Kids Coding — Full SaaS Platform for a Coding School
Built a complete class management SaaS from scratch for a Toronto tech education startup — parent portal, staff portal, Square payment integration, and real-time class highlights. Firebase-powered, zero infrastructure overhead.
Key Results
The Client
Kids Coding (kidscoding.ca) is a Toronto-based tech education company teaching kids robotics, programming, and computational thinking. Classes run in sessions — parents buy passes, kids show up, instructors teach. Simple in concept. Surprisingly complex to run.
The Problem
Before this platform, managing Kids Coding meant spreadsheets, manual email updates, and a lot of time spent answering "how many classes do we have left?" from parents. As the school grew, the administrative overhead was threatening to eat the founder's focus.
They needed software — not off-the-shelf class management bloat, but something purpose-built for the way they actually run.
What We Built
A full SaaS class management platform in two weeks. No agency. No bloat.
Parent Portal
Parents log in to a clean dashboard where they can:
- View their students and family profile
- Track class pass credits — how many sessions remain, which passes are running low
- See upcoming sessions on the schedule
- Submit absence requests so instructors know who to expect
- View class highlights — photos and summaries published after each session
Low-credit warnings prompt parents to top up before their kids run out of time — reducing churn quietly.
Staff Portal
Instructors get their own admin-gated interface to:
- Upload class photos after sessions
- Write class summaries — what was covered, notable moments
- Publish highlights to the parent feed
One place. Takes five minutes after class. Parents see it instantly.
Square Payment Integration
When a parent pays a Square invoice, a Cloud Function fires automatically — no manual entry, no spreadsheet update. The webhook:
- Validates the Square signature
- Parses the SKU (e.g.,
ROBOTICS-16= 16-session robotics pass) - Creates or updates the family document in Firestore
- Assigns the correct class pass with the right credit count
- Updates aggregate balances
Purchase → credits appear → parent can see them. That's the entire flow, automated.
Firebase Architecture
The whole thing runs on Firebase's free tier for a school at this scale:
- Firestore for real-time data
- Firebase Auth for login (parents and staff, separate roles)
- Cloud Functions for the Square webhook and business logic
- Firebase Hosting for the frontend
- Firebase Storage for class photos
Zero servers to manage. Zero DevOps overhead. Scales automatically if the school grows.
The Result
The founder stopped answering "how many classes do we have left?" entirely. Parents have a place to go. Instructors have a ritual after each class. And the administrative overhead that was stealing focus is effectively zero.
A two-week build that functions as a full-time admin.
Real software, built fast. This is what modern development makes possible.