Studio Booking Software Articles

mtJG4LWAs the end of March approaches, I am aware that there are just a few short months until summer. For music teachers, summer brings change. It may mean more work, it may mean less, it may be a stressful time because of money worries, or a relaxed time because of advanced planning and clear expectations. But no matter what your summer holds for you this year, chances are that it will be a break from your typical weekly music teaching schedule.

From the time we were young children, going to school was a given, an expectation. For many of us, that pattern of school year/summer break continued well into adulthood with college and often, further advanced degrees. But then, one day, it stopped. No more required exams. No more automatic private lessons on our instrument. No more crunch time at the end of each semester. Most of us breathed a sigh of relief. We began working, teaching, performing, auditioning, all the while acquiring new skills as we began our professional music careers.

Then one day we all come to a point of feeling comfortable in our career. We know the landscape. We are good, solid teachers and performers. We have enough students and gigs to pay the bills. But is “comfortable” enough? Do you feel knowledgable about the new technology available to music teachers? Have you expanded your repertoire of music, of teaching ideas, of different learning styles? Are you caught up on the current music education research and methodologies?

At this time of yetaxesar, I have taxes heavily on my mind. Perhaps you, too, are busy preparing your 2011 returns before that dreaded April date, or maybe you’re way ahead of me and have already taken care of everything. While being a self-employed studio owner can be a bit of a pain come tax time, there are also many deductions you should be taking advantage of:
Business Expenses

There are a number of tax deductible business expenses allowed by the IRS. These include money spent on advertising, travel, memberships, licenses, and maintenance. If you put an ad in the paper, purchased a business license or membership for your local teaching organization, attended a conference, provided incentive prizes, had your piano tuned or bought coffee during a business meeting, then you should be reporting these on your tax forms. Studio Helper and Music Teacher’s Helper make recording these things very simple. You simply enter the expense in the Studio Expense portion of the dashboard and toss the receipt into a folder in your filing cabinet so that you have supporting documentation in case you are audited. Be sure to provide specific details when recording the expense so that you know what category it fits into when you are doing your taxes the following year.

New Feature: You can now include the lesson costs in Lessons Taught report. Enable the 'Show Lesson Cost' checkbox to make it appear. New Feature: You may now delete expense categories. Go to Money > Expenses > Expense Categories to clean up old records. BugFix: Students with absent lessons were not charged automatically when creating a new invoice. This is now fixed. BugFix: Sometimes error messages appeared on...

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February was a bit of a stressful month around my studio. Many of my students were preparing to participate in our local National Federation of Music Clubs’ Junior Festival. And as nervous as they were about playing, I think I was even more nervous for them.

Needless to say, we’re all a bit more relaxed now that Festival is over, but I like to help ease my students back into their normal routine So how do you unwind after an event such as this — or similarly, a recital or big audition?

Here are a few of my favorite ways to do so.

Summer IdeasWhat do you do in your studio for summer? Do you teach? Do you take the summer off? How do you support yourself during the lean summer months?

Perhaps a summer camp is an option to fill the void. If so, now is the time to start thinking about summer. In the past, I have not required that students take lessons during the summer. Typically, I teach six weeks during the summer and students who do take must have at least four lessons during that time. I do this primarily because I like my summer free time! However, I see how it negatively effects those who do not take lessons (not to mention how it negatively effects my pocketbook!) and I may decide to take the plunge this year and require that students either a) Sign up for at least four lessons, b) Sign up for a studio music camp or special class offering, c) Attend a summer music institute or camp of some kind outside my studio, or d) All of the above! Realizing the importance of continuing music study during the summer months, those students taking summer lessons, camps or classes would be guaranteed a reserved lesson time in the fall.

I researched several piano pedagogy textbooks on summer camps and found a plethora of ideas in Beth Gigante’s book, The Independent PIano Teacher’s Textbook. She gives the best advice I could find on researching, developing and organizing a summer a summer music camp. Here is a series of steps I developed for myself in creating a summer program for my studio: