The operating reality for aquatic centres
Aquatic centres run a lot at once. There are learn-to-swim programs with weekly classes and term enrolments, memberships for regular swimmers, casual entry at the gate, retail and food at the point of sale, and access control across pools, gyms and change rooms. Behind the front desk there are shift-based lifeguards and instructors to roster, finance to consolidate across venues, and pool plant and assets to maintain.
Most operators run this on separate tools that do not talk to each other. The booking system exports to accounting. Staff hours are re-keyed into payroll. Asset and maintenance records sit in a spreadsheet. Each gap is manual work and a place where the numbers drift.
The Cohiva products that fit
Cohiva is an integrated operating platform: purpose-built products that share one identity and one data layer. For an aquatic centre, four products do the work.
- Complex is the facility product. It handles learn-to-swim programs, memberships, casual entry, point of sale and access control across your venues. See it at complex.cohiva.app.
- Culture is the HRIS for your shift-based pool staff. It covers onboarding, rostering, leave, timesheets and payroll export. Read how it fits aquatic centres in HR and payroll for aquatic centres.
- Crunch is the finance product. It gives real-time profit and loss, multi-entity consolidation and a 13-week cash forecast across your venues. See finance and consolidation for aquatic centres.
- Control is the maintenance product. It manages assets, work orders and preventive maintenance for pool plant and equipment, and posts fixed-asset depreciation to the ledger. See maintenance for aquatic centres.
What sits inside Complex for a pool
Complex is the operating system at the front of an aquatic centre. Learn-to-swim runs as structured programs with levels, term enrolments and attendance. Memberships run on recurring billing. Casual swimmers come through on tickets, the kiosk and pro shop sell through point of sale, and access control governs entry to pools, gyms and change rooms. Those run off one record of members and venues, so a family's program enrolment, a member's billing and a casual entry are one history rather than separate logs in separate tools.
That single record is what makes the rest of the suite useful. The activity Complex captures is the same data Crunch consolidates, Culture rosters against, and Control links to its assets, on one data layer rather than through exports.
How the data layer changes the work
Because these products share one data layer, the work that used to live in the gaps between tools goes away.
A casual entry or a term enrolment taken in Complex becomes a transaction Crunch can see, so finance reports the day without an export. A lifeguard onboarded in Culture is available to roster against a pool in Complex, and their hours flow to payroll without re-keying. A pump or filtration unit tracked in Control carries its maintenance history and its depreciation in the same place, so operations and finance see one version of the asset.
One identity ties it together. A staff member is provisioned once and has the right access across the products, rather than being set up separately in each tool.
A normal day at the pool
Take an ordinary Saturday. The learn-to-swim program runs back to back, casual swimmers come through the gate, members train in the gym, and the kiosk sells coffee and goggles. Every one of those interactions is recorded in Complex against one set of member and venue records. By the time the centre closes, the day's takings are already transactions Crunch can see, grouped by venue, so finance does not reconstruct the day from a till report. The lifeguards and swim teachers who worked the shift were rostered in Culture, and their hours are ready for payroll.
In the plant room, the filtration and dosing equipment that kept the water safe is tracked in Control, with its servicing schedule and its depreciation in the same record. If a pump needs a part, the work order and the asset value live together, so operations and finance see one version of the equipment.
Why the integration matters across venues
The case for one data layer grows with each pool you add. With separate systems per venue, consolidation, rostering and maintenance become a coordination job that gets heavier as the portfolio grows. With one data layer, that work stays manageable: entities consolidate in Crunch, staff are rostered across sites in Culture, and preventive maintenance is scheduled across plant rooms in Control, all from the activity captured in Complex.
This is the integrated operating platform thesis for aquatic operators: one identity, one data layer, and facility operations, staff, finance and maintenance connected rather than stitched together.
Built for multiple venues
Cohiva is built for operators running several aquatic venues, not single-site software stretched to fit. As you add pools, the value of one data layer grows: consolidation across entities, rosters across sites, and maintenance schedules across plant rooms all run on the same platform.
If you run aquatic centres and want facility operations connected to staff, finance and maintenance, start with the Complex overview, then see how Culture and Control fit your operation. Councils and trusts running aquatic venues can also see the councils and recreation solution.