Hey Everyone! My Music Staff was recently reviewed in the Alberta Registered Music Teachers’ Association’s publication of the Tempo magazine (September 2016). Juanita Stauffer was kind enough to take the time to explore and use the application. You can read about her experience below.
Several years ago, I was looking for a website that would provide one place online where I could keep track of students, expenses, and other business-related subjects. After trying a couple, I found www.mymusicstaff.com.My Music Staff has been extremely helpful in keeping me organized. After trying out the free 30-day trial, I was happy to sign up for it. I’ve been very impressed with this Canadian company—the customer service is excellent and I’ve received helpful replies within a few hours each time I’ve asked a question via their contact form. The $12.95CDN cost per month is very reasonable as well.
On signing up, a teacher will then enter all the contact information for each student. Students from a family are grouped together which makes invoicing very easy. I have appreciated being able to send bulk emails to all the students or just a few. Students can be marked as either active or inactive or on a waiting list.
Parents can easily access their child’s information and the calendar through a parent/student portal. My piano parents like being able to check the calendar when they are unsure about recital dates or lesson times. Students also have the option of recording practice times and tracking pieces they have learned.
The calendar feature works very well; from the calendar, a student’s attendance can be tracked, including assigning or using make-up credits if the teacher desires. It’s quite easy to add lesson times, interviews, planning times and other appointments. It’s structured in a similar way to other online calendars, making it easy to use.
Other features I like include tracking of payments and charges for each family. One can set up the student accounts with either monthly payments or payment by the lesson. It’s very helpful to be able to send an email receipt with each payment or an invoice to let parents know what is owing. I also find it helpful to record all my expenses and to track income, expenses, and student records through the report feature.
Included with the account is a teacher website, either imported from another website if the teacher already has one, or one provided by My Music Staff. With the website, there’s also the option of a blog. One can also create posts for the student portal from the blog. The format is very similar to other blogs and it is easy to use.
My Music Staff has been very helpful in organizing my business and keeping track of all the elements of the business. I highly recommend it to other teachers.
Stauffer, Juanita. « My Music Staff Web-Based Software For Studio Management ». Tempo 2016: 24. Print.
