This custom search works much better than the built in one and allows searching older posts.
|
|
69837 Members
40 Forums
143372 Topics
2073594 Posts
Max Online: 15252 @ 03/21/10 11:39 PM
|
|
|
#1277874 - 09/30/09 11:14 AM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: John v.d.Brook]
|
9000 Post Club Member
Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 9370
Loc: Canada
|
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1277895 - 09/30/09 11:40 AM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: keystring]
|
1000 Post Club Member
Registered: 03/14/07
Posts: 1785
Loc: Central TX
|
Since he confessed his love of WordPerfect, I would guess that he still uses Lotus 123, probably running on an IBM AT and PC-DOS 3.3. I was always a M$ Word guy myself, pseudo WYSIWYG and styles, woot!
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1277899 - 09/30/09 11:45 AM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: John v.d.Brook]
|
Registered: 08/10/05
Posts: 17385
Loc: Lexington, Kentucky
|
Many of you are not old enough to remember WordPerfect, but it was designed for office workers by office workers, not by computer geeks in Redmond, so it was very friendly to us. MSWord "adopted" a lot of their features, but not all. IMHO, WP is still far easier to use.
John, I am a diehard WordPerfect fan  and will only stop using it when they pry my keyboard out of my cold, dead fingers.  What I particularly like about WordPerfect is the "reveal codes" option which lets you see exactly where that stray 'indent' or 'font' command is that's messing up your document. Trying to troubleshoot those things in Word is a nightmare.
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1277918 - 09/30/09 12:05 PM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: bitWrangler]
|
6000 Post Club Member
Registered: 03/18/06
Posts: 6669
Loc: Olympia, Washington, USA
|
Since he confessed his love of WordPerfect, I would guess that he still uses Lotus 123, probably running on an IBM AT and PC-DOS 3.3. I was always a M$ Word guy myself, pseudo WYSIWYG and styles, woot! No, the spreadsheet program in WP is QuattroPro, and I'm using version 8, which was the last good version, on XP.
_________________________
"Those who dare to teach must never cease to learn." -- Richard Henry Dann Full-time Private Piano Teacher offering Piano Lessons in Olympia, WA. www.mypianoteacher.com Certified by the American College of Musicians; member NGPT, MTNA, WSMTA, OMTA
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1278043 - 09/30/09 02:52 PM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: Morodiene]
|
Full Member
Registered: 02/28/09
Posts: 133
Loc: US
|
I want to clarify that I send out invoices once a month, for the total number of lessons in the upcoming month. I would go crazy getting checks every week LOL! I like having the students pay up front for the next month, so I'm not having to haggle over missed lessons. I also include any book fees or recital fees in the invoices.
However, I get so bogged down at invoice time (this week!) that I am leaning more and more toward calculating all of the Monday (T,W,Th,F) lessons in a year, minus vacations/holidays, and separating it into 4 installments for the year. It would be sooo much easier. Although I would still have to deal with getting books paid for as well. And recital payments.
On the issue of invoices and professionalism, I have actually had several parents comment on how professional my business is, and many of them have mentioned receiving the itemized invoices as part of that professional perception. How do you do invoices? By hand, or do you use Quickbooks or a similar business accounting program? I actually use Word LOL...probably not very efficient! I list out the dates of the lessons for the upcoming months, any credits or overages on the account, any books the student received or are owed, etc. I have to do one of these for each student at the end of each month. I do them by day, so I don't have to constantly change the dates (for example, all Tuesday students in October will have the same lesson dates, so I do all Tuesday students at once, and all I have to do is change the student name and books owed, or miscellaneous things). I hope that makes sense. I just started doing invoices about 8 months ago so I'm sure there's a much better, more efficient way to do it! I do find that people enjoy seeing all of the charges listed out and itemized each month, so I want to continue doing them in some form (even if I switch to installments next year), but I think I need a new program!
_________________________
Private Piano Instructor
Member, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA)
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1278254 - 09/30/09 09:43 PM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: PianoKitty]
|
8000 Post Club Member
Registered: 04/06/07
Posts: 8684
Loc: Boynton Beach, FL
|
I actually use Word LOL...probably not very efficient! I list out the dates of the lessons for the upcoming months, any credits or overages on the account, any books the student received or are owed, etc. I have to do one of these for each student at the end of each month. I do them by day, so I don't have to constantly change the dates (for example, all Tuesday students in October will have the same lesson dates, so I do all Tuesday students at once, and all I have to do is change the student name and books owed, or miscellaneous things).
I hope that makes sense. I just started doing invoices about 8 months ago so I'm sure there's a much better, more efficient way to do it! I do find that people enjoy seeing all of the charges listed out and itemized each month, so I want to continue doing them in some form (even if I switch to installments next year), but I think I need a new program!
With Quickbooks (or other similar software) you don't have to really do a lot of inputting or math. You simply select your item to charge (i.e., if you charge for 1/2 hour lessons, you can have that rate set in there so when you select this it will come up). Then either email or print from there. If the student has an overage or underpayment (which is not common), then you can print a statement which you can choose to show all charges and payments received within a given set of dates. Billing takes me about an hour, tops, but that is because I was emailing invoices for the first time and was customizing the email for each. Probably next month it will take less time. Currently, about 70% of my families pay monthly, and my fee is slightly more to help cover the extra time it takes for paperwork (by about $20 per student over the semester).
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1278290 - 09/30/09 11:03 PM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: Morodiene]
|
Full Member
Registered: 02/28/09
Posts: 133
Loc: US
|
How much is Quickbooks? That sounds great! Much better than my system LOL.
_________________________
Private Piano Instructor
Member, Music Teachers National Association (MTNA)
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1278737 - 10/01/09 02:53 PM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: MsAdrienne]
|
Junior Member
Registered: 09/13/09
Posts: 11
|
What's the name of the company?
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
#1280463 - 10/04/09 10:48 AM
Re: Charging per lesson vs. per month
[Re: Nikolas]
|
Full Member
Registered: 02/19/05
Posts: 429
Loc: Toronto, Canada
|
Charge per month, if you charge per lesson you will likely have people who'll want to reduce the amount they have to pay because they'll be away for a week or two.
Meri
|
|
Top
|
|
|
|
|
|
183 registered (ando, AnatolyV, andy0140, 72 invisible),
1471
Guests and
15
Spiders online. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
Del.icio.us
|Contact |
Privacy | Legal | About Us | Site Map | Free Newsletter | Press Room |
Previous Topic
Index
