Liahona Preparatory Academy — School Platform · Custom E-Commerce & Headless CMS
A fully custom platform for a private school: a headless CMS the staff run themselves — pages and navigation alike — an interactive events calendar, and complete e-commerce built from scratch.
What the business needed
A private school needed a modern site its non-technical staff could run themselves — pages, navigation, schedules, and events, serving both online and in-person students — plus the ability to sell online through a real catalog, cart, and checkout rather than a bolted-on widget.
The technical challenge
Total client autonomy is the hard requirement: not just editable text, but a site whose pages and navigation structure are themselves managed through the CMS — safely, by non-technical staff. On top of that sits a genuine application layer: a custom product catalog with inventory, a persistent cart that survives the browser session, a checkout integrated with the client’s preferred payment gateway, and complete order processing.
What I built
A headless architecture: a fast, fully custom Next.js front end over a headless CMS, so staff manage every page — faculty, student activities, FAQ, daily schedules, tuition — and the site navigation itself, without a developer in the loop. A custom interactive calendar highlights events with detailed information views. And the store is built from scratch: catalog with inventory management, persistent cart, a custom checkout flow integrated with the client’s preferred payment gateway, and full order processing behind it.
- Complete custom e-commerce — catalog with inventory, persistent cart, checkout, order processing
- Checkout integrated with the client’s preferred payment gateway
- Staff edit every page — and the site navigation itself — through a headless CMS
- Custom interactive calendar with event highlighting and detail views
The result
The site is live at liahonaeducation.com. Staff manage pages, navigation, events, and products themselves — day-to-day changes never wait on a developer — and the school sells through its own catalog, cart, and checkout rather than renting a storefront. I also advised on technical strategy and content workflows so the platform stays future-proof and in the client’s hands.
Have a system like this to build?
If you need a platform, a custom integration, or a system where the logic matters — not just the pixels — let's talk about it.