# How to structure your catalogue: four real schools

> Four ways of arranging offerings, cohorts and trails, so you can copy whichever looks most like your school.

## What you will get

A way off the blank page. Finding the school here that most resembles yours and
copying its structure is usually faster than deciding from scratch.

**The rule that holds for all four:** start small. Too much structure on day one
gets in the way; you can always add later.

![Academic offerings list mixing postgraduate, K-12 and free courses](/Apps/edupay/ajuda/ofertas-lista.png)
*This is the list you are building. It can mix types freely — one school can have a postgrad programme and a workshop side by side.*

## 1 · A school selling standalone courses

*Free courses, workshops, exam prep. Each person buys one course.*

| Piece | How it looks |
|---|---|
| **Offerings** | One per course |
| **Cohorts** | One per course and period — *Writing — 2025.2* |
| **Trails** | None |

The simplest case, and the most common. It is worth opening a new cohort each
period instead of reusing the old one: the name with the period is what keeps
the history readable two years from now.

## 2 · A regular school

*Early years, primary, secondary. The student enrols in a school year.*

| Piece | How it looks |
|---|---|
| **Offerings** | One per year group — *Secondary — Year 1* |
| **Cohorts** | One per year group and shift — *Year 1 A — Morning* |
| **Trails** | None |

The offering is the year group; the cohort is the classroom. Here the cohort
does the heavy lifting, because it is what separates morning from afternoon.

It is worth using the **K-12** type on the offerings: it changes no rule, but it
makes the list filter useful once the school grows.

## 3 · Postgraduate programmes

*Cohorts with defined intakes, long contracts, many instalments.*

| Piece | How it looks |
|---|---|
| **Offerings** | One per programme — *Management Postgrad* |
| **Cohorts** | One per intake — *Management Postgrad — 2026.1* |
| **Trails** | None, unless you sell the programme in blocks |

Here the cohort's **start** and **end** dates are worth gold: they go into the
contract, and they are the detail students ask about most afterwards.

## 4 · A programme sold as a package

*Several modules bought at once, at a closed price.*

| Piece | How it looks |
|---|---|
| **Offerings** | One per module, each with its own base price |
| **Trail** | One, gathering the modules in order |
| **Cohorts** | One per intake of the whole programme |

The only case where a trail truly pays off. The summary panel adds up workload,
duration and value, and serves to check whether the package price adds up.

## Three questions that settle the doubt

**"Is this a product or a group of people?"** A product is an offering. A group
of people is a cohort.

**"Does the student buy it separately?"** If yes, it is a standalone offering. If
it is only ever bought together, it is a trail.

**"Will I need to separate by period?"** If yes, the period goes in the cohort's
name — never in the offering's. An offering with a year in its name ages and
turns into a list of duplicates.

## How you know it worked

> [certo]
> The real test is a trial enrolment: if you can pick the product and the cohort
> without hesitating, and the name appearing on the contract makes sense to the
> family, the structure is good.

## If something goes wrong

> [erro]
> **The offerings list became a pile of repetitions with years in the names.** A
> sign that the period went into the offering instead of the cohort. Rename the
> offerings without the year and create cohorts per period.
>
> **You are torn between two structures.** Pick the simpler one. Changing later
> is work, but too much structure from the start is work every single day.
>
> **The school sells in two different ways.** You can mix: nothing stops
> standalone offerings and trails living in the same catalogue.


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https://edupay.estudiosite.com/en/ajuda/day-to-day/how-to-structure-your-catalog
2026-08-05