Who Can Do What: FencR Roles and Permissions Explained

Most questions about FencR permissions come down to one sentence: roles decide who runs the club, and data decides who takes part.

Managing the schedule, the roster, and the money is gated on your role. Taking part never is. Any active member, whatever their role, can enroll in a plan, book themselves into a session, and pay their own invoices. That single principle explains nearly every behavior in this guide, including the ones that surprise people.

The four roles

Club admin runs the club. Settings, integrations, billing, the plan catalog, camps, the store, leads, waivers, and full analytics, plus everything a coach can do.

Coach runs the floor. The full schedule, the roster and member profiles, attendance and check-in, visitors and drop-ins, announcements, member email, and assigning plans or credits to members. Coaches do not touch club settings, integrations, the plan catalog, invoicing, camps, the store, or club-wide revenue.

Athlete trains. Their calendar shows what they are booked into plus open tournaments, and they manage their own plans, credits, and invoices.

Parent manages their children. Everything an athlete has for themselves, plus their linked children's plans, bookings, and bills. Parents who also fence use the same account for both.

Roles are per club. The same login can be an admin at the club you founded, a coach at the club down the road, and a parent at your child's club.

One account, several roles

Plenty of people at a club wear two hats: the coach who still competes, the admin who is also a fencing parent. FencR lets one membership hold additional roles alongside its primary one, and access becomes the union of everything held.

An admin grants them from the member's profile on the Members page. A coach who is also an athlete keeps every coach tool and gains My Plans and My Billing. An admin who is also a parent gets the Children page. Badges throughout FencR show every role a person holds, primary first.

Two guardrails: a club must always keep at least one admin, so FencR refuses a change that would leave none, and the club creator's primary role cannot be changed.

The permission table

A check means yes. A word means yes, limited to what the word says. A dash means no. Someone holding two roles gets everything from both columns.

Booking does not follow role alone

This is where clubs most often expect one thing and get another, so it is worth stating plainly:

• Practices are staff-assigned. Members cannot add themselves or their children to a group practice or open fencing session. Your roster reflects who you actually expect on the strip.
• Lessons are self-serve, if you allow it. The Lesson self-booking switch in Club Settings decides whether members book open lesson slots themselves or staff assign those too.
• Tournaments are open registration for any member.
• Waivers gate the person being booked, not the person doing the booking. If your club requires a waiver, an unsigned athlete cannot be added by anyone until it is signed.
• Staff bookings for themselves behave like anyone else's. When a coach joins a session as a participant, capacity and plan credits apply normally.

Visitors sit outside the role system entirely

Trial athletes, drop-ins from other clubs, and guest coaches are visitors, not members, and they hold no role. Staff record them on the Members page, book them into sessions as credit-free drop-ins, and convert them to members if they join.

Visiting coaches are the case worth understanding: they can lead or assist your sessions and camps and they show up in coach analytics, but they are not members, so they have no access to your club's dashboard, roster, or finances. A guest coach running Tuesday practice never sees your billing.

Choosing roles well

A few habits that keep clubs out of trouble:

Give admin sparingly. Coaches already have everything needed to run training. Admin is for people who should be able to change how the club itself works, including its money.

Use additional roles instead of second accounts. If a coach also trains, add the athlete role to their existing membership. Two accounts for one person splits their history and doubles your roster.

Remember parents are for management, not just minors. An adult who pays for another adult's training can hold the parent role through a link. It is about who manages whom, not about age.

Check the last-admin rule before someone leaves. If your only admin is stepping down, promote their replacement first. FencR will refuse the change otherwise, which is the right answer but an awkward moment to discover.

Roles are always adjustable from the Members page, so nothing here is a one-way door. If you are setting up a club from scratch, the club setup guide walks through roles in the order you will actually need them.