In part 1 of this article, we covered the importance of cost, integration with your student management software & whether it allows for both EFT and Credit Cards. Now on to possibly the two most important aspects of a martial arts tuition billing service, auto recuring billing and the Point of Sale functionality:

Auto-recurring billing is possibly the greatest thing to happen to this industry in a long time. Not only does it save you a ton of hassle, but it dramatically increases the chances of your students paying in full and on-time. We all hate dealing with collecting tuition, yet it’s an essential part of running a martial arts school as a business. If your billing solution (or integrated management software) offers this feature, you should insist that all students are billed this way. First, you get priority over any paper checks that were written in the same day, helping ensure you get paid. Next, if a payment does fail, it can be auto-retried a few days later in case the student hadn’t gotten paid by their employer yet. If you don’t have this yet, we suggest you stop reading right now and go find a solution that includes it.

Lastly is the critical Point of Sale component to your business. A lot of money is made on the sale of equipment to your students and a billing company won’t offer a point of sale option for you. If you had a management software that was integrated with your billing for auto-recurring payments, then you already have their payment information on file! What if you just said to your student, “Here are the hand-pads you’ll need, they cost $35. Would you like me to just put that on the Credit Card / Bank Account that I have on file for you?”. Now you’re not hassling with payments in front of students, no credit card machines to deal with, no cash registers taking up valuable space in your school and a better chance the student will then purchase the equipment.

I know some schools out there may be very attached to their credit card swipe machine and are wondering how they could possibly do without one. Well you don’t have to! A good martial arts software will come with a credit card swiper that you can plug into your computer with a standard USB cable. This not only saves you clutter on your desk, but the card information can be scanned and stored with the student’s record for later use! Need to bill the student for a party they threw at your school, no problem! Need to sell them a piece of equipment in the middle of class, easily done! Just add it to their account after class.

All in all, there are a lot of things you should consider when looking for a billing solution for your martial arts school. In our experience, we can’t stress enough how important a recurring billing solution that offers both CC & EFT is to a school. You will see a night & day difference in your receivables as well as the peace of mind it brings for you and your students.

Continue to Part 1 of this article at http://www.experiencemartialarts.com/services/billing/martial-arts-billing-part1.html.