Having just moved to a new area, I now have a studio of about 24 students and growing – come from an area where getting students was like pulling teeth, being inundated with this many students is not only wonderful but can also be a little overwhelming with trying to keep track of all the finances. To any other music teacher who understands the frustration and confusion of having a large studio (or heck, of having a studio period) keeping track of student’s information, their payment status, who owes what when, who’s working on what, what school is out for fall or spring break at what time, etc. can be exhausting work.
I have found a lifesaving solution. Seriously,it’s taken the hassle out of running a studio and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you owe it to yourself to give it a look over. It even comes with a 30 day Free trial! After one week I was sold, you just might be, too.
The site is called Music Teacher’s Helper.com
The site seriously does it all…
- Calendar to keep track of individual lessons
- Lesson reconcile feature, where you can enter lesson notes and assignments and payments
- Practice Log
- Lending library – keep track of what books you lent out to whom!
- Parent and sutdent information
- Separate student and parent log in information
- Invoicing, individual and automatic invoicing
- Send emails to one or all your students
- Your own studio webpage where your students can log in, see your resource list, studio announcements
- Accept credit card payments via PayPal – also the ability for parents to sign up for a lesson subscription where they are billed the same amount every month
- If you have an Iphone….they have an app for that 🙂
Best of all, using this link, should you decide to sign up after your 30 day free trial will give you 20% off your first month, not a bad deal!
In one month I have found it incredibly useful. Most all of my kids have Fall break, and at different times, so it helps me and it helps them keep track of when they have lessons and when they don’t, and if they havnen’t paid, I can send them a detailed invoice to let them know how much they owe. Best of all, they can pay me straight through the website via PayPal so they don’t have to worry about sending me a check. On the personal studio website they gave me I’ve uploaded the school calendars, lesson information flyer and my lesson contract and I’m going to be uploading videos of upcoming Midstate Audition Music. You can see my individual site here:
https://musicstrong.musicteachershelper.com/
My favorite feature? I have it set up to send each student an automatic lesson reminder the day before their lesson, so no more “I forgot I had a lesson” excuses! 
Every day after I come home from teaching I come back and reconcile each lesson, writing in lesson notes from each lesson so when the kids or parents log in they can see what we worked on…how many times have your students forgotten to write notes or assignments and say they “didn’t practice because I forgot what I was supposed to work on”? No more! 
So check them out and then come back and tell me how much you like them, I know I couldn’t live without them with a studio this big.
The link: http://www.musicteachershelper.com/promo/AD3282
Again, if you decide to sign up with them through this link the first month is free (no strings attached) the second month you get 20% off! Come back and tell me your thoughts! Have you used your MusicTeachersHelper.com site in other ways? Have you found it helpful? The only downside I’ve been able to find is that it DOES take some personal responsibility on the part of the parents and students. If they don’t read your emails and don’t log in, they won’t find it useful, however, how useful it is to you won’t diminish as it is mostly a tool for you than for them.