My Music Staff

It does everything I need it to do in terms of scheduling, billing and expenses and has other features that I use sometimes such as lesson notes, file sharing, newsletters and lending library. It also has a website included, blog and online signup.

It would be good if students were able to edit/comment on their lesson notes. Also if there could be a blog or newsletter that is not public but only accessible by your clients with the ability for them to comment.

MMS promises to handle all of your music studio needs, from scheduling to billing to communications, and indeed, it has modules for all of those plus repertory records, lending library management, downloadable/playable resources, and even mileage. So if you want software that LOOKS like it does everything, you've found it!

None of these modules seem actually to have been tested by actual music teachers. Scheduling is ridiculously complicated, especially when students want to cancel or reschedule. Billing leads to a minimum of five confused emails from parents each month because of MMS's bizarre policies regarding past-due payments and account balances. Emails cannot be sent to students and parents simultaneously—they're automatically BCC'ed, leading to confusing message threads and miscommunications. Even the lesson notes and blog features are poorly handled—they don't auto-save, so an accidental tab closure can lead to the loss of an entire lesson's worth of notes, and formatting is bizarrely non-standard. (Don't even think about cutting and pasting.)