Studio88,

I am glad you mentioned the musicteachershelper thing. Although I don't use it personally (I'm an excel and outlook express person) I like that they can pay you online. Is that correct? Do you have any parents pay you through online?

I make bills each month, my husband wrote a computer program in access so I can keep track of all the students' times, numbers, payments and such. I do have to go through and change the info each month then hand out the bills. Takes about 10 minutes total for me. I put the bills in the students' folder.. If no payment is received by the second lesson a late fee is added- most of the time the student forgets to hand mom the bill, so I'll then HAND it to them and they'll take it to mom who is usually in the car.. I get my payments back pretty quick that way. Late fees tend to occur more in February-April as parents seem to start relaxing more, or perhaps they are busy paying for Christmas.

These sound great, yet I do it a relatively old-fashioned way: I have a file set up in excel that I print each month, where I simply write in the date, check number and amount received. Once I've collected for the month, I enter them all into the same Money program I use for my checkbook. It only takes a few minutes. I use two versions of Oops notices: One that says it's due this week (and didn't come in with the student) and another that says it's past due. (Those are very rarely needed, thankfully!)

I'd also be interested in hearing Susan's story! I think repeated Oops and a request for the late fee did cost me one student, but it was almost worth it. The constant late payments (always minus the late fee) went along with the lack of practice, etc.

Ceil, PM me if you want the story. Also, at my my website you can print out Tuition Time, another wording of the famous Oops note.

Susan, I sent you a pm, but got a message about having reached my limit of participants (?!) so I don't know whether it went through.

I just had to quote your last bit there, because I can't help giggling at the thought of having a Computer Program for a husband..(I know you meant computer programmer)

As for my own bookkeeping I use excel spreadsheets. I do my checkbook, teaching expenses, attendance, and payments all together there so I can just flip back and forth from one spreadsheet to the next. If I did need to print up an invoice I would just do it by hand. I think my families ignore anything typed out and notice more if I write them by hand.

Ceil, I didn't get your PM. Maybe you can ask Jon to check it out.

OT -- I don't mean to hijack this thread, but I hope Jon is reading. I got the same error message when I tried to send him a PM. "You have reached your limit of message participants" or some such language.