Running a Successful Dance Studio

Running Your Office

If you’re just starting a dance business, chances are you’re just realizing how much work there is to do in the office. Newsletters, bookkeeping, depositing checks, contacting students, planning schedules etc. Here are a few tips to getting some help that will reduce the workload. If you're already in business then you may still get some useful information from this guide.

Use a Database
Get a "GOOD" Receptionist
Credit Card Processing v. Checks
Book Keeping / Computer Help / Payroll Service
Backup Your Computers

Use a Database
You don’t need to be a technical whiz to use a database but the advantages are tremendous. You can pull up customer records in a flash, get contact information, export your mailing list to print mailing labels, set reminders if payments are overdue, see what classes students are signed up for, check attendance etc.

There are many databases out there that let you customize them as much as you want but there are also some very good off-the-shelf databases designed with dance studios in mind. It’s worth paying a bit more for something like that because it saves you a lot of work setting it up yourself.

Microsoft Access is a common database that will run on any windows computer and it’s possible to buy 3rd party tools that set up a “dance” database that runs on Microsoft Access for you. The benefit is that you are purchasing a standard database with all the support and user communities you could need so even if the company you buy the “dance” database from goes out of business you don’t need to worry about losing your data.

Get a "GOOD" Receptionist
Answer machines are great but having a receptionist who is able to answer peoples questions in real time or talk to prospective students is worth their weight in gold. Choose a good person to do this job who at least knows something about dance, has a pleasant phone manner and can handle difficult customers gracefully. Definitely worth paying a bit extra for someone who is good.

A good receptionist will also be able to help with other office tasks when not dealing with customers directly.

Credit Card Processing v. Checks
Yes it costs money to process credit cards. There’s usually a monthly account fee, a per transaction fee and a per transaction commission but the advantages far outweigh the costs.

Collecting checks, filling out payment slips, signing checks, taking them to the bank, following up with bounced checks, sending out reminders for late payments etc. really adds up and can be incredibly time consuming.

With credit card processing you get direct confirmation that the charge was successful and the funds show up in your bank account at the end of the day. You can set up recurring payments and at the end of the month you can download your statement from the payment company and import it directly into your bookkeeping package.

Book Keeping / Computer Help / Payroll Service
As a business owner it’s very easy to take on these jobs yourself but if you find yourself dreading sitting in front of the computer to take care of them then it’s worth paying someone to do it for you. Bookkeeping, Computer people and Payroll services aren’t necessarily as expensive as you might think. They usually charge hourly, will come to your studio to do the work and because they know what they’re doing, can usually do it in a fraction of the time it would take you and you know that it’s going to be done right.

Backup Your Computers
If you’re using your office computer for anything related to your business, accounting, student database etc. then it’s important that you back up your data at least daily. There are many different backup software packages available. Some let you set backup schedules so it will run at a set time each day, some backup each file as and when it detects changes to the file. Any of these options is good but the next most important backup decision is where to backup your data.

Ideally you should backup your data to something that can be stored at an alternate location. Either an external hard drive, CD or DVD that you can take away from the studio and store at another location so that in the event that there’s a fire or someone steals your computer you still have all your data. There are also some online storage solutions that let you upload your backups to a storage facility on the internet. The advantage of these is that you can access your data from anywhere and the storage facilities offer a much higher level of security than you could provide yourself.

You should also protect the data itself. You should not store credit card information but if you did and someone was able to gain access to it, you’d be liable and could potentially be prosecuted. If you lost your entire contact database you might very quickly become unpopular if all your students started to receive spam or unsolicited mail or worse.