In a recent article, we introduced the five most important questions you need to answer to determine if now is the right time for you to begin using a software product to manager business.

The previous article answered the question, “Is my business big enough to benefit from an online studio management software program?”

In this article, we look into the question #2:

Does my studio’s business income justify the cost of business software?

Have you heard of the term cost-benefit analysis? When it comes to purchasing business management software for your studio/school, this means that you need to determine if the cost of the software will sufficiently save you from the costs of your current business inefficiencies if you were to continue doing things manually rather than benefiting from the efficiencies and knowledge you’ll gain from using a powerful business management tool.

Consider, for instance, the amount of time it takes to track your income and expenses using paper and pen, or even Microsoft Excel. Then also consider the amount of time it takes to use that handwritten data to analyze how your business is doing, such as tracking month-to-month expenses, income, or business growth.

This kind of business insight – just a click of a button when you are using software to track those expenses, income, and student info – is either painstakingly slow or nearly impossible to achieve without a software system to crunch the numbers for you.

In other words, since time is money – whether it’s your own time or hourly wages you are paying to a staff member to manually manage business information – the cost of purchasing a powerful studio management software system (online or computer-based) becomes negligible compared to the amount of time the software can save you, or the amount of insight you will gain that can positively affect how you run your business.

The more your business grows, the more complex it will become and, therefore, the more important it becomes to your profitability to have the power and efficiencies that the right studio management software solution can give you.

Consider, for example, the challenge that ClassJuggler customer Jennifer Reid, owner of Kinderdance of Alamo City, faced as her business grew – and the paperwork along with it.  As a business owner, she explained to us that she urgently needed to find some kind of software solution that would enable her to keep better and faster accounting on new and present customers, making it easy to pull up data, run reports, and more. As a franchisee, she also dealt with the monthly paperwork requirements with the franchise owner. “At the time,” Reid says, “We were using paper reports, and it was very time consuming,” taking time that she would rather spend on her students! “Time is money, and doing reports doesn’t make you money; serving customers does,” she said.

In Jennifer’s case, the cost-benefit analysis was a no-brainer – the ongoing subscription cost of ClassJuggler was a drop in the bucket compared to the time she previously spent operating her business.

If the time you’re spending on the business of managing your business is becoming unmanageable, it’s probably beyond time for you to make the investment in one of the leading online software management solutions available to class-based businesses. When comparing solutions, look at the real upfront and ongoing costs of each studio business management software program you are considering, estimate the amount of time you will save monthly by using the software. Use that math to see if you can justify the investment for your class-based business in the purchase of your selected business management software.

In our next article on this topic, we’ll answer the question, “Will the class-based software I select deliver on needed efficiencies?” But meanwhile, if you have already determined that you can justify the investment in a business software program for your studio, see which of the following from our family of products most closely matches your business:

• DanceClassJuggler – online dance school software to save time and money on the business of running your business, so you can focus on your students
• CheerClassJuggler – online gymnastics and cheer management software designed to streamline the business of operating your gymnastics school or cheer camp.
• ClassJugglerDojo – a martial arts school management platform designed to support the unique business needs of those who own and operate karate schools, kung fu schools, self-defense courses, mixed martial arts centers, taekwondo training, fencing classes, kickboxing studios, Jeet Kune Do or Jiu-Jitsu schools
• SwimClassJuggler – online swim school management software is designed to support the unique business needs of those who own and operate swimming schools, water rescue classes, life guard schools, and diver training schools
• MusicClassJuggler – all-in-one online business management tools that make customer, academics, and music class management a breeze for vocal training centers and instrumental music training centers
• K12ClassJuggler – a management platform that supports the unique business needs of those who own and operate preschools, K-12 education, adult education programs, evening learning schools, night classes, and after-school programs
• ClassJugglerFitness – slimming down record keeping for athletics schools, fitness centers, spin classes, yoga sessions, and tennis camps

Also, if you are a franchise owner, make sure to check out our franchise management software solutions as well.

Sincerely,

Jon Koerber, Pres., ClassJuggler