OtherSoftware

Finding Time-Saving Yoga Studio Management Software

Running and building a yoga studio requires coordinating scheduling, marketing, accounting, class registration, class attendance, sales and credit card processing, inventory, payroll, staff management, documents, and more. When you started teaching yoga, you wanted to teach yoga. Sure, you knew running a yoga studio or teaching classes involved administration but perhaps running your yoga business is taking over your life.

Finding Time-Saving Yoga Studio Management Software 1

Ask yourself:

How many software applications are you running to keep it all together? Are you using a fleet of spreadsheets? There are some pretty cool software options specifically designed for yoga studios that take care of all your yoga studio administration needs in a central, online location.

3 Fundamental Elements of A Great Yoga Studio Software Service:

Cloud computing capability (web-based software) and Comprehensive, all-in-one yoga software centralize your yoga studio administration operations. Automation – the more, the better. Typically, this is easier with comprehensive, all-in-one software.

1. Cloud Computing Yoga Studio Management Software is Where It’s At

Cloud computing is web-based software. You log in to your account and manage your entire online yoga studio. So stop with the downloads, installations, networking, and upgrades that plague desk-top software applications. Instead, consider putting your real yoga studio software management needs on the cloud.

READ MORE :

2. Centralizing Your Yoga Studio Software

Integrating separate pieces of software is a never-ending headache. When one application is upgraded, it doesn’t sync with other applications. What you get is a mish-mash of software that, more often than not, malfunctions. Instead of saving you time, you try to get it all working together if you can; get comprehensive yoga studio software that meets all or as much of your computing needs as possible.

3. Automation

The more you automate, the more time you save, which lets you teach or take more time off. Running a yoga studio is managing many variables – students, staff, teachers, schedules, inventory, sales, etc. The goal is full classes and regular students. Automation helps you take care of the menial tasks to put your mind and time into activities you enjoy, which lets you build your yoga business (and take a vacation).

Yoga Business Software Features to Look For

Not all yoga studios have the same needs. The remainder of this article outlines the available yoga studio software management features. Please go through them and see what it is you need.

1. Yoga Class Scheduling

Online class scheduling – this is an extremely customer-service-friendly feature for your students. Consider the following functions you might want: Waitlists: let your students add their names to a waitlist. With software, save yourself the time of managing these lists. Let the software do the heavy lifting. Student self-check-in: spare your students standing in line waiting for you. Let your students scan their ID cards and get to class.

You also get time to set up and prepare for class. Printable sign-in sheets: maybe you prefer physical sign-in sheets. Get software that offers a print option with sign-in templates. You can load the data later… or not.

Equipment and room rental scheduling: do you rent out rooms and equipment? Why not automate the process and make it easy for your yoga clientele to book rooms and equipment? Recurring bookings: nothing builds a business like recurring customers. Make it easy for yoga students to book multiple classes and commit to your classes. Class attendance statistics: You only know how your business is going if you can measure results. Software that produces easy-to-read reports on class attendance statistics gives you tools to assess your money-making classes and classes that may not be worth having.

2. Scheduling Ease

Drag and drop functionality for booking is a real luxury. Drag and drop anything is great. Make it easy for your clientele to book classes and appointments with you. On the Cloud (web-based): Not only does cloud computing save you networking costs, upgrade hassles, and installation nightmares, but you can access your entire yoga business anywhere. Multiple schedule views: daily, weekly, by name, service, gender, and more.

Birds-eye views of your schedule can be convenient when looking at the big picture. Color coding scheduling: sure, you must memorize the colors, but in time, the colors will speed up viewing your schedules.

3. Yoga Studio Enrollment Options

Perhaps you offer more than just yoga classes. If so, look for yoga studio management software that can schedule all types of events, such as Courses, still a popular yoga class structure – a series of classes building on concepts. Seminars / special events: do you have a speaker or teaching events? Make it easy for people to sign up and a breeze for you to manage the scheduling.

Plus software that enables:

Payment plan processing: yoga studios usually offer a variety of pricing packages. Make it easy to sell packages (without the hand-held calculator) by considering software that tabulates and accepts payment for yoga packages. Payment status information: every business has some customers who owe money. Yoga studios are no exception (generally). See a glance at who owes you money (and how much).

4. Payment Processing

Credit card integration. Some yoga software includes credit card processing “on the cloud,” sparing you the hardware to pay for and set up. Link payments with services. This way, you can produce financial statements at any time to see the financial status of your business. Membership cards (i.e., swipe cards for signing in) and ID tag capability: Lose the paper and look professional with swipe cards, enabling self-check-in and much faster client tracking.

5. Online Store for More Revenues

If you sell retail, why not create an online store? It’s simple to do with the right yoga studio software. There is software that includes e-commerce capabilities so that you can track your in-studio retail sales and start selling off your website. You could consider partnering with yoga and health products suppliers to provide you with products to sell on your online store. You can carry inventory or enter drop-shipping arrangements. The sky is the limit. Moreover, with e-commerce, you can sell gift cards, yoga class packages, event tickets, etc.

6. Yoga Gift Card Selling Option

Gift cards are a BIG business. So why not sell your gift cards? You’ll earn revenue and get more students in your yoga studio. In addition, some yoga studio software can provide gift cards and program them with the software so that you can create them, sell them, and track usage. Other considerations when implementing gift cards for sale include:

  • Prepaid gift card options.
  • Able to track student account balances.
  • Loading gift cards with flexible amounts of money.
  • Selling your gift cards in your studio and online.

7. Email Marketing for Your Yoga Studio

Email marketing can give your yoga business a huge boost. If you get yoga studio software, see if you can find a product that integrates with email marketing software. This way, you can leverage your yoga studio software contact database with your email marketing rather than having separate databases. Trust me – when you can centralize, it’s worth it. You can use email marketing to get more students or encourage regular attendance. Still, you can also promote sales, facilitate referrals, sell products and yoga packages, promote events, send out class reminders, and more. In addition, when you centralize your yoga studio student database with email marketing software, you can segment your students so that you send the most appropriate messages to each person. If a student signs up online for a class, you can automate reminder class messages.

This way, you improve your class attendance, and in a worst-case scenario, if the student can’t attend, they’ll be reminded to remove their name from the schedule, opening up a spot for the waitlist. Then, your email system will produce an email to the waitlist alerting them to the open area. Imagine doing all this manually. Automation is key.

8. Yoga Studio Inventory Tracking

If you sell retail, tracking inventory digitally can save you much time. First, however, you need software that tracks the stocking and sale of items. Moreover, if you get software that includes inventory tracking, look for the capability to track in-store and online sales. Again, this goes toward centralizing your operation. By following inventory with your yoga studio management software, you’ll integrate inventory with sales, which lets you produce up-to-date financial reports… not to mention save you time syncing the inventory with sales and re-ordering.

9. Yoga Student Account Management

When you use cloud software, you can create accounts for all your students – so you and they can log in to their accounts. This way, you and your students can track purchases, their profile, class attendance, referrals, etc. This is very convenient for you and your students. Liability: What about the dreaded waivers? It’s necessary but not a lot of fun. If you let students sign up online, offer an e-waiver for them to agree to. This, too, is available with some yoga studio software.

10. Yoga Studio Staff Management

Whether you love managing staff or not, consider saving yourself time and the ability to manage your team “on the cloud.” Some yoga studio software enables you to do some or all of the following features: A staff dashboard portal where you can send instructions to staff and to-do items. Individual staff log-in accounts for each staff member. Permission levels to various outlets of your software. Again, this is where centralization works for you big time. Staff scheduling – lose the monthly printouts and create staff schedules online where your entire staff can access them anytime from anywhere. Scheduling staff with software is much more convenient than on paper. Besides, how often does the schedule change in a month? Save yourself a few erasers.

Roberto Brock
the authorRoberto Brock
Snowboarder, traveler, DJ, Swiss design-head and HTML & CSS lover. Doing at the nexus of art and purpose to develop visual solutions that inform and persuade. I'm a designer and this is my work. Introvert. Coffee evangelist. Web buff. Extreme twitter advocate. Avid reader. Troublemaker.