I'm new here at DSP and while there are lots of fancy things that I can do, the most important thing- keeping accounts up to date, accurate and clearly communicated to my studio families- has been sub par to the software that I switched from. In my extensive research and even a one on one Zoom call with a sales rep, I feel like maybe I made assumptions about these functions based on the fact that they are the most obvious priorities for software to run a dance studio. However, what I have actually found is the following that I feel needs to be rectified, all of which are already features of your competitors' products':
I have to manually update individual accounts when a students drops or changes classes.
There is no way to select a future enrollment date to ensure billing accuracy and allow for free trials and immediate enrollment of my prospects that are ready to convert to paying customers.
I have to manually post tuition each month rather than the tuition for an entire year automatically going onto a family ledger.
I have to post tuition in order to send families their statements. I send statements on the 15th of the month to let families know what is going to be deducted from their account on the 1st of the coming month. Once tuition is posted, I have to manually make updates for class drops of changes. (It seems fundamental that the software should be doing that automatically. Studio Director software does.)
There is no way to keep additional registration fees that have already been paid from being applied to a families account if a student enrolls for an additional class. Another thing that I then have to adjust manually.
When a student is enrolled for a season, for example a season that lasts 10 months, we should be able to see on the ledger, the amount that will be due each of those 10 months and the date that it will be due. Then when preparing to send account statements, we need only to specify the due date that we are referring to and the proper amount will populate based on the ledger. That also removes the need to post tuition, which is an extra step that I should not have to manually do.
Please correct me if I am wrong about anything that I have stated above. My office manager has spoken directly with your support team about each of these issues to try to find out if we were missing a step in our set up.
We also had studio director before and while DSP has a lot of cool bells and whistles and things I like, Studio Director had a far superior ledger system. This ledger system is SOOOOO confusing. I hate the way it breaks payments apart when you split the payment. It makes it so hard to CLEARLY and easily see see what they actually PAID not just where it all got allocated. and the allocation system is also confusing. If DSP can just copy and paste studio directors ledger system that would be great.