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Tax season is here, and for those of you whose main income comes from teaching, you may be wishing you had a more efficient way to track your lessons and your finances right about now. Assuming you have followed the advice from our earlier article, “Your Private Voice Studio: From the Beginning,” your studio is now flourishing. It can be hard to scramble together your profits, expenses, and deductions a month before taxes are due, so why not use a helpful software or program to track your expenses and lessons throughout the year?

In addition to finances, streamlining your scheduling can be a welcome time-saver. If you have multiple students to manage, the time used scheduling can add up when it comes to scheduling make-up lessons, adding in extra lessons, and even just changing around lesson times. Here are some of the most popular programs to manage your studio and become more efficient and productive.
 

My Music Staff

My Music Staff is one of the most popular programs among music teachers. Through this online program, you can schedule and invoice students, create a portal for students to track lessons and practicing, as well as track expenses. The monthly base fee for one teacher starts at $12.95 per month. You can even add other teachers to your studio for an additional fee per teacher. The software is extremely customizable and was created just for music teachers. You can easily add in recital fees, travel fees, and group lessons if need be.

The program is relatively easy to navigate, and once your calendar is set up, you can activate automatic invoicing for your students. Parents and students can pay their invoice through the program if you set up Stripe or a PayPal business account, both of which take a percentage of your income. You can also accept other forms of payment and manually enter them into the software. Other expenses can also be manually entered to help you track your monthly net income. It’s easy to see why so many music teachers like to use My Music Staff.
 

Music Teacher’s Helper

Music Teacher’s Helper is similar to My Music Staff. The base fee for the program starts at $11.66 per month when paid annually. The monthly price increases based on the number of students in your studio. The program has many customizable options similar to My Music Staff, with one major difference being that Music Teacher’s Helper has an Apple and Android app that is accessible through your phone or tablet.

Some notable features include automatic invoicing, lesson reminders, and a very user-friendly interface. You can even create your own website through the program by adding your personal information into one of their templates. Additional features include file storage and access to a personal blog. Music Teacher’s Helper is a popular option, but the monthly fee can get pricey as your student load increases.
 

Acuity

Acuity is an online scheduling program that is available for any personal or business use, not just for musicians. There are different levels of the program, including a free version with basic capabilities. The more advanced packages offer multiple calendars and innovative features starting at $15 per month. The best feature of the program is that students can schedule and reschedule themselves. You input your availability, and students can schedule their lessons or appointments on their own. The program does not invoice students, but they can pay online when they schedule lessons through PayPal, Square, Stripe, Braintree, or Authorize.net.

Through Acuity, you can embed the scheduler into your personal website as well as sync the scheduler with Outlook, Office 365, iCloud, and Google Calendar. QuickBooks and other financial programs can also be synced with the program to do invoicing and accounting. Acuity is the most efficient and modern program for scheduling and would benefits those who need a great way to schedule and track their students.
 

Fons

A program similar to Acuity is Fons. The monthly price can be as low as $7.96 per month per staff member if you pay annually. For students who pay for lessons through the software, there is a credit card transaction fee. Like Acuity, you enter your availability and students can request lesson time slots, which are then confirmed by you. The students are then automatically reminded of the lesson and are automatically charged for the lesson through their credit card. The payments can either be charged per appointment or through a reoccurring monthly or weekly payment.

Other benefits include the ability to share your calendar with a link you can use in emails or texts, or you can even embedded the calendar on your website. Each student also gets a personal client profile that includes all of their pertinent information, billing history, and schedule. The clients can also use a family profile for those who have multiple students from the same family.

There are many other services that can help you track and manage your studio’s calendar and finances. All of these programs offer a free trial period, so try out each service that interests you to see all of the features and customizable options. By tracking your schedule and finances in an efficient manner, this next tax year will be the easiest yet!