Recording Promotions

Martial Arts · 5 min read · Last verified: 2026-06-23

What This Helps You Do

Use promotions to record martial arts rank changes for a student.

Promotion decisions are owner-controlled and manual. MatAdmin stores the promotion record, updates the student's current belt display, and keeps a promotion history on the member profile.

This article is about recording promotion activity. Belt-rank setup is a separate configuration workflow.

What Gym Owners Typically Use This For

Use promotion records when you need to:

  • Record that a student moved to a belt or stripe.
  • Preserve the promotion date, instructor, transfer status, and notes.
  • Review a student's Promotion History from their member profile.
  • Review recent promotion records from the Promotions page.
  • Understand how deleting a promotion affects the student's current belt display.

Where To Record A Promotion

Open the student's member profile and use Promote.

The Promote action opens a form for recording the student's new rank information. Save the promotion after reviewing the belt rank, stripe, date, promoted-by field, transfer status, and notes.

Promotion Record Fields

Promotion records can include:

  • Belt Rank: the belt rank being recorded for the student.
  • Stripe: the martial-arts stripe count for that belt.
  • Promotion Date: the date of the promotion, if known.
  • Promoted By: the instructor or person who promoted the student, if you track that.
  • Transfer Status: whether the student transferred in with an existing rank.
  • Notes: optional context your team may need later.

Belt stripes are martial-arts rank stripes. They are unrelated to Stripe payments, student billing, subscriptions, Billing Events, Billing Status, or Payment History.

Transferred-In Students

Use the transferred-in option when a member earned the rank somewhere else and you are recording it for your academy's records.

The promotion date is optional. This helps when the exact date is unknown for transferred or imported members.

Promotion History

Each member profile includes Promotion History.

Promotion History shows the member's recorded belt and stripe changes, including transfer status, date when available, promoted-by information when provided, and notes when present.

Use Promotion History when you need to understand how a student's current belt record was built over time.

Promotions Page

Open Promotions from the Martial Arts section to review promotion activity across members.

The Promotions page shows recent promotion records and links back to the relevant member profile. Use it as a broad review view when you are checking recent rank activity across the academy.

Worth A Look

The Promotions page can also show a Worth a look panel.

Worth a look is an informational observation area for owner review. It uses attendance-informed training patterns, such as a student training consistently or returning after a gap, to help you notice records you may want to review.

Worth a look does not make promotion decisions or record promotions for students. The owner or instructor still decides whether any promotion should be recorded.

Deleting A Promotion

Use delete only when a promotion record was entered incorrectly or should no longer be part of the member's history.

When a promotion record is deleted, MatAdmin recalculates the member's current belt from the latest remaining promotion record. If no promotion records remain, the member's current belt rank is cleared and the stripe count returns to zero.

Review the member profile after deleting a promotion to confirm the current belt display looks right.

Promotions And Billing Are Separate

Belt-rank and promotion workflows are independent of billing workflows.

Promotions do not depend on Student Billing, Billing Status, Payment History, Billing Events, Stripe, subscriptions, invoices, or payment state.

Use billing pages for payment and subscription questions. Use Promotions and member Promotion History for martial arts rank records.

Common Mistakes

  • Treating Worth a look as something that records promotions for you.
  • Recording a promotion when you meant to edit the belt-rank setup.
  • Leaving transfer status unchecked for a member whose rank was earned before joining your academy.
  • Deleting a promotion without checking how it will affect the student's current belt display.
  • Confusing martial-arts stripes with Stripe payments or student billing.
  • Using promotion history as a substitute for attendance history, billing records, or membership status.

When To Contact Support

Contact support if:

  • A promotion will not save.
  • Promotion History does not show what you expected.
  • A deleted promotion changed the current belt display in a way you do not understand.
  • The Promotions page or member Promote action will not load.
  • You are unsure whether to record a promotion or update belt-rank setup.

Need help? Contact support at support@matadmin.app and include your academy name, the member name, and a short description of the promotion record issue.