I'm an instructor in a studio which is privately owned. We are staffed to about 15-18 instructors, two of which are the owners.

We receive a high amount of front end introductory students. My dilemma is our tracking system for both front end and back end. Everything is handwritten, which leads to tons of duplication, loss of paperwork ect.

The owner has challenged me to organize this area. I know this will be a slow process, but my first item is to get rid of most, if not all, the handwritten tracking. The amount of labor involved in the current system, coupled with the headache of losing information is a huge dilemma.

I want to get a system established that utilizes computers. Before being in the ballroom business, I was a police officer for a department staffed at 90 officers. I was a Seargent when I left and am experienced in almost all the good programs, from a working perspective. From a maintenence/initial install perspective I am not fluent.

To get to the point I am wondering if anyone knows of a program designed specifically for a dance studio, or if you have created a database for yourself. Also if you have been challenged with a similar issue, did you find it more cost effective to devise a database yourself or contract it out?

I feel like every time we take in a new student, they have to wait while we pull that big old arm down on the ancient cash register. So I am trying to approach this from the angle of "your money being spent in this studio is being used to make it better".

Thanks in advance for any responses!

Hi there,
I don't know if this will help much. I worked in a studio for a couple months as a receptionist. We also used a paper system. I used my minimal knowledge ( and a text book)of Microsoft Access to start a database of each student based on teacher and dance style. Have a look at the microsoft website and see if they have any ready made templates.
Hope this helps.

Google "dance studio software." There are several commercial programs available. You might also call other dance studios for suggestions (pick some in a different city, if you don't want to call your direct competition).

What is the age of the two owners. If they are like our lot they still run things as it was before computers came into being.

Thanks a ton for the responses folks. I've started looking in to using Microsoft Access to create a template, we'll see how it goes.

I thought about inquiring other studios, but first thought I'd check here.

The owners are 33 and 54 (I think). They are just as ready to move on as I am, because they know that the tracking system is losing money in the long run.

I appreciate your input, and will definately google the software. I tried it a few times, without using those specific terms, so I'll give it another go!

Cheers!

EDIT: Wow, amazing the google returns I get with the proper search terms. Thanks Ellen. I'm setting up some demos of a couple programs.

If learning Access or cost is an issue, if you have Windows and a copy of Excel, you can set up a spreadsheet with your info.

You can do a fair amount of data tracking and manipulation with Excel as well as producing charts and graphs if you want. An Access database is potentially more powerful though.

The trick to both packages is to define your categories well.

I have no knowledge of off-the-shelf dance studio software, but beware that some boutique software houses don't offer good user support and / or go out of business pretty quickly.

Just $0.02 from a former software engineer and project manager.