Studioware October 2010 Newsletter

Studioware October 2010

Newsletter

Thank you for being a valued Studioware user!  Studioware continues to grow every month with many new Basic and Premium Edition subscribers.  We are continuing to add enhancements to the software, and updating our articles on the Studioware Help Center.  There have been many excellent enhancement requests on studioware.uservoice.com.
 

In this month's newsletter, we will present some ideas on how Studioware can save you money and help grow your business.

Did You Know?

You can try Studioware Premium Edition for Free!  Studioware has a 100% Satisfaction Guarantee Policy. If at any time you feel that Studioware is not providing the value you expect, we will happily refund the balance of your last payment and switch you back to the free Basic Edition.

You are under no obligation and can cancel  your subscription to Studioware Premium Edition at any time by clicking on the Cancel link in your account settings.

As a courtesy to our Premium Edition subscribers, we will import your student data into Studioware for Free!

Important Links:

• Studioware Logon
• I forgot my Studioware Password
• Complete Enhancement List
• 100% Satisfaction Guarantee
• Signing Up with the Premium Edition of Studioware

The Basic and Premium Editions of Studioware allow for unlimited Students, Staff, Families, and Classes:

Does your current software allow for unlimited students and families?  Many studios that are NOT using Studioware are deleting their inactive students and families in order to reduce their monthly software cost.  If you are deleting your inactive students, you are loosing valuable contact information that can be used for marketing and promoting your business.  Studioware's flat $20 (USD) Premium Edition fee means that you no longer need to delete your inactive students.  With Studioware, simply set the student's status to inactive…[more information]

Studioware Tips:

• Studioware allows you to create Custom Letters that can be emailed to students.  Here are some ideas to be creative with custom letters:
  1. For example, you could create a monthly newsletter detailing events that are occurring at <<Business Name>> .
  2. You could use custom letters to help expand your business by sending a $20 coupon, for example, to all inactive students in an attempt to get the students to return.
• Studioware contains a full Accounts Receivable module.  Every student and family receives a financial account where financial transactions such as "tuition", "payment", "scholarship", "refunds", "purchases", "adjustments" and many more can be entered.  For example, if you need to deduct tuition from a student's account because the student has a $20 coupon, you could enter in a "tuition refund" transaction into the student's account.
• Fees for Credit Card charges can be expensive.  Typically, a 3% fee is deducted from each credit card transactions.  With Studioware you can create and print professional-looking invoices.  The invoices can be configured to include your Business name, logo, mailing address, notes, terms, and an invoice stub (the invoices are also configured so that a student/family mailing address will be displayed through a "window" in an envelope if you wish to mail your invoices).  With a paper invoice, students/families/parents are more likely to pay with a check; This saves you the credit card transaction fees.  Of course, online payment of invoices is also available.
• Studioware now allows you to create "hourly" classes  and  Tuition Fee Schedules.  Studioware can now calculate the number of hours of classes a student is enrolled in, and post the tuition fees to the student's account.  Studioware also automatically calculates and applies any discounts to the student's accounts.

 
Recent Enhancements:

Here's the most recent enhancements:

• You can now search for students by a contact's last name…[more information]
• The online enrollment pages have been updated. The class listing now displays the class length and tuition amount. The online registration page now prompts the parent to indicate if they will also be enrolling in classes…[more information]
• You can now create custom fields for classes.  This is our first step in allowing the online enrollment to sort and filter classes…[more information]

If you have any questions or comments, please contact our sales department at sales@Studioware-Online.com.

Thank you,
     Studioware by QuestWare, LLC.

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Studioware September 2010 Newsletter

Studioware September 2010

Newsletter

Welcome to the September edition of the Studioware Newsflash.  We’ve been busy adding the enhancements you requested at studioware.uservoice.com and we are happy to state, that we’ve implemented a number of significant enhancements!   Remember, you can always submit a suggestion, enhancement, or vote on your favorite enhancements.  We encourage you to logon to Studioware at www.Studioware-Online.com/Logon to explore the new features. 

Studioware is the easiest and most economical way to manage all aspects of your studio! 

 

The Basic Edition of Studioware is always free and the Premium Edition is only $20 (USD) per month.  Did you know that if you are not completely happy with the Premium Edition of Studioware, you can cancel your Premium Edition account at anytime and we will refund you the balance of your last payment.  There is no obligation when you sign up with the Premium Edition of Studioware, it’s 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed, and you can cancel your Premium Account anytime simply by clicking on a button on your account page.

Recent Enhancements:

We have been working diligently to meet your needs!  Here are the recent enhancements that have been implemented in Studioware since the August Newsflash:

1. You asked for the ability to delete students; you can now delete any student in your Studio.  You can also add additional “Student Statuses” to help categorize your student lists.
2. Hourly Classes and Tuition Fee Schedules:  Studioware now offers 3 types of tuition calculations for your classes: Full tuition for the entire class, tuition for individual class lessons, and the new hourly tuition classes.  Studioware allows you to create Tuition Fee Schedules and post tuition and discounts to student accounts based on the number of weekly hours of classes a student is enrolled in:
   

   Studioware Tuition Fee Schedule:

   

   Posting Hourly Tuition and Discount Transactions:

   

3. The “flow” of the Online Class Enrollment pages have been enhanced.  For more information on Online Class Enrollment please review this help article.  You can try the Online Class Enrollment at our fictitious/test studio: ABC Dance Studio.

Thank you for being a valued Studioware customer!   If you have any question or comments, please contact us at sales@Studioware-Online.com

Thank you,

     Studioware by QuestWare, LLC.

Studioware August 2010 Newsletter



Studioware August 2010

Newsletter

Are You Ready?

Fall is just around the corner and fall classes will be starting soon!  Are you ready?  Studioware helps you organize your business by
allowing you to track students, staff, classes, enrollment, tuition, and more.  Did you know with Studioware you can:

• Allow your students and families to enroll in your classes online.  Online enrollment is simple to setup and it saves you hours of administrative work.
• Track all of your students, staff, classes, enrollment, and waiting lists.  Studioware’s easy to use interface makes it simple to use.
• Generate invoices!  The invoices can be printed and mailed, or the invoices can be emailed to payees.  Studioware allows the payees to pay the invoices online and also tracks the status of the invoices; You can easily see which invoices have been emailed, which invoices have been viewed by the payees, and invoices that have (or have not) been paid-in-full.
• Studioware contains many financial reports that track your business’s profitability.

Studioware contains hundreds of features and is available for only $20 (USD) a Month!

Recent Enhancements

Studioware now tracks all of your communication with your students, staff, student contacts, and student payees with our new Custom Letters enhancement.  Custom Letters allow you to merge your Student or Staff data into a letter that can be emailed.  The Custom Letters can be emailed to individual students or staff, all the students from a class, all the students in your students, students with outstanding invoices…..you can even accumulate a list of students for a custom letter simply by searching for the student by their last name.

 

Read more about Custom Letters

Why do you need Custom Letters?

Consider these scenarios:

1. It’s the 16th of the month and you have overdue invoices that have not been paid-in-full.  You can use a custom letter to email the payees of the outstanding invoices to remind them a payment is due!  The custom letter can contain custom letter fields that can be merged with the student’s name and address, the list of the classes the student is enrolled in, the tuition charges on the student’s account, and a friendly reminder that the balance is due and is subject to a late fee if not paid.
2. The students/families of a class need to be reminded to order their costumes for the recital.  You can easily create a custom letter and email it to the students in a class….All with just the click of a button in Studioware.
3. You need to close the studio and cancel all classes because of bad weather in the winter.  You could email a custom letter to every student in the studio detailing the reason for the closed studio and any additional information you need to communicate.

Custom letters save you time and money by efficiently communicating with your students.  We encourage you to Logon to Studioware and try out the Custom letters.  If you have any questions or comments, please contact us at:

Studioware by QuestWare, LLC

www.Studioware-Online.com

Sales: sales@Studioware-Online.com

Support: support@Studioware-Online.com

Studioware July 2010 Newsletter



Studioware July 2010

Newsletter

Are You in Control of Your Studio?

Are you still running your studio on pieces of paper that are scattered across your desk?  Maybe you’ve organized your student and class lists in a spreadsheet, but you’re struggling to keep the information up to date (and you really could benefit from financial reports to help you run your business and guide your future decisions).

You need Studioware!

You Teach, Studioware does the rest!

Studioware tracks your students, staff, classes, invoices, payments, enrollment, waiting lists, schedules, financial transactions, and more.
Studioware saves you time by letting your students enroll and pay invoices online. This frees up your time to expand and grow your business.

And Studioware is only $20 (USD) a Month!

Recent Enhancements:

There have been a number of recent enhancements to Studioware since the last Newsflash:

1. We’ve enhanced the www.Studioware-Online.com website.  Check out the improved home page, the features and tour pages, and the testimonials at the bottom of every page.
2. There are 2 new reports:
   • Payments Detail Report: This report details all the payments received by your business for a specified time period.
   • Payments Daily Summary Report: This report summarizes the payment transactions for a specified time period. Together with the Income Statement Report, the Accounts Receivable Analysis Report, and the Class Revenue Report, you have a financial “snapshot” of your business.
3. When adding a financial transaction to a student’s account, you can now set the transaction date to any valid date (including dates in the past or future).
4.  You can now filter the student grids by student status.  Additionally, you can add student statuses to help organize your student lists.  For example, you could create a student status called “Interested” and use this status to add students that expressed interest in your studio but have not enrolled in any classes:
   

If you have any comments or questions about Studioware, please do not hesitate to contact us at sales@Studioware-Online.com.  If you forgot your Studioware account information, you can always retrieve it at http://www.studioware-online.com/Forgot

Thank you,
Studioware by QuestWare, LLC
www.Studioware-Online.com
sales@Studioware-Online.com
support@Studioware-Online.com

Studioware June 2010 Newsletter

Studioware June 2010

Newsletter

Studioware Pricing Change

We’ve made an exciting change to our pricing policy.  The pricing of the Premium Edition of Studioware has been greatly simplified.  Now the Premium Edition of Studioware is simply $20 (USD) per month.  The Premium Edition allows for unlimited students, staff, classes, schedules, enrollment (including online enrollment), invoices (including electronic invoices that can be sent via email and paid online), and much more. 

Please visit http://www.studioware-online.com/Pricing to view the new pricing policy changes or http://www.studioware-online.com/Logon to logon to your Studioware account.

Enhancements

 There have been a number of enhancements that have been implemented in Studioware in the last month:

1. Executive Dashboard:
   The Executive Dashboard has been redesigned and now includes statistical information such as the number of students, a breakdown of students by status, a list of outstanding invoices, “pinned” student notes, the percentage of full classes, announcements, and various pie charts and trending graphs, such as the income chart:
   
2. Classes and Schedules:
   Adding a class to Studioware has been made easier.  The class name and description, schedule, tuition, instructors are now all set in one convenient web page.  The class listing has also been simplified.  It’s a lot easier to see all of your classes, schedules, and enrollment.  The links beside each class allow you to Enroll Students, View the current enrollment (including the waiting list), reschedule a class, delete a class, or view the new Class Roll Report. 
   
3. Reporting:
   There is a new Class Roll Report (which displays a list of students that are enrolled in any class along with all the class dates) and a new Income Statement report that shows Income generated from tuition, sales, and registration fees along with Expenses and Taxes:
   

We hope that you will logon to Studioware today at http://www.studioware-online.com/Logon and check out all of the new features.  If you have any questions or comments about Studioware, please contact us at support@Studioware-Online.com.

Thank you,
          Studioware by QuestWare, LLC.

Studioware May 2010 Newsletter

Studioware May 2010

Newsletter

Welcome:

We’ve had a busy Spring with Studioware with over 50 Businesses signing up to try Studioware.  I welcome all of the business that are evaluating Studioware and if anyone has any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me (send me an email at support@studioware-online.com and I will promptly reply).  Now is the perfect time to use Studioware to help you manage your Spring/Summer classes.

Enhancements:

Recently, there has been three major enhancements with Studioware:

1. Online Class EnrollmentYour Students and Families can now enroll in your classes directly from your website. New students/familes will be prompted to registrer and existing students/familes will generate a password to access the Parent Portal. This is a huge time saver, now you don’t have to entry in your new student’s information and enroll them in classes, they do it themselves!…[more information]
2. Online Bill/Invoice PaymentsConsider this scenario: At the beginning of the month, you log into Studioware and click on a button to generate your student/families/payee invoices. The invoices are automatically generated and emailed to the payees. The email contains the invoice details and a “Pay Now” link. You students/families/payees simply click on the “Pay Now” link and you start collecting money! Studioware tracks the status of all invoices and provides reports of unpaid balances. Studioware makes running your business easier.
3. Studioware Premium EditionThe Basic Edition of Studioware is free and allows for unlimited Students, Staff, and Classes. The Premium Edition contains additional functionality that is not found in the Basic Edition. The Premium Edition is now available for purchase. Unlike all of our competitors, the Premium Edition only charges you for what you use…instead of a huge flat fee. For example, if your studio has 200 students but only 80 of them are currently enrolled in classes, the Premium Edition only charges you for the 80 students…[more information]

Customer Spotlight:

Here’s what Tracey Aitken from Zenergy Fitness Studio had to say about Studioware:

“I opened a small Fitness Studio four months ago and was in desperate need of a program that could help me organize my clients, classes, instructors, class income and accessories sold at the Studio. As a brand new businesswoman, I had no idea how to keep track of everything but Studioware proved to be instrumental in helping me build a solid organized system as the foundation for my company. Over the past four months, I have emailed dozens of questions and always get a prompt reply with the perfect solution. Donald from Studioware even took an hour out of his busy day to do a video conference with me, showing me step by step how to set up my classes. I cannot tell you how valuable that service was to me and how much I appreciated it. Studioware has asked my opinion when developing new sectors to their program and it’s been my pleasure to give my feedback. Studioware is the perfect program for my company and makes my life and my business run very smoothly. This program allowed me to organize everything is such an extensive fashion that it saves me a lot of time and confusion. If you’re looking for a program to help run your gym or studio, I highly recommend this program. Do yourself a favor, get Studioware.“

 

Thank you

Studioware by QuestWare, LLC.
www.Studioware-Online.com
sales@Studioware-Online.com
support@Studioware-Online.com

Video Tutorials

We just finished our first set of Video Tutorials.  These tutorials explain the basics of Studioware.  Check them out at:  www.studioware-online.com/Help/Videos

Here’s an example of a video:

This is a high-definition video, so make sure you view the video in full-screen mode !

Let us know what you think!
www.Studioware-Online.com

Progress Report

Hello All,

I apologize that it’s been while since I’ve made any posts to this Blog.  We’ve been really busy adding enhancements to Studioware.  I’m happy to say that “base” version of Studioware is complete.  All of the functionality that you need to manage your studio is available in Studioware.  You can manage your Students, Staff, Classes, Enrollment, and Accounting with Studioware.  Studioware also lets you create invoices and helps you track the invoice statuses.  Check out the new web site design too:  www.studioware-online.com

We are now in the process of completing the documentation and video tutorials.  We’ve created a number of video tutorials, and I think they look great!  Check them out at www.studioware-online.com/Help/Videos More videos are being added every day.

Remember, all versions of Studioware allow for an unlimited number of Students, Staff, and Classes.  Having said that, it’s important to note that Studioware by QuestWare LLC. is a business and we need to generate revenue.  Our new pricing model has been published on the web site.  Studioware’s pricing mode will follow a cost-per-student model.  There have been a number of questions about this model.  Stayed tuned for our next Blog posting that will clarify some of the pricing questions.

Thanks,

Donald.

Running a Successful School-Based Business, Part 1 of ?

Running a school based business is difficult! Whether you are running a Dance School, Music School, Martial Arts school or a Yoga School, you need to deal with Students, Staff, Classes, Schedules, Tuition, Attendance, Enrollment, Waiting list, and more….Selecting the appropriate software to help you run your business is critical.

The First Question:

The first question to answer when considering different software packages for your school based business is “Where does the software run”? This is an important first question because it will help you narrow down your search for software and eliminate software that does not meet your needs. There are really 2 (or 3) answers to this question:

1. The software runs on my computers.  For example, I purchased the software from a vendor and run it on computers that I own at my office.
2. The software is “Web-Based”.  This “web-based” or “online” software runs on the internet and I access it through WebBrowser (such as Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari, ….).
3. The 3^rd type of software is really a combination of items 1 and 2 above.   The main components of the Software are web-based, but there are some components that you run on your own local computers.  Several examples of this will be discussed in upcoming articles.

There are advantages and disadvantages to any software system and hopefully these series of articles will help educate you on your various choices.

Please visit www.Studioware-Online.com and try our School-Based software.

Web Site Launched

We are happy yo announce that we relased the first version of the web site.  Check it out and let us know what you think:

http://www.studioware-online.com/

We’ve decided that the Studioware will come in 2 versions:

1. Basic Edition:  The Basic Edition of Studioware will be free.  It will allow you unlimited students, staff, and classes.  There will be some reduced functionality compared to the Premium Edition, but it will be a great tool to get you started.
2. Premium Edition: The Premium Edition will include enhanced functionality and reporting.  There will be a monthly charge for the Premium Edition (yet to be determined).

We encourage you to try Studioware and share your feedback with us.