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How do students pay for lessons? (All Teachers)
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Completely the same and in agreement with Leigh!
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Hi Guys…I’m really late to the party. I use cash, card machine (I use sumup and its totally worth the commission) and online transfers. In January I am going to adopt the ‘after the first lesson you buy four week blocks’ as reading commnets on here and talking to others seems to be the most seamless. However I need advice on how to chase money owing. I have emailed every week but no reponse or I get a messsage saying it will be done and nothing happens. Basically I need some advice…what does everyone else do?
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Hi Eimear,
Great post and questions:) Personally I would recommend doing a pay one in advance model, so in Lesson 1 a student pays for Lessons 1. In Lesson 2 student pays for Lesson 2 & Lessons 3. In Lesson 3 student pays for Lesson 4 etc. so that they are always paying one lesson in advance. I have found this works better than getting students to buy 4 lessons in a block booking as these block booking points are often when students review whether they want to pay x4 the lesson price in on go & you see increased student drop off due to students having to pay larger single payments rather than smaller more regular payments – it is all psychological!
In the method above you get the security of knowing that a student has paid one lesson in advance & the money is in the bank for you, so gives you a similar security to what the block bookings do but with more flexibility to the student.
In regard to commission – commission is only generated when you take payment for lessons so please don’t worry about making payment for lessons that students haven’t paid you for yet. You can add the date of the lesson, Student Name, then select “Other” and add in 60 mins and £0.00, then in notes – “waiting for Alan to make payment”. Then when payment is made you can create another entry as date of the payment, Student Name, then select “Other” and add in “N/A” for mins and the commission amount due, then in notes “Alan made payment for his lesson today”. This means you never have to pay commission on lessons that you have not been paid for.
However, this should not be occurring often else something is wrong – you should be paid for all the lessons you teach! You should include in emails about first lesson, if you don’t already, that students must bring cash or a card to their lessons – then move them to the pay one in advance model thereafter.
If you are still having problems about students not paying you make them pre-pay for their second lesson before it is booked, then ask them to bring cash along to the lesson to pay for the third lesson etc.
As for the current students that owe you money, the truth is it is not going to be easy to gain payment from them. You should email them & I would be happy to create an “official invoice” for you as this sometimes gets students paying.
I think the most important thing is that your payment model is updated moving forward so you always get paid for your lessons – even if that means students have to pre-pay after the first lesson to book in with you. If you need a refund on any of the commission totals you have sent through just let me know – you shouldn’t have to pay for lessons that a student hasn’t paid you for. Hope the advice helps:) would be interesting to know what other teachers suggest too:)
Can I help you to create some official invoices, like the ones I send teachers, so you can send these to the students to try and gain payment from them? Perhaps an invoice with payment terms will help bring them to payment – let me know:)
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They want to make cash obsolete to take a % of all transactions the cashless soceity will cost more. Other reasons are to make you leave an audtiable trail remember hmrc can check and freeze your accounts and seize your money if you havent paid tax oh and you can go to jail for not declaring taxable income
I use izettle but avoid it. What happens when it goes wrong and the client says youve taken the wrong amount or been a victim of fraud are izettle liable or your self. Izettle and paypal are not banks very very important legal point. If they go down so does your money. by the way paypal have got a reputation for freezing accounts google it
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