I have taught piano lessons on and off through the years, depending on what my job/gig schedule looks like, family life, church commitments, etc. This past fall I returned to teaching with a new goal: build a studio/schedule that works with my family life, rather than against it! And I am happy to share what is working in that regard this year!
SCHEDULING
For the time being, I am only teaching homeschoolers so that I can be available to my family after school and weekends.
I planned my nine-month studio schedule around my kids’ school schedule, including breaks and holidays.
Built into the studio schedule are 5 group lessons/piano parties that take the place of individual lessons. This gives my students an opportunity to play for each other, have fun with music theory and music history by playing games and viewing/listening to short musical excerpts, and it gives me a break from teaching individual lessons every 4-6 weeks.
TUITION MODEL
I used to charge families per month for however many lessons they/I would be available for. This was a recipe for disaster, as I inevitably had very lean months (December, summer) with little to no income, and if students didn’t show due to illness or vacations, I also lost money.
This year I added up all the lessons from my studio calendar, multiplied them by my hourly rate, and divided the total by 9 (total months in my studio school year). Then I asked parents to commit to a monthly payment (the same each month, regardless of the number of lessons given that month) or two semester payments (the total amount divided by two). I invoice families each month, get paid regularly, and don’t have to stress over lean months any more!
WAVE ACCOUNTING
A friend introduced me to the free Wave accounting platform. I use it for tracking expenses and creating/sending/tracking invoices. It is easy to learn, and I can customize my invoices and communication with my own logo and information. I can even reconcile income/expenses with receipts and bank statements every month, and then can print reports of where the money is going. This made getting ready for taxes very easy, as I could just print the reports I needed and hand them off to our accountant.
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I love finding ways to work smarter! If only everything could be this simple…!