Set up your school on day one
The wizard (operation, first aircraft, the card that starts your free trial, billing), what you want working first, then the dashboard checklist that tells you what is still missing.
For owners and admins
Create your account, verify your email, and follow the setup you are shown. It asks for your operation (including what you want working first), your first aircraft, and your billing connection. Everything can be changed later, so do not stall on a decision.
Before you start#
A card, and no sales call. Adding the card is the last step of setup and starts your 14-day free trial. Nothing is charged that day, and if you cancel before the trial ends you pay nothing at all.
Whoever creates the operation becomes its owner and admin automatically. A flight school, club, rental or independent instructor also gets instructor. A private-owner signup (WebI own an airplane) gets renter instead of instructor, and never student. See Set up a privately owned airplane. A maintenance shop signup (WebI run a maintenance shop) gets technician, so you can be put on your own work orders. See Set up a maintenance shop.
Create the account#
Go to app.aerscheduler.com and create your account
Name, work email and a password, or sign up with Google or Apple.
Open the verification email and click the link
Until you do, every page sends you back to the verification screen. It checks every few seconds and moves on by itself once you click the link, so you do not need to press anything. There is a resend button if it never arrives.
Say what you are here for
Joining a school someone else runs is a different path: you just need their code. See Join a school with a code. Owning one airplane is its own card, Set up a privately owned airplane, and so is an A&P shop or repair station, Set up a maintenance shop. Otherwise you are setting up a school, club or FBO, and AerScheduler walks you through it.
What setup asks for#
Four wizard steps, plus a short question about where to start.
Your operation. Whether you are a flight school, a flying club or a rental operation, what it is called, and the airport you fly from. That airport becomes your first location, and every aircraft, simulator and room belongs to one.
Search the Home airport box by identifier or name (KAPA, or just Centennial) and pick your field from the list. Doing so stores the airport's identifier, sets your time zone from the airport's own position, and is the one setting worth getting right on day one. Weather then comes from that field, not from a nearby reporting station. Typing a name we do not have is fine; that site has no identifier and no weather until you pick a published airport.
You also say what you do there yourself: I teach, I'm learning to fly, I fly the aircraft, I work on the aircraft. Pick any that apply. You are always the owner and an admin; these add the instructor, student, renter or technician role so you can put yourself on a booking from day one. A school starts on I teach, a privately owned airplane on I fly the aircraft. Change it later from WebPeople → ⋯ → Edit roles.
You also pick what you want working first (schedule, maintenance, billing, training, or reports). That choice puts those jobs under Start here on the dashboard checklist; the rest stays under Also set up. If you arrived from a marketing page about one of those topics, that option is usually pre-selected.
If AerScheduler cannot tell how you found the product (no ad click, no clear referrer), it may also ask how you heard about us. That is optional and only used so we know what is working.
Your first aircraft. Tail number, year, current Hobbs and tach, and an hourly rate. You can skip it and add aircraft later from Add an aircraft.
Your card. Adding a card starts the free trial. The page shows the date the trial ends and what your fleet costs after it: $20 a month per aircraft, with simulators and rooms free. If you skipped the aircraft, nothing is charged until you add one. Owners and admins get an email three days before the first charge, and you can cancel any time before then from WebSettings → Plan → Manage billing. The card is entered on Stripe's secure page, so it never passes through AerScheduler. This step has no Skip: until a card is on file, the rest of AerScheduler stays closed. A maintenance shop is not asked for a card.
Billing. Connecting Stripe is what turns a closed-out flight into a bill your members can settle: either a Stripe invoice per visit, or (if you choose Account ledger) a charge against a prepaid balance. You can do it later without blocking anything else. See Turn on invoicing and card payments and Choose invoice or account ledger.
Once you are through, your dashboard shows what is still missing and links straight to each job. The list leads with the area you said you care about first under Start here. It works that out from your real data rather than from a list of steps you ticked, so adding an aircraft from anywhere in the product counts.
A sensible first week#
Setup gets you bookable. This is the order that gets you useful, unless your checklist already put a different module first.
Get your fleet in
Aircraft first, then simulators and classrooms. Rates and meters matter here, because billing and maintenance both read them.
Set your instruction rates
A lesson cannot be priced until its instruction type has a rate.
Invite your instructors, then your students
Roles decide what each person sees and can book. See Roles, and what each one can do.
Decide your booking rules
Who may book what, and whether members need a card on file. See Booking rules and settings.
Put maintenance due dates in
So the schedule knows when a tail should stop flying. See How maintenance tracking works.
Book a real flight and close it out
One end-to-end flight tells you more about whether your rates and roles are right than any amount of settings review.
What to do next#
Tails, meters, rates and a home base.
Email invitations with roles attached, or share your join code.
What lives on each tab of Settings, and what it changes.
The board, and the life of a booking.
Still stuck on this?
Email support@aerscheduler.com and tell us what you were trying to do. We answer.