Introduction
The Dance School Manager combines the speed and versatility of the Windows environment coupled with the convenience but slower and more restricted facilities of the internet. In the Windows environment you can select and manipulate your data with ease while the internet allows your parents and students access to their own data as well as viewing your more general school data.More over Dance School Manager is "Multi School", so if you run a Street Dance School in Dover and a Ballet school in Perth, Dance School Manager can handle both of them and maintain separate accounts for each. One administrator is running 21 independent schools from a single Dance School Manager package.
There are no restrictions on the numbers of Pupils, Teachers, Locations etc in the package so Dance School Manager will grow with your school(s).
Basic Set Up
When you first start Dance School Manager you will be guided through the essential basic information, the name of your school(s), the locations at which you hold classes, your teachers, and when your term starts and stops.Class Management
Classes form the spine of your data and Dance School Manager allows you to specify them giving not only the class name, but the time it takes place and where, the cost, who will be teaching it and many more factors such Private Class Indicator and the class grouping if you wish to give different discounts for different classes. Yo can also mark classes as "Video" which menas your students can gain access to their video class via your DSM web site. (No more emails with codes and hope they can get to you)Registration
Off Line Registration
Student Families, and Students can be recorded togther with their contact information, and for the students any relevant personal data that will assist in their teaching. For your convenience the Student page presents a searchable list of all the families to be certain you have the right "Smith" together with a list of the "Smith" family students and the classes they attend. All this on one page without the need for pulling up multiple pages for each family.The student page also allows you to place students in classes but warns you if the class is over attended and automatically places the student in the waiting list. You can also specify if the student is to have trial classes. You can create and print a Mail Merged letter for any or multiple families Of course there is tha ability to EMail any (or multiple) families using the EMail Merge facilities, incorporate a Mail Merged letter, or even attach a document you have created outside Dance School Manager. So if you wish you can send your standard "Welcome" email to all newly registered families starting with the family name (Dear Mrs Smith....) with just four buttons clicks.
On Line Registration
The On Line registration facilities provide for the family to enter their registration information from any PC/Smart Phone browser and to indicate the type of classes they would like their students to attend. As an option under your control, students may register for classes of their choise, but only under the conditions that you set. Then when you next turn on your office computer you will be presented with a list of the new registrants, so that you can either verify the classes they have selected for themselves or allocate their classes and send that "Welcome" email.Class Allocation
The most normal way to allocate students to classes is through the Student screen, however you can also do this through the Register screen, or use the more graphical Class Allocation Screen. In the Register screen you can also "Drag and Drop" students from one class to another which is useful at the beginning of term, while in the Class Allocation screen you can just click the intersection of a student with a class to add or delete them from that class.Registers
With the advent of GDPR registers are becomming a part of history, but you can still print a register for each class, or of course all classes at one go if you want. There is versatility in the information that can be incorporated in the header of the registers, and an additional supplementary sheet can contain student details such as parent contact information, all selectable through the register options.Electronic Register
GDPR places a high responsibility on you to protect your family and student private information, and carrying registers with this information is one way of loosing it. Dance School Manager therefore provides an On Line facility for your teachers to access their class list and mark attendance using their smart phone (iPad or similar). The teacher just logs on and is presented with only their class list for that day. They can mark student attendance and add comments which are buffered in the Dance School Manager Server sent back to your computer when you switch on. In the event that the students parents need to be contacted the teacher can access this information with a single click of the class list. The important point is that only the information needed is displayed and no information is ever left on the phone or iPad so there is no danger that the information can be lost or compromised.Fee Invoicing and Discount Schemes
Invoicing, once you have set up your discount scheme, is a dodle. Just open the invoicing screen, click email if you want to send by email, and click "Email Save All". Then.. well nothing else... you have sent all your invoices.Invoicing automatically takes care of classes added later in the term. So if Mary starts a new class and you do an invoice run she will be charged only for the additional class from the date she started it.
Any invoices which cannot be sent by E Mail are automatically left open so that you can print them.
Invoicing Period
The default invoicing period is for the term, but you can select to invoice for whatever period you wish, 4 weeks, 6 weeks, a month, 26 weeks if your term extends that long. Furthermore you can select to invoice for the whole period or for a number of parts eg 3 monthly payments of £.... OR if you only take cash in advance you can convert the invoice into a receipt and have it marked "Payment Received dated....".Different families can be invoiced differently. So for example you can have one group of families that you invoice per term, and another group you invoice monthly.
Discounts
Most schools offer a small discount for those who attend more than one class and this is supported by Dance School Manager, however you can set up much more advanced discount schemes. For the basic number of classes you simply enter the number of classes to give a discount for, say 3, and the percentage or fixed discount, say 5%. If you want to give more for more classes simply add the next number of classes and the percentage, eg 5 and 7.5%. This would give you 0-2 classes no discount, 3-4 classes 5% discount and 5 or more classes 7.5% discount.General discounts can be based on student classes, family classes, student hours, family hours, number of siblings, and several more complex formulas. Different class types can have their own schemes so you can apply a different scheme to say Ballet and Tap or Pre Ballet and Graded Ballet, or Monday classes and Saturday classes.
It has been found that parents respond more to an incentive discount (if you pay before ... you will get £... off your bill) than threatening to charge interest on overdue accounts. Dance School Manager can arrange either a percentage or fixed incentive discount, or convert the general discount into an incentive (5% off 3 classes but only if you pay before ...).
Extras
Extras can cover a multitude of sins. They can be added for such things as Admin Charges, Costume charges, Pianist charge ... A favourite trick is to make an extras charge that covers your incentive discount. Add on £20 then offer £20 discount if paid before ... That way you lose nothing.Extras can be set up to be added just once, eg a registration fee, or for the first invoice of each term, and can be switched on or off at will.
Credits and Debits
Optionally you can add to the invoice any under or over payment. So if the family still owes you money the invoice can have added "But you currently owe £... so you now need to pay £..." or conversely "You currently have a credit of £... so you now only need to pay £..."Return Slip
In most cases a Return Slip is printed at the bottom of the invoice. On this you can select what what types of payment you are prepared to receive, Cash; Cheque; Bank Transfer; and if you select Bank Transfer then a Reference is generated which is unique to that family.In Switzerland and other administrations that allow it, you can print a bank payment slip like you have on the bottom of your gas or electricity bill.
Translation
The primary language of Dance School Manager is English, but if you have families that use other languages then you can translate the invoice. For example German, Welsh, Spanish and the language of the invoice is selected on a family by family basis.Incidental Invoicing
There will be occasions when you need to raise invoices for "other" items, trips to the theatre, Special exams ... To do this open the Incidental Invoice page identify the family and type in what the invoice is for, how much, and click Email.Frequently you will want to sent the same (identical) invoice to several families. In this case after the first invoice is sent just select the other families and click "Clone to all". (Saves a lot of typing!!!).
Payments Received
When you receive a payment simply open the Payments page, identify the family the payment was received from, enter the amount paid and Post it.If you are running multiple schools then you will be shown how the money is allocated to each school, and you can change this before the payment is posted.
Dance School Manager accounts are managed like a credit card. Several invoices can be raised and then a payment received. The payment is allocated to the oldest invoice first.If you accept bank transfers and you can get a text list of your acount from your bank, then you can read this automatically. The program scans the bank statement for any Dance School Manager references and uses the information to credit the family account.
Statements
Dance School Manager will produce statements just like a credit card statement and can email these. Use these as a reminder for none paid accounts.Expences
Dance School Manager will keep a record of your expences which are used to generate your tax return information (see below).
Stock Management
If an expence relates to purchase of costume and anything else you want to sell then Dance School Manager will record this purchase in the stock list together with the number purchased, price and mark-up.Point of Sale
The Incidental Invoice page can also be used as a Point Of Sale system. Instead of entering free text as the subject of the invoice simply drop down the stock list and select the item to be sold. The number of items sold are deducted from the stock list automatically.End of Term
At the end of term you can create the next term and simply copy all the classes and class allocations into the new term. Any changes in the class schedule and then be entered (a lot less work than entering all the classes again) and any Students that have changed classes can be "Dragged and Dropped" into their new class.After the new term has been entered you can view either the new term or the old term or indeed any term further back, so if you want to know which classes Mary was in last year just select the relevant term for display.
As you create the new term you can apply a general increase in price eg 2%. This saves having to re-enter the cost of each class, and of course this is taken into account automatically when invoices are calculated.
VAT Returns
Most schools have found ways of avoiding VAT since it makes you none competitive with your rivals. However if you are VAT registered Dance School Manager can automatically add VAT to your invoices (if your prices don't already include them). Similarly if you record your expenses then the VAT element is isolated from these. Then when you have to make your VAT return Dance School Manager will automatically list and sum your invoices giving you the value to enter for your Sales, list and sum all your Expenses for your Claims, and list all expenses not attracting VAT so that you can double check these. You then "Freeze" the VAT return so that in the next period Dance School Manager knows what has already been taken into account and what has not.End of Year Tax Returns
If you have been entering your expenses throughout the year, then at the end of the year all you need to do is ask for your Tax Return Data. This can be on a Cash basis which suits most schools, or an invoice basis if your school is big enough. At the moment this is based on the UK tax analysis but can be reset for other countries.Reports
Apart from the accounting lists, Dance School Manager provides a Family List, A Student Roll, and a Register List. Most information held in the database can be accessed through these lists.The reporst are very flexible in that you can select any fields to be included in the report, who or what is to be included, and the order it should be presented. So for example if you wanted to produce a telephone list for all the students you would select the Student Roll, then select the fields which might be Student Forename, Student Surname, Telephone number. You would then order the data as required eg by Surname then Forename and hey presto you have your telephone list which you may now want to print. However this may change from time to time so you can save the report as a User Report called Telephone List. Now in the future all you need to do is call up the Telephone List Report and the updated list appears. Similarly you could produce a Cash Turnover Report, a monthly income report,
Mail Merge
Dance School Manager can generate and save letters for you to include with other items. eg you could have a letter containing term information or the "state of the nation" and include this with your invoices. Letters can be mail merged so you can incorporate any information from the data source* you are using. Inevitably this will include the name and address of the person you are sending to so your letter can start with their address and then have "Dear Mrs Smith" which is far more appropriate than "Dear Parent".Letters can be printed (or E Mailed) from any of the reports, the Student page, Invoicing etc.
E Mailing
In a similar way to Merging Letters it is possible to "E Mail Merge" your emails. This means that even the Subject of the email can contain the persons name, your school name, the current date. An additional field is available for Invoices and Statements which is the name of the document. So for example the invoice name could be be "Invoice for Autumn Term 2018" (and this will vary accoring to the term and year), then the invoice email will be set up as "Dear {Salutation}, Please find attached your {Document Name}" which before transmission would have the fields substituted and become "Dear Mrs Smith, Please find enclosed your Invoice for Autumn Term 2018" and so this standard email can then be re-used over and over without change for many years.Another example might be "Dear {Salutation}, We are sorry to have to advise you thet your {class_name} next week has been cancelled" which could be sent from the Register List Report for a selected class. This email would then be set up and stored ready for any such eventuality, and could be used, without editing, for any class.
E Mails can be sent from the Student page and any of the reports.
GDPR
Dance School Manager enables you to be compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation in terms of data retention, and providing access for a person to their personal data.Parent Portal
The Parent Portal is divided into two parts. The first provides information about your school and you can decide what is included.
General Information
About will include any picture(s) or information you put into Dance School Manager pacifically for the purpose and might include when the school was stared and by whom, what type of dancing the school covers, what times you are open, where your school is located, indeed anything you think appropriate.Class Time Table is taken directly from your class entries in the Dance School Manager Database excluding any classes marked "NoDisp" and presented graphically for each location.
Contact Information is taken from your school information.
Parent Data
Parent Data can only be accessed by the parent logging in. From this point they may inspect their own personal data (thereby fulfilling the GDPR requirement), access a list of their students, and then for each student present a list of classes that they are registered to attend, and also their personal data. The parents may also access their own financial account for the past six months showing what they currently owe or are over paid.On Line Registration
If the parents have not yet registered then they can use the Registration form to register both their family and any students they wish to attend the school. The On Line registration facilities provide for the family to enter their registration information from any PC/Smart Phone browser and to indicate the type of classes they would like their students to attend. As an option under your control, students may register for classes of their choise, but only under the conditions that you set. This data is registered directly into the Dance School Manager Database (no typing for you!)When you next open Dance School Manager on the "office" computer you will be given an "Action List" advising you that the family has registered and what classes they have selected or would like to attend. Then all that is left for you to do, with just one click, is generate the invoice!
Your Web Site
Thus the parent portal can become your school web site and can be more accustomed to your school by providing background pictures or colouring and your logo.More information can be added to the Parent Portal such as Teacher Profiles, and in particular plans for Events are well advanced and will be added shortly.
Alternatively you can incorporate any of the Dance School Manager pages directly into your own Web Site, except that you cannot pick up pages beyond the Login Screen.
So at last, a Web site that you can control directly from your Dance School Manager keyboard.
Cloud Forms
Forms provide a mechanism whereby using Dance School Manager you can create a form which is stored on the DSM server. The form can contain any general information you wish and a question that can have a yes/no answer with comments. For example "We are having our annual show on Saturday and Sunday, will you be coming, if so please say in the comment box which performance(s) you will be coming to". The answers can be "I will be there" and "Sorry can't make it". Using the E Mail system you then email selected families (or all families) with a reference to the form.When the E Mail is received and the reference is clicked the form appears. The parent can then answer the question and add comments. The answer is automatically placed in the DSM database with the comment placed in the action list. The answer (or lack of an answer) can be used as a search and selection facility, so in the example you could re-e mail those who have not responded, and make space or print name labels etc for those who will be attending.