a private link before they go live.
How do we bring in our existing student records?
Students can be imported from a CSV spreadsheet. Columns are matched automatically, and any problems or duplicates are shown before anything is saved — nothing is committed until you confirm it looks right.
Does Daviah take a percentage of fee payments?
No. Card payments go directly to the school's own Stripe account. The school pays Stripe's fees directly, and Daviah takes no cut of the money.
What happens to our records if we stop paying?
If a payment fails, nothing is withheld for ten days and the school receives three emails before anything stops. If the school stops paying entirely, all records stay readable and CSV exports for students, fees, payments and officers continue to work. Everything comes back as soon as a payment is made.
Can more than one person manage the school's account?
Yes. An administrator can invite other people to help run the organisation, each with their own role. Roles include Administrator, Principal, School Secretary, Bursar, Staff Lead, Website Editor and Member — each named in the school's own words.
Read next
- The work that piles onto a small team — and what actually helps
- The money that never quite adds up — and what actually helps
- One office instead of a tangle of disconnected tools
- The member list that nobody has time to keep current — and what actually helps
- When your software is too complex and costs too much
- The website nobody has time to keep current — and what actually changes
- When the software breaks and nobody answers — what you can actually do
- The fees ledger that never quite balances — and what actually helps
- Student records, fees and messages — without the tab-switching
- A school website the office can keep up to date — without the dread of breaking something
- The front office that never catches up — and two things that actually help
- Parent messages that reach families — without the chaos of too many channels
Daviah — Daviah keeps your students, fees, departments and school website in one place. No contract to start.
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