My Music Staff

Vorteile

Scheduling with family portal; auto-invoicing and autopay; automated reminders; options for to host with MMS or embed MMS features on your website.

Nachteile

I’ve grown with MMS // I started using it almost right from their beginning. I was looking for something to help manage my growing student list and have stuck with them through some growing pains as they’ve vastly updated over the last 2yr (was on the beta testing team!).

Vorteile

It simplifies everything - sign up process, scheduling, lesson reminders, email and text blasts, billing, lesson notes. And it makes me look more professional in the process.

Nachteile

There was a bit of a learning curve, but the free zoom call orientation was helpful. Currently - I'm switching over to sending lesson notes via my music staff (I used to do it in email threads). I don't like how students need to log in to view my attachments, it would be better if they could just simply download them from the email they are sent.

Also, the repertoire and online resources sections to me feel like they should be combined into one thing. I don't find the repertoire section very useful, because all of the repertoire I want to assign comes with a PDF I've made. I'd love to be able to "assign repertoire" and that actually just links them to my PDF

Vorteile

Overall, the platform is intuitive and focuses on the needs of the student and instructor - It's clear that My Music Staff was created by music instructors, which is great. Additionally, it is very cost effective.

Nachteile

I wish the process for verifying and setting up bank accounts for auto payments was more streamlined. Also, having sample document templates for student intake and onboarding would be a great addition. Lastly, while the messaging feature is helpful, it would be even stronger if students and instructors could communicate directly within the platform instead of relying on email.

Vorteile

Ease of viewing my weekly schedule, option to create a make-up slot for only people who have make-ups available (even though I don't use that feature because I don't allow make-ups).

Nachteile

Adding payments and taking attendance all seems clunky. There are so many clicks. I wish there was a way to "select all" for a day when adding lesson adjustments or whatever. I have to go in and out of the schedule to see who is getting credits when I miss a day, etc. My students are constantly getting locked out of their account, and we're having to try password resets and I'm re-sending welcome messages. When setting up an ACH it has taken so long and I don't seem to be notified of what's happening. It's been ongoing for a couple of weeks with this one family.

Vorteile

I love that they have integrated all of software needs to run my business in one place! I have used MMS for close to 10 years and it has been the BEST decision that I’ve made for my business!!

Nachteile

I wish there was a dedicated app, instead of having to use my browser, but that is a very insignificant complaint. 😁

Vorteile

I LOVE the calendar system, attendance system, student/parent portal, and the simple integration with Stripe for payments that populates from the calendar. It saves so many hours each week!

Nachteile

I wish it was easier to schedule staff meetings in MMS, and I would love it if teachers could have their own connected student account that we could put in Performances and Meetings/Events.

Vorteile

Keeping up with my invoicing and payments has been a game changer!

Nachteile

I’d like my emails to look more professional like a newsletter.
I don’t know how.

Vorteile

Everything I need in one place to manage a teaching business

Nachteile

Setting assignments for students could be more gamified and fun, however this could be more down to my approach to be fair

Vorteile

I appreciate the great customer service during the initial set-up. They were very patient, answered my many questions, but they also suggested effective practices that I hadn't thought of made my experience wonderful.

Nachteile

I haven't used it enough to have a strong con to share. I'm still learning.

Vorteile

My favourite aspect of My Music Staff is that it is a fully integrated scheduling and book keeping system.

Nachteile

Sometimes it takes some trial and error to find what I'm looking for, or wanting to change. At first, learning the system was a bit difficult.

Vorteile

It really helps me run my business. From collecting waitlist information, scheduling classes, collecting payments, and keeping track of business expenses for tax time, it has been easy to use and helps take a lot of the busy work of running a music school off my plate. I also really like the make-up credit option for my piano students.

Nachteile

It is confusing to start. The learning curve is steep. I also don't like that the website has to be encrypted onto my current website, because my current website is through Canva, which doesn't allow encryption.

Vorteile

All in one sight to manage my business from students, to payments, to lessons notes, to back office admin features

Nachteile

There’s so much stuff that it was hard to remember where to find what

Vorteile

I do not have the time to collect checks and Venmos and cash from 50 families every month. It's just me, no employees, so My Music Staff is like hiring someone to do all the tuition for me. It's made all the difference. Now I can just focus on being a good teacher and connecting with my students.

Nachteile

Sometimes the amount that it says I'm owed doesn't make sense to me. I may be understanding it incorrectly. It's also a bit hard to find out who hasn't paid, or who has had an issue with their card. Some cards take longer to go through, and it would be nice to have one place where I could see all of that. Maybe it already exists and I haven't found it yet.

Vorteile

I find new things pretty much every day that make it easier for me. I like the addition of the pencil at the top of each category, which is a great prompt.

Nachteile

I find the revenue section incredibly difficult to understand. I wish the day view on the calendar had a little more information. Also, living in Australia makes it hard to have any answers to questions in a timely manner. It would be great to have access to help outside of normal hours in Canada. I would also like to see Quickbooks integrate with My Music Staff.

Vorteile

I honestly wouldn't be able to do this job without Mymusicstaff. It's works like a well oiled machine with everything linking in. On the odd occasion I've needed technical support, this has been easy and timely.

Nachteile

Literally can't think of anything - all I need is included.

Vorteile

My Music Staff was a game changer for me in terms of managing multiple clients, classes and locations that I work from. It helped me to consolidate my calendar, my billing and payments, my class notes and all my files for online lessons. Overall it's a great platform if you would like to consolidate all your client information and manage your studio well.

Nachteile

My only criticism is the amount of upgrades lately and there is not indication of what will change when you're asked to upgrade. I would love to go back to the old model sometimes because I miss the student notes being visible instead of an attachment. I also don't like that if I have a missed class I cannot add payment to the note, I have to go in separately and add the payment from billing. Otherwise I have no complaints.

Vorteile

Love the calendar organization features, being able to see all my students info and arrange my time appropriately. It also comes with a website to build that I utilize. Also helps me track my invoices and payments in a timely manner.

Nachteile

Downside is no app available, but I hear it's in the works

Vorteile

I love the ease of organizing and tracking my students. I easily set up recurring time slots and set permanent weekly times for each student. I can also send mass messages and emails about recitals and news. It automatically sends invoices each month and I can customize my fees for each one if I'd like to give discounts, for example.

Nachteile

I wish it had an app, though the developers have been constantly updating and improving it for as long as I've used it (over two years).

Vorteile

I love that My Music Staff integrates my Studio Calendar, my billing, and allows me to track my income and business expenses. Having all of that in one location saves me so much time when doing my taxes each year!My students find it very easy to work with when they need to swap out their lesson time occasionally.

Nachteile

It took me a while to understand some of the details of the invoicing process. There are still times when the charges are not what I expected them to be.

Vorteile

The best features are the automatic invoicing based on the calendar, the reminder texts and emails, the registration form and how I can put it on my website through Weebly, and the student management.

Nachteile

There is no way for two parents to each pay half of a bill for a student. I have worked around this by making a second "student" for the second parent to pay for. I also don't like how the invoices are specific enough and will just say "balance forward" instead of what the charge was. I wish I could customize the left sidebar to take out the features I don't use.

Vorteile

I love the ease of scheduling/invoicing, those are the two features I use the most. Both are absolutely critical to the way my studio functions, and it allows both me and my students/parents to be on the same page at all times (which is super important to me!). Additionally, their customer support is UNMATCHED. The few times I have had to email when I ran into issues, I received a near immediate response and the issues were resolved in record time.

Nachteile

Sometimes it isn’t the most intuitive program, but they offer superior customer support and zoom tutorials in order to help navigate this.

Vorteile

I love that this does everything for me - online library, booking, billing, record keeping, linking to my website. I will NEVER go back to the way I used to do things.

Nachteile

There are a few bugs and tricky things to figure out - like setting up MMS reminders, allowing students to book during cancelled lesson slots without using a makeup credit.

Vorteile

Integrating MMS was incredibly easy. There are a few small features they could add to make it even easier but overall it went quickly enough. I love the transparent (and inexpensive) per teacher pricing. Uptime is fantastic; I don't think I've ever experienced the site being down.

Nachteile

MMS is great but not quite mature. I appreciate the really solid uptime but the site can be very slow. As an administrator, I am used to the system and I can generally make it do what I want. My teachers sometimes complain about it (navigating to the contact information for the parents of a child student can be a pain, and has to be explained to them because it's not obvious) but overall they enjoy having student and schedule info at their fingertips. None of them make use of the notes, repertoire, library, etc. so these features don't do much for us though they seem like solid features

Vorteile

MMS is easy to use and understand and when on the rare occasion you have a question you can talk to a live tech support person within hours. Having that immediate help is critical in my busy studio.

Nachteile

I wish I could add e transfer payments automatically although I know that is impossible. It is pretty quick and easy but I just forget to do it during my busy days.

Vorteile

It's intuitive, very user friendly, easily lets me reconcile lessons & contact parents, and invoicing has never been easier!

Nachteile

I wish there were keyboard shortcuts in the Lesson Notes section for things like bullet points, numbers points like there are in Google Docs or Microsoft word. Small thing, but it would be great.

Vorteile

I liked the fact that I could have my teaching business all in one place, and their's a student portal I can share all my resources.

Nachteile

Every month the invoices and Family Accounts don't match up.
Invoices don't make sense most of the time, and if you use the balance brought forward option, it is more often that not, wildly inaccurate.
I have been left out of pocket on so many occasions, cos invoices are generated incorrectly from the system.
Family accounts are invariably wrong, despite inputting the correct information.
My books never balance!
I have raised the issue with MMS countless times, and each time they fob me off with generic user manual spiel, but never resolve the issue.
The customer service is appalling.
Am looking for a new system to use, cos their accounts management is so inaccurate it's really damaging my business now.

Vorteile

Has saved me a ton of time with auto-invoicing and automated reminders for lessons and payments!

Nachteile

There is little that I dislike about it. It would possibly be nice to have an app for my phone, but the website works just fine on my phone. It could be nice to have a link to share with families when you are getting started with the site with an informational video or instructions.

Vorteile

I like the all-in-one inclusiveness of scheduling, bookkeeping, tracking mileage, etc.

Nachteile

It was quite difficult to navigate and find certain settings and features early on, and I've gotten pretty used to it but it'd be nice if certain features were a bit more streamlined and user-friendly.

Vorteile

Helps SO MUCH with scheduling! Takes out the coordinating schedules component, and puts the responsibility on the parents to log in and find an opening.

Nachteile

No complaints here! However, it's just me and 16-20 students, so I don't use ALL the features.

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Vorteile

It has every feature I have needed for scheduling, invoicing, payment record, make-up lessons….you name it!

Nachteile

Non. I’m really delighted by this product.

Vorteile

Where to start?
I think the Number 1 reason I love MMS is because of its features. They have truly thought of everything a teacher would need to track schedule and communicate with their students. Anything I personally wanted to try or change in regards to my lessons that I teach was somehow already available for me to utilize. Its as if music teachers themselves designed it.

Next is the ease of use. I have never experienced an online tool so simple and so intuitive. I learned the entire sites basic functions in a matter of days and within a week I was a pro using the advanced settings. Literally anytime I couldn't figure how something worked or anytime I had to troubleshoot any minor issue, I could resolve it within a matter of minutes by simply searching other areas of the site. Since the entire platform so seamlessly integrates one section to another, I.e contact information, billing, calendar events, etc... there is typically more than one way to solve any issue quickly. and if for some reason you cannot solve the issue on your own, MMS has an extensive FAQ list to guide you and incredibly responsive customer service team.

I could go on as well about the cheap cost, personal customization options, and a plethora of other things but my main point is that if you own a music business, schedule reoccurring lessons on even a monthly basis you need to use this site period.

Nachteile

Nothing. Truly. I even expected a small learning curve and even that didn't happen as I was able to use this product efficiently from day one.

Vorteile

Auto invoicing saves me an incalculable amount of time. The schedule layout is intuitive. Pricing is an upfront $10 per month plus $5 per staff member with zero hidden fees or costs.

Nachteile

I've had some very minor quality of life complaints that the support team has added to their list. I'd really like to be able to accept Venmo, which they say is on the horizon. No complaints that would actually make me stop using the program.

Vorteile

My Music Staff allows me to have everything in one place and is very affordable for everything that it offers. As a college student working on building an independent music studio, My Music Staff was perfect for me.

Nachteile

I have no complaints about My Music Staff.

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Vorteile

My Music Staff has made my life as a music teacher a thousand times easier! The site is intuitive to use for my students and for me, the ease of accepting regular online payments has subtracted hours of administrative time, and I love the ability to create a library of online resources for my students. MMS has helped me to feel calm and organized and to focus more on my teaching.

Nachteile

I really do like everything about the site and heartily recommend it. The only difficulty I've ever encountered is when there is an update and something has moved - but in that case, the excellent customer service has always helped me sort things out.

Vorteile

I get alot of use with the calendar, scheduling, makeup lessons and rescheduling. I am able to keep track of what I assign to my students. I also discovered some learning downloads, which have been very useful.

Nachteile

I have not used the invoicing portion of the program...I used it for one month, but mad a mess of the billing.

Vorteile

It's been so easy to invoice students & track my mileage. Love how inexpensive it is as I'm just starting my studio this makes things easier for me to focus on other expenses.

Nachteile

I would love to be able to edit the blogs a bit more.

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Vorteile

Ability to have all student data in one place

Nachteile

The email feature is very limited in fonts and formats. I would like more options in font style (particularly Garamond so it matches my studio brand)

Vorteile

I have been using MMS since 2020 when my whole studio went online. Their customer support is fantastic and their team is always available to talk over the phone. Emails are responded to quickly and they always have a solution for my issues.My favorite feature is the auto-invoicing and auto-payment. The website has saved me countless hours of invoice logging, tracking down payments, and scheduling since I can automate everything.I schedule all my lessons through MMS and It's nice that my students can launch their Zoom lesson right from the portal.

Nachteile

I really want to make MMS my ultimate hub for my students to access all their materials and video lessons, as well as send me videos and track their practice. However, I think this is where MMS is really lacking. The last couple of updates have been great but the system still feels like it is stuck in the early 2000's. I'm fairly techy so I haven't had a problem figuring out how to navigate MMS, but students and parents who are not techy at all really struggle, so these features end up being neglected by them. I really struggle to get any of my studio members to use the practice log and send me videos of their practice because it's just not intuitive or easy to access. The Online Resources is an improvement, but even then the filing system is really clunky. I would love to especially see an update of how files are delivered to students. Right now you can email students to notify them that a video or file has been added to their Online Resources. However, when they click the file link in their email they are taken to their home page and not directly to the file I have shared with them.

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Vorteile

It’s easy to use for our teachers and clients. The interface is clean and straight forward. We have almost never had to teach someone the interface.

Nachteile

Where it counts most my music staff fails. The most critical failure is in their financial ledger. It is possible to entirely mess up a client ledger if a lesson is accidentally removed from the calendar. Or if a rate is changed. It’s a rule of finance that you NEVER make changes to a ledger after the end of the month is closed out and an invoice created. My music staff happily goes back in time and makes changes to billing that are nearly impossible to find. Zero stars in that category.

Also they’ve made design decisions that are absolutely backwards of what you would expect. Such as needing to edit every single lesson to change the time zone of the studio.

Vorteile

My Music Staff provides a clear value for the money. The ease of scheduling and tracking income and expenses has made a huge difference in my productivity. More time is spent on teaching (and earning), far less on administration.

Nachteile

The single-day view on the calendar needs improvement. Currently, it divides lessons by location. This makes sense for a multi-teacher studio. However, for one teacher who is moving between locations, it's really confusing. Sometimes I just need to be able to look QUICKLY and see the day's lessons, not have to jog back and forth over three columns.

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Vorteile

The calendar is my favourite feature, but it's more than that. It's how all the additional features work together with the calendar for efficiency and organization. Without My Music Staff, I would not be able to keep up with the number of students my school now has.

Nachteile

The only thing that comes to mind is how make-up lessons are recorded under teacher payroll when a substitute teacher is involved. The original teacher is given the income from a cancelled lesson instead of the substitute, but is corrected only if the substitute teacher gives a make-up lesson. The substitute should be the one being compensated regardless.

Vorteile

The calendar and invoicing systems are the BEST!!!!

Nachteile

Some of the menu options do not fit on a desktop screen so I have to "scroll" to the right or left to "see" everything. I would prefer that all information is "viewable" on one screen.

Vorteile

The schedule is easy to set up and manage. Tracking attendance and sending lesson notes is straightforward and easy. Communicating with families is also easy. Invoicing is straightforward, but doesn't allow me to set up a percentage per student for the ach fees I have to charge for those students whose lessons are paid for under a state education program.

Nachteile

Bank fees for those students who pay online are easy. Other fees, especially those that are percentages of the invoice are not accommodated, subsequently, I literally have to manual create invoices for 85% of my students every month.

Vorteile

We have cut our time spent tracking attendance and therefore invoicing by 75% It’s really easy to use and customer service has been impeccable. They are quick to respond and helpful when they do. Plus there is a Facebook group available for community - other users of MMS where often answers are found with a quick search in the group

Nachteile

I do wish there was an app currently available, but the website functions great on my mobile device in the meantime.

Vorteile

I like that it is an all-in-one product. In my other business, I had to have five different products to manage everything. I also enjoy that you can see the balances owed right on the home screen so that I don't have to go looking for it or forget about it when student shows up.

Nachteile

I wish that when you open to take attendance on a lesson that the notes of the lesson and the attendance/payment were in a horizontal space instead of vertical, so you could see it all at once, then the previous lesson notes could be in a row beneath it. The calendar could resize too to fit the screen so we don't have to scroll through the whole thing. More opportunities to try the features. There are so many features and I have no idea how to use them or even get started. I've tried looking up tutorials, but they're very generic and not sure how to fit them to my studio. It's also hard to get students to practice. On the student side, could there be an opportunity to motivate kids to practice? Like... for every 10 mins they practice they get points and they can build those up at their studio for a prize (presented by the teacher?) Or even do more of a community thing where the whole studio group of students works to get 1 big prize for the studio from MMS?

Vorteile

Everything that I mentioned about MMS being the best possible music lesson software out there on the previous page! The best things are it allows students to make payments via Stripe, and has a fantastic scheduling and lesson notes system.

Nachteile

Only thing I could say is that the formatting for lesson notes can be a little glitchy sometimes. Otherwise everything's perfect.

Vorteile

My very favorite part of my music staff is invoicing! And I love her students can manage their lesson cancellations in the calendar. My music staff has a small price to pay, but ultimately helps me manage my earnings and probably saves me money in the long run because it is much easier to keep track of cancellations and make up lessons. I also really like how I have opportunity to have a website. Another big favorite aspect of the program of mine is that students can register themselves into Recitals.

Nachteile

The concept of make up classes is sometimes hard to get across to students, but the functionality is fine! The phone app is a little hard to use, especially when trying to edit titles of news and blog posts. Sometimes it freezes. But this is a very minor part of my use of my music staff.

Vorteile

It’s though to pin point, but I think my favourite is the website feature, I absolutely love I have this under one roof and how I get a notification new families have signed up and they’re already in the system. Once you get to learn the website feature you really can make it your own, im actually proud of the website I’ve been able to build through My Music Staff!

Nachteile

It would be great if when parents are signing up their child that they have the option to select what classes they’re enrolling in and the system automatically puts them into those correct classes on the calendar. - Another great featre is if there were more ways to pay online other than PayPal, if parents could click pay now and enter their card details and funds get deposited into the business account that would be a life changer- or if somehow my music staff was partnered with after pay for families to pay their invoices in instalments… I know a few families would opt for that option!- ultimately helping small business get paid on time and not having to chase invoices! I’m in Sydney Australia and I know my families wouldn’t opt for PayPal unfortunately. Also an app would be perfect!

Vorteile

I love being able to manage 100s of students and 10s of teachers in MMS. We are able to easily contact every one and schedule them.

Nachteile

I dislike the fact that there is no API to help us connect ClickFunnels and be able to enroll our summer campers in a more streamlined way.

Vorteile

This platform offers a wide range of features that cater to all my teaching and student organization needs in one place. I particularly appreciate the calendar, attendance, and invoicing system, which have significantly automated my manual processes, saving me a considerable amount of time.There are lots of features which cover all of my needs for teaching and organising students in one place, I like the calendar feature, attendance, and invoicing system which really automated a lot of my manual processes and saves lots of time.

Nachteile

It would be beneficial to update the appearance of the platform and have a corresponding mobile application. Additionally, adding more features to the calendar, such as the ability for parents to switch lesson times with other parents, would be useful. It would also be helpful to have features that allow me to monitor my students' progress, reward positive behavior, and discipline negative behavior. Currently, I am using Class Dojo for this purpose, but integrating these features into My Music Staff would be ideal since Class Dojo is not directed for use by music teachers.