Music Teacher's Helper Blog

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.  The report used to only show if a student was behind and owed money, but now it shows credits if the student has paid in advance, $0 if they will owe today, and amounts due if they are behind in payments.

In addition to the financial info, this report shows me my schedule for the day, including student name, start time, length of lesson, location, and–best of all–shows lesson notes from the last lesson each student took.  I like to enter lesson notes when reconciling the calendar events, and usually check the box which emails the notes to my student, who benefits from the emailed reminder of what we did at the lesson, received at a quiet time at home or work. 

The lesson notes help both the student and me–you can even check the box “Email me my summary every day” when opening the report, in order to receive a daily email of your lesson schedule and student info, without even having to open Music Teachers Helper.

In the daily summary, I like seeing what we did in the last lesson, and by reviewing these notes before teaching, I can be reminded if I need to bring or prepare special materials for any students that day.  If a student comes for a lesson who hasn’t been for a while, it’s great to see just what we did the last time.  For example, I have a student who lives 1000 miles away and comes in for a lesson every time he visits his friend (girlfriend, I think!) in our town, so the report reminds me what we did last time he was in town, and I can build on that.

I have set up my printing of the daily summary report in my browser to allow me to show the report with large margins and at 80% so I have room to write and can read it more easily in a column rather than across the whole page.  At times I’ve set up the printing so that it fits a 4×6 notebook page, and with a portable Daytimer paper punch in the notebook, I can put the summary report into a notebook and easily refer to it at lessons, and even refer back to previous weeks if need be.  I’m not always so organized, so sometimes I just stick the printout in my pocket and refer to it, make notes lesson there, and enter the notes when I reconcile the lesson later.