Hey Everyone! Today we’re proud to announce the start of beta testing for one of our most highly requested features: ACH Bank Transfers. This allows your families to pay you directly from their bank accounts instead of using a credit card. Currently this feature is available to My Music Staff members accepting payments via Stripe.com in the US only, but we hope to add additional countries in the future.

Bank Transfers have a lower transaction cost than credit cards (0.8%, capped at $5 per transaction), though they take longer to process (typically 3-5 business days). Bank accounts must be verified before they can be used, but My Music Staff makes it easy to get this set up.

If you’d like to participate in our beta test, please send an email to support@mymusicstaff.com and we’ll enable this feature in your account.

Other changes this week include:

• We modified some of My Music Staff’s internals so that the « Search » popup boxes are no longer squished to the right of your screen.
• If your students mistakenly reply to our unmonitored mailbox (noreply@mymusicstaff.com), our system will automatically write back letting them know they should contact you directly. This isn’t an issue 99% of the time, but it does happen.
• When you set overdue attendance in bulk, the drop-down list now resets to « Unrecorded » so that you don’t accidentally set the wrong attendance status for the next batch of students.
• We adjusted the student payment process so that if the parent had previously logged in using the « Remember Me » option, they’re automatically remembered if they pay an invoice directly from the « Pay Online » link.
• You can now include the lesson location on your invoices if you prefer. This option is enabled through the « Accounts & Invoices » tab of « Studio Settings« .

For multi-teacher studios:

• On the « Expenses & Other Revenue » page, Payroll is now split out on the chart and summary table at the top of the page.
• We have added a new calendar filter option to show only events with substitute teachers.

Did you know? On the Families & Invoices page, the “Auto-Invoice” and “Auto-Pay” columns are now sortable.