Instructions on how to import a csv file to Outlook: (From Microsoft Knowledgebase Article http://support.microsoft.com/kb/196743), such as MTH Calendar.
To use a Microsoft Excel workbook to import information, cancel everything in Microsoft Outlook, and then open up the file in Excel. To do this, follow these steps:
Reconciling lessons is an important part of using Music Teachers Helper. Here are some tips on ways to do it.
Reconciling can be as simple as checking off that something happened. It can also be the moment you adjust something for the record, such as date, time, or how much you charged for a particular lesson. You can even issue a credit or partial credit, and at the end of this post, I’ll discuss how I’m using this for a new lesson cancellation policy I’m trying out.
But the most useful part of reconciling a lesson is to add lesson notes. These can be very simple or whole chapters in the saga of one of your students! It depends on how much time you want to spend, and on how you plan to use the notes.
When I started using MTH, I was concerned with how much time I would spend on lesson notes. But not only have I found them helpful for my own teaching, they are also very effective and supportive of students, to the point where I think they help keep students learning, enjoying, and continuing their lessons more. If this helps students learn better and helps you keep them longer as students, it certainly pays for your time in writing them.
I still try to be efficient with lesson notes, though, and one of the best ways to do this (more…)
When tax time comes around, it’s helpful to see a list of all of your expenses, broken down into categories. Music Teacher’s Helper makes it very easy to do this, totaling up the amounts you’ve spent in each category over a period of time.
When you have an expense, such as office equipment, you can record it Music Teacher’s Helper with just a few clicks, and the report will be generated for you automatically. To record an expense, click on the “Billing” -> “Expenses & Other Income” menu. (more…)
On many occasions I have had students/parents want to stop their reoccurring payment with PayPal. Two years ago I even had a student with a reoccurring payment quit lessons, but did not stop the reoccurring payment. I had to refund the fee for this student for two years, until I was finally able to make contact with her this month and send her directions to stop the PayPal payment. Incidentally, each month when I rejected the payment, the credit card fee charged to me was also refunded.
Below are the steps to cancel a reoccurring payment sent to me from PayPal’s customer support. Copy and paste it to a file in case you need to send it to a student.
PayPal has become one of my hardest workers. Signing up and using PayPal is free and painless. Using PayPal with MTH is even better.
When a student pays by credit/debit card through PayPal, you get an immediate email from PayPal as well as MTH advising you of a student payment. That’s not all! MTH immediately updates the Accounts Receivables and credits the payment to the student’s account. What do you need to do? Nothing. The fee you are charged for a student making a credit card payment is $2.62. However, if you want have the funds transferred from PayPal to your bank account, there is no charge.
Occasionally I have a student, who has set up reoccurring payments through PayPal, wanting to stop the reoccurring payment and is unsure of the procedure. Below are instructions I received from PayPal to terminate reoccurring payments. I just copy and paste the information shown below in an email to the inquiring student. Try it. You will like it. (more…)
Do you use the Reports feature in Music Teachers Helper? I’m sure many teachers would be interested in how other teachers make use of reports, so please add a comment below and share your insights.
The report I use all the time, the daily summary report, just got better this week! I’d like to discuss that below, but first I’d like to encourage you to explore the reports if you haven’t already. They make a lot of information available to us very quickly, in about a dozen formats, such as bar graphs, pie charts, in addition to simply viewing the numbers. Most also can display information split out daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly. By calling up a report, we can quickly take a look at income from each student over time; the number of lessons we’ve taught; earnings from a particular student or (by holding the control key down while selecting) any selection of students; projected earnings for lessons scheduled ahead; and details on students who owe money.
The report called “Student Account Summary” not only shows all the charges and payments but also all lesson notes for the periods selected, so you or a student can see quite a bit of information on one page about what the student has been working on. This report is similar to the Lesson History under the “Lessons” tab, but quicker to access and easier to print or email.
The Daily Summary Report (look under Reports tab, last report) is my favorite, and it just got better this week because it now lists whether a student has credits on account. This seemingly simple change means that I can know on the spot at a lesson where a student stands in lesson payments. I can remind a student who owes today, or answer a question if a student wonders how many more paid lessons they have. (more…)
Have you ever been at another computer and could not log in? Has a student or parent reported login problems? When logging in, the screen returns to the Login Screen.
My website, ronniecurrey.net, is directed to MTH. Sometimes, at school or at another computer, I am not able to Login. Why? Because the security level on many commercial computers is set so that a link cannot be redirected to another link.
EXAMPLE: By typing ronniecurrey.net, I am redirected to www.currey.musicteachershelper.com. If I am at a computer, such as a school computer, I am not allowed to be redirected. Instead, I am asked for my user ID and password again.
The solution: Go directly to the site, such as www.currey.musicteachershelper.com instead of ronniecurrey.net. It works every time. I frequently will have a parent complain about not being able to log into MTH. This fix gets the parents in every time.
Remember, this is not a problem with MTH, but with the security level on the computer or server being used.
When scheduling an event in MTH, you are asked to name a category. By clicking on EDIT CATEGORIES, you can add categories or edit existing categories.
Categories I have set up are Available Makeup Slot, Open Slot, Makeup Lesson, Workshop, Studio Closed, Guitar Lesson, Piano Lesson, Bass Lesson, Voice Lesson, Studio Business, and Personal Business.
Each of the categories are color coded, making it easy to look at the calendar and spot different events. Students and parents find that the color coding makes it easy to spot makeup times on their web page in MTH. At a glance I can find Open Slots or Available Makeup Slots by looking for the color.
How creative are you with the Category function in MTH? Do you have any other other ideas in using this function?
As a private music teacher just opening my studio, I found that finding private students via online lesson directories and flier mailings was slow going. However, with a few phone calls to local pubic high schools, I was able to get involved as a voice teacher in their after school music lesson programs. This was the perfect solution to my budding studio, connecting me to a large volume of interested and reliable students.
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of teaching in an after school program, and what steps should be taken to begin teaching private lessons in the public schools.
(more…)
If you have many students, it can be tricky to find the open time slots in your schedule. An easy way to use MTH to help you do this is to create a name that is just for your open times. Be sure when you create the imaginary students profile that you enter a $0.00 for the lesson cost and you leave the email address blank unless you want to receive daily reminders of all of your open time slots.
Create events for the open time slots and make them repeating events through the end of your semester or school year. Assign them to your imaginary student (or leave them as global events that students must register for) and title the event available (or something like that) When you need to find open time spots, simply change the view to the name of your imaginary student and you will be able to see all of the available lesson times.
When a student would like to register for that lesson time, simply change the name to that student and their lesson will be scheduled through the end of the school year. Once a student discontinue
s lessons simply change the lesson back to your imaginary student.
