Still doing termly invoicing? In this episode I walk through how monthly billing works, how I made the switch, and answer real questions teachers have asked me about how it works in practice, including the one about paying over the summer. If you want predictable income and a lot less admin, this is where to start.
In this episode:
Why termly billing creates a summer income gap, and why that's not inevitable
The simple calculation that turns any lesson rate into a fair monthly figure
How to introduce monthly billing to families, including what to say and what to expect
Nine practical questions teachers have about the system, with honest, specific answers
What life actually looks like once the system is running: income on the first of the month, no chasing, no end-of-term recalculations
Links mentioned:
Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit (£12)
One to One Focus Session (60 min, £67)
The Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit makes the switch simple, allowing you to get it sorted in just one afternoon, and all for just £12 😄
If you find this episode useful, I’d be so grateful if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts: it goes a long way in helping other music teachers find my podcast!
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Part 1: The problem with termly billing
The last week of August
It's the last week of August. You've had the whole summer holiday, and it's been a bit tight, because the last time you were paid was in April. You've reached the last week of August, and you really just want to be looking forward to welcoming your students back into your studio.
Instead, you're sat at your computer with loads of term invoices open, one bespoke invoice per student, trying to work out how much to charge, because this term has 14 weeks and the last one had 12. You also need to check back through your notes to see how many lessons you're carrying forward into the new term, and for which students. And you need to catch up on which students are taking holidays during term time, because you promised not to charge them for those lessons, too. The problem is you haven't heard back from everybody, so you can't get it done, and you need to have all these invoices sent by the end of the day.
This is termly billing, and you don't have to keep doing it like this. This episode is all about monthly billing, a system that changes everything. I've been through the transition from termly billing to monthly billing, and I'm really excited to tell you about the process, because my life is so much simpler now I'm on this side of it. I want you to know how much time you can save, and how feasible this switch really is.
I'm Victoria. I started teaching piano part-time 18 years ago alongside a career in pharmaceutical market research, and I made pretty much every mistake you can make when it comes to running a teaching business. But today I run a thriving studio from my home on the south coast of England, with students I love and a waiting list I'm proud of. I started this podcast because I want that for you too.
If you've ever said yes to a reschedule you really didn't want to do, felt your heart sink when your phone buzzed with another last minute cancellation, or found yourself putting off increasing your fees for another year because the timing never feels quite right, this is the podcast for you. I've been there and come out the other side with a teaching business that lights me up every single day, and I'm here to help you do the same.
The summer income gap
When we get to the last lesson of the summer term, we all breathe a big sigh of relief, because things get more and more difficult towards the end of the summer term. The kids are tired, we're tired, and we're all very much in need of the long summer break.
The only thing is, when you bill termly, you have a massive summer income gap. The last termly invoice was paid in April, for the summer term, and nothing comes in until September. I don't know about you, but going four months without any income is really difficult, even for the most organised people. It's like being between jobs, and you have to make that money stretch all the way. Four months is a third of a year.
This model can cause a lot of unnecessary stress in the household, especially if you're the main earner, or, more likely, when unexpected costs come up over the summer. If you have children, they're not happy to sit at home for six weeks doing free activities. I'm not saying you're obliged to spend loads of money on your kids during the summer holidays, but it does make it a lot easier if you have the wiggle room to spend a little without worrying that you're continually shrinking a pot of income that won't be replenished until September.
The admin burden
There's also quite a big admin burden with termly billing, because in the UK we have three terms, but they don't have the same number of weeks. I think the autumn term is the longest, at 14 weeks, and the others vary year on year between 12 and 13 weeks. So every single term, you have to change the amount you invoice. There's no consistency, no automation is possible, and every calculation has to be redone from scratch.
Something that adds to the burden, of course, is refunding lessons or carrying them over to the next term, which I used to do. It means keeping a really good record of exactly which students, and how many lessons, you've agreed to carry over for whatever reason. I've talked about this in other episodes, and I know I'm not alone: for many of my first years of part-time teaching, I refunded every lesson that was missed, whether it was my cancellation or theirs. Either I refunded it, or I carried it over to the next term, which just meant cutting my income for the next term by quite a lot.
So with this kind of system, where you carry lessons over to the next term, you not only have to be a good record keeper, you also have to make a bespoke invoice per student per term. It's a lot of extra stress and a big admin burden, and you're doing it three times a year. You might think it's only three times a year, but it adds up, because no one wants to make a mistake and accidentally overcharge a student. With this kind of system, there's always the risk of getting it wrong, because you're relying on your own notes. We're human; we all forget and miss things every so often. It adds a level of uncertainty that's unnecessary, to be honest, especially when you have a monthly billing system available to you. And it's available to every music teacher who teaches privately, as you'll find out in the rest of this episode.
Chasing late payments
Another problem with termly billing is chasing late payments. When you only invoice once a term, it's a pretty large sum per invoice, at irregular intervals that don't line up with any other regular payments we make. I can't think of any other circumstances, except things to do with schools, like fee-paying schools or lessons paid through a school, where you pay three times a year. It's a bit of a unique system. The irregular timing makes it much more likely that parents will forget. And having a bigger amount to pay each time is quite a big chunk, unless they're really organised or have a comfortable cash buffer.
So I found I was chasing late payments far more often than I do now. I hardly chase at all now, and you'll see why. It became a really uncomfortable situation, because none of us want to chase payments. We want to send out the invoice and have parents and students see it, pay it and be done with it. We don't like talking about the money we charge for our lessons. We carry a lot of guilt anyway about charging for what we do, because we love this occupation so much, so the less we have to talk about money, the better, right?
Having to keep chasing parents and students to pay invoices, knowing it's a hefty chunk of money, is just uncomfortable. If you're anything like me, it's not confrontation exactly, but asking for money when they've received an invoice and forgotten about it isn't a nice situation to be in.
And when you send an invoice out and there's silence, it can do funny things in your head, because you don't know why they haven't paid. A lot of the time, you assume they've seen it and haven't paid because it's not a priority for them, and that can feel a bit painful. We're providing music lessons for their child, and it feels like we're valued a bit less.
I'm saying these are the thoughts that can go round your head; it's not what's going on. More often than not, parents are just so busy. I'm a parent and I'm very busy, and I haven't met a parent who isn't. These things get forgotten, particularly with an irregular schedule.
But the point I want to make is that a system that leaves open the very real possibility of late payments damages the relationship between teachers and students, because you don't know what they're thinking. A lot of us think the worst: that they haven't paid because our rates are too high, or because they don't value the lessons, or because they're not planning on coming back. You don't need all that stress, and all those worries and thoughts racing round your mind. Wouldn't it be lovely if you never needed to feel that kind of self-doubt, and it could just float away? We have the solution, but termly billing doesn't help.
Unpredictable income
There's another side to it: the psychological weight of feeling that your income is unpredictable, and that you're at the mercy of other people paying on time. That gets really stressful and exhausting when you have your own bills to pay, and you need a certain amount of money to come in at a certain point to pay your mortgage, your car payments, your furniture payments, whatever. Really important bills need to be paid, and you don't want to be stressing about not being able to pay them because you have no buffer and three parents have forgotten to pay you on time. It's a stressful situation to be in, and there is a way out of it.
Part 2: How I made the switch
How I used to bill
You'll have heard me talk about my beginnings as a part-time piano teacher when I was 22. I used to accept cash on the day, lesson by lesson, and if people didn't turn up, nothing happened. I had a little receipt book I'd write in ("one lesson at £10") and sign, and that was my invoicing system. It worked for a while. I only had five students at the time, and I didn't think termly billing was relevant to me, so I didn't go near it.
Then, as I got more established, and certainly once children came into the picture (my own children, that is), teaching termly became essential, because my kids were in school, and when they weren't, I needed to be available to look after them. Termly billing was just my understanding, from my childhood piano teacher, of how things were done. It was all I'd ever heard of: music teachers bill once a term, three times a year, and that's that. I didn't think to question it.
As is the way, you don't discover new things until you engage with other music teachers around the world. When I started doing that, I came across teachers, mainly American, talking about monthly billing. In my mind I was like, "What? How does that work? That definitely won't apply to me, because I teach termly, so there's no way I could bill monthly. And there's no way I can teach during the school holidays, because I need to be available for my kids." So I figured it wasn't right for me and dismissed it. I didn't even consider what parents would think if I started billing monthly. It didn't enter my mind.
The turning point
The turning point was reading more and more about these teachers who billed monthly, and understanding how and why they did it and how they structured things. When I realised you can bill monthly even if you teach termly, my eyes were opened to this new possibility. It just needed a little bit of simple maths, and some simple policies around the billing system.
After experiencing all those long summer holidays with no income, I was then getting through the Easter holiday, the break between the spring and summer terms. That's not as long as the summer holiday, but it's longer than Christmas; it's normally about three weeks. That's long enough to feel the pinch again, especially when you've come out the other side of Christmas, and the spring term payment pays for all the overspending you did at Christmas. It can feel really tight.
Something in my brain went, "I could do this. I could change to monthly billing. These other teachers do it, I understand enough about it, and I'm going to make the change from September." That would have been around April or May. Yes, May is when I first contacted my students and families to tell them I'd be switching to monthly billing from the start of the autumn term that year.
A clean break with annual re-signing
Up until then, new students had signed a studio policy agreement when they started lessons with me, but there was no annual review. That agreement stood from whenever they'd signed it, however many years ago. So I took the opportunity, while switching from termly to monthly billing, to introduce an annual re-signing for lessons with me.
That was a really important change to go along with it, because it created a clean break. It made it easier for me, psychologically, to put the new change in place, because if parents or students weren't on board with monthly billing, it was their guilt-free opportunity not to sign up again. That made me feel better, because they'd been with me for so long, and we'd always done termly billing. Nobody likes change, do they? Very few people do. So I worded it as: "If you'd like to keep your slot, you'll need to sign this new agreement by this date, in time for starting in September."
The clean break also let me be even clearer about my policies, and made it much easier to stand up for them, which until then I'd been very lax about. I'd had the no reschedules, no refunds clause in my policy for a good couple of years by that point, but I never reinforced it. Whenever anybody said, "Oh, I'm going to be on holiday," I'd say, "Yep, okay, I'll take that off the next term's invoice." Or if they couldn't make it because they were a little bit unwell, or had a school play or a residential trip, I'd say, "Nope, no problem, I'll just recalculate the next invoice."
That had already started to wear me down a bit each time I did a new set of termly invoices and saw how much I was having to knock off each one. It really adds up when you count how many refunds I was effectively giving by carrying lessons over. "Carrying over" makes it sound nicer, but it's just refunding. It was horrible. I was missing out on so much income, through no action of my own, just by agreeing to give lessons away. So this was a really great opportunity to put that boundary back in place and really stand up for it this time, secure in the knowledge that I'd given everyone a clear opportunity to decide, "Nope, those policies aren't for us. We'll find a new teacher." And I'm happy to tell you that no one did.
The first of September
The very first monthly payment was due on 1st September, and it was so great to get to that day, open my bank account and see a whole bunch of monthly fees from my students, sent by standing order so it could run automatically and they wouldn't have to remember every month. Just opening my bank account and seeing that the vast majority of students and parents had paid on time was such a relief. Suddenly I thought, "Yes, this is going to work." It was a big weight off my shoulders. In fact, more people paid on time, even in that first month, than had paid on time for the termly invoices in all the previous terms.
What I worried about
Beyond making a change to my system that parents might not agree with, understand or like, I was worried I'd get complaints. That was my first thought: "Why are you changing things? We know how this works. Why change something that isn't broken?" Well, I think you can understand that, from my perspective at least, the system is a bit broken when your income is irregular and that's what your family's security relies on.
I did worry that some of my students would leave, but I made peace with that, because I was making this change intentionally, to improve the running of my studio and get rid of all those horrible things about termly billing: the peaks and troughs of income, and the unwelcome worries and fears my brain concocted when payments were late, thinking it was a reflection on me, or disapproval of my teaching or something like that. All of that junk is gone.
I knew it was the right decision for me, and that's what kept me going all the way through, despite fears about students leaving, or parents asking questions about the calculations that I didn't want to get wrong. As it turned out, once you have it straight in your head and understand how the process works, the solution is a simple way to communicate it to parents. I knew the kinds of questions they'd ask, and I was ready with responses that didn't apologise for the change or over-explain, but kept it simple, unemotional and business-like, for lack of a better word. It made it more professional.
How monthly billing works
Okay, so how does monthly billing work? The core principle is that you calculate the total annual lesson fee. You decide how many lessons you're going to teach in the whole year. I run my year on the academic calendar: it starts on 1st September and ends on 31st August. You take the number of lessons you'll teach in the year and multiply it by your lesson rate. Then you divide that number by 12, to spread it across 12 equal monthly payments. Families pay the same amount every single month, regardless of term length, school holidays, or how many weeks are in a month. And that's it.
Families know exactly what they're paying every month. There are no surprises, and no "Oh, this is a longer term, so it's a bigger bill." It's the same amount every month, and it becomes a regular household bill, in line with energy bills (gas and electricity), phone bills, broadband and so on, which are generally all monthly. So it's part of the monthly bills that go out of the account, which makes it much easier for families to budget, because almost everything runs on a monthly cycle. A monthly payment of £70-odd is so much easier to absorb than £284 at the start of a term. It's much more manageable.
You might already be thinking, "Yes, but I won't be teaching at all in August, and I'll still be charging in August." You're not charging for holidays. You're calculating the total they pay across the year and spreading it evenly across 12 months. So you're not charging for lessons that don't happen; you're just smoothing everything out across the year.
The Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit
I created the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit to do exactly what it says: help you transition to monthly billing. It includes a section of responses to frequently asked questions, with the main questions parents and adult students ask about monthly billing and model answers you can give. The answers don't over-explain or apologise; they keep it nice, simple and clear, and address lots of the worries people might have. We'll go into that in more detail later in this episode.
The calculator tool
My favourite part of the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit is the calculator tool, which I use every year at this time to work out my new rates. We won't be talking about raising rates in this episode; if you'd like to learn more about raising your rates ready for September, check out Episode 5, where I go into more detail.
But for calculating your monthly fee, I'm quite proud of this little tool, because it's so easy to use. You pop in the number of lessons you'll teach in a year (you decide how many) and your per lesson rate, for example how much you charge for a 30-minute lesson, and it does all the calculations for you. It rounds off the monthly figure and then back-calculates a per lesson fee, so you're not charging some weird amount like £67.38. It's much easier to keep in mind a whole number for your monthly fee, and the calculator does all that for you.
It also handles students joining or leaving mid-year, because then you need to calculate how many lessons are available to them that year and average it across the remaining months. There's a separate section for each of those situations, which saves you a lot of time and effort, and a potential headache when communicating those figures to parents. There's also a section of email templates, so you can update the information and let your families know exactly what's changing and how. It's a great little toolkit, and it's only £12. I'll link it in the show notes so you can have a look.
Standing orders
As I mentioned earlier, the most efficient way to get payments through is to encourage students and families to set up a standing order from their bank account. Some might not have heard of it before, but most will, because they've set up a regular payment for something else. It's different from a direct debit, which generally means going through a company and paying a fee. So it's the most money-efficient way of getting regular payments, but it does rely on parents or adult students setting up the standing order from their side. For the most part, I haven't had much trouble.
If students don't want to set up a standing order, that's absolutely fine. They can pay manually; they just have to remember to do it at the right time each month. I have a handful of students who still pay me manually, and they're pretty good at remembering. Some of them pay before the due date, which is also very helpful.
With a standing order, you can obviously pick the date. Just recommend the date you want; I've gone with the first, so all the money comes in on the first. You could choose the end of the month if that lines up better for you. I picked the first because it works for me and it's easy to remember. Once they've set it up, they don't have to think about payments any more; they know it goes automatically.
Automatic invoices
The invoices go out automatically on a recurring basis as well, which saves you a whole bunch of time. Your income arrives, and no one has to have an awkward conversation about late payments, or how much it's going to be this term.
I use Zoho Books for my invoicing. I just use the free version, and you can set up recurring invoices on the free version, so they're sent out on a specific day every month. Once you've set it up, that's it. It's super duper easy. My recurring invoices go out on the 24th of every month, so there's about a week before payment is due. It gives a heads up that payment is due within a week, for those who pay manually. Most of them pay as soon as they see the invoice.
Then I allocate one hour each month to log all the payments on my spreadsheet and against the invoices in Zoho. I usually do it around the second or third of the month, by which time all the payments should have come in, so it highlights anyone who's late. Then I click a button in Zoho that sends a reminder email, and that tidies up the rest.
You might think, "You're doing that every single month?" But honestly, it gets so quick, because everybody pays the same amount. You're just scrolling down your bank account, seeing the same amount coming through, and logging it against each student or family, and it's all done. It's really quick because you know exactly what to expect. You don't have to find the original invoice, match it against your records and check they've paid the exact right amount. It really reduces the thinking burden for this part of your admin.
A late payment fee
In the last couple of years, I introduced a late payment fee clause to my studio policy agreement. Happily, I've never had to enforce it, but just putting it in my studio policy tidied up the remaining couple of people who'd always pay after the first, pay late, or need a second reminder. I know it works because of the threat of a late payment fee, but the effect has been very helpful. It's completely optional; you don't have to include it. But it makes paying the invoice more prominent in people's minds when they know there's the potential for a late payment fee.
Because everyone pays on the first, mine says that if it hasn't been paid by the fourth day of the month, a late payment fee will be applied. It's just £5, added to the invoice. But like I said, I've never had to enforce it, and I feel fine about that. Of course, there's the odd situation here or there where a family has had something go wrong, or a payment was cancelled or failed, and you can follow up with them. But on the whole, this system runs so smoothly.
Introducing it to your families
When it comes to introducing monthly billing to your families, the cleanest time to transition, in my opinion, is the start of a new academic year. If you work to an academic timetable, that's the most obvious, clear time: the start of the autumn term, 1st September, when everything is new and fresh for families anyway. Their children will have joined new clubs at school, or taken up other lessons or activities, so an update to your policies is more expected. You can make the switch mid-year if you want, but it sticks out a bit more from the norm and might raise more questions.
I go into much more detail about communicating with families in Episode 5, about raising your rates. But in summary, I always send the email first, with a clear explanation of the change and when it takes effect (from September). Then I give students and parents a physical copy of the new agreement at their next lesson, and mention it verbally if the parents are in the lesson or at the door at pickup. So you have a three-pronged approach to communicating the change, rather than relying on everyone opening and reading their emails, and remembering them.
I'd recommend a transition period of about two months: two months' notice before the switch to monthly billing takes effect. That gives everyone time to process the change, sort out standing orders, look at their finances and come round to the idea. You don't want to announce it on a Friday and say it comes into effect the very next week. That's not enough time for people to get on board, or for the admin to be sorted on both sides.
In your communication, include the new monthly amount, maybe some guidance on setting up a standing order if they've never done one, and be very clear about the payment deadline and the deadline for returning the signed agreement. Keep the email short and to the point. As I mentioned, there are email templates in the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit, ready to personalise and send.
How I worded my email
When I sent that very first email to my students, I put "IMPORTANT" in capitals in the subject line, so it was immediately obvious that this was an important email, along with what was changing and when. The first sentence was totally clear: "From September (start of autumn term 2022), my fee structure for piano lessons is changing from termly billing to monthly billing." It was an assertive statement that this is what's happening.
Definitely don't open with, "I've thought long and hard about this. I know people don't like change, and I don't want to disrupt anything, but I've decided..." That's just loads of fluff that won't help you get the information across, and that's what this email is about: communicating the information, not "softening the blow" (in inverted commas), as if it were a negative thing. To be honest, it's not, and we'll go into that in more detail in a minute.
Being direct, comfortable and assertive about the change you're making to your studio is really important, because the way you come across will affect how parents take the news. If you lead with apologies, they'll take it differently from if you were assertive and confident about it. More than likely there'll be more questions and doubts, because you're showing your own doubt when you apologise for making a change like this. So it makes a big difference to how well the news is received.
In that email, I also said that by signing the new contract, they'd secure their existing lesson slot for the new academic year, and added a small note that new contracts would be issued like this every year. So it started the tradition, I suppose, setting up the expectation that this wasn't a one-off: we're switching to monthly billing, and there'll be an annual re-signing of the agreement to hold your slot every year. Nice, simple and clear.
When I sent out that studio-wide email in May 2022, I didn't get any pushback, and none of my students left. There were a couple of questions, which is totally normal and to be expected. Because I'd thought through what was likely to come up, I was completely comfortable answering those questions, face to face or by email. Of course, I was working some things out as I went. I wasn't the fountain of knowledge on monthly billing that I feel like I am now. But that's how it goes; you adapt. It's not dissimilar to the skill we all use in every music lesson we teach: responding in the moment to the student in front of us. If someone has a question and you understand what you're doing, you can explain it in simple terms, knowing nothing is hidden. You're not trying to pull the wool over your student families' eyes. You're switching to a system that's better for you and, to be honest, better for them.
Part 3: Your monthly billing questions answered
What if you need to cancel as the teacher?
I thought it would be useful to go through some of the questions that came up for me, and questions I've received from other teachers since talking about monthly billing.
The first is: what happens if you need to cancel a lesson as the teacher? More often than not, if I cancel, it's because of a migraine, which is not great. To leave the recurring invoices and standing orders alone, I refund that student's lesson directly. I ask for their bank details and transfer the exact per lesson amount for the one lesson I cancelled, for each student that day, because a migraine normally knocks me out for the rest of the day. If students aren't comfortable sharing their bank details, which is perfectly fine, you can use PayPal if they have it.
When some students have asked me to just take it off the next bill, I've had to push back and say, "We're running a recurring monthly billing system, so you don't have to change your standing order twice (once for the next month, and once to change it back to the regular amount), and so I don't need to spend time doing new invoices. We can work it like this, and I'll refund you the money directly."
You could keep a record of refunds owed to a specific student and deduct them from music books and sheet music you buy for them and then bill them for. But I tend to avoid that, so it doesn't get complicated. I'd much rather refund the money on the day if I can bear to look at a computer screen, or the next day, or certainly within that week if I've been really unwell. I much prefer refunding directly, so it's all taken care of, and I don't have to remember to apply it against certain accounts later. I still log it in my invoicing system: I create a credit note in Zoho Books and refund that directly. I could go into more detail on that, maybe with a Zoho Books tutorial, for anyone who's interested.
So that's what I'd recommend, so that your bank balance reflects what money is yours, rather than lots of IOUs building up. I don't think that's a very good system, certainly not for someone like me, who wants everything sorted and not to have to remember things later.
What about rescheduling lessons?
If you're a teacher who reschedules lessons, no judgement, but you obviously know how I feel about rescheduling. If you want to keep rescheduling with monthly billing, it has no impact. You don't have to change any payments or invoices; you're just rescheduling a lesson for free, effectively, but the monthly fee stays the same either way.
Just a note about rescheduling, if you're new to this podcast and my approach to this part of lessons: you held that lesson slot for the student, so it was paid for. When you choose to reschedule the lesson, you're effectively giving that time away for free. I go into more detail in other episodes, so if that's something you're working through, check out Episode 1, about cancellation policies, and Episode 3, about refunding lessons. In summary, rescheduling doesn't affect monthly billing or the invoice. It's a policy decision about whether you offer it.
What if you teach in a school?
I've never taught in a school; I've only ever taught privately. For monthly billing to work, you'd need to be in a school where you invoice parents directly rather than going through the school. If you invoice the school itself, you'd need to agree 12 monthly invoices with your own terms and conditions, which is a different arrangement. As I said, I don't have any personal experience of it, so I'd encourage you to explore it with the school or schools you teach in if you'd like to go ahead. It's not that it isn't possible; it just might not fit with the way they invoice. The direct-to-parent model is where monthly billing really works well.
What about adults who take holidays in term time?
I mentioned this earlier, in the context of termly billing and the way I used to roll over lessons that adults missed because of holidays taken in term time. I have a very clear position on this now. I don't recommend reducing fees for adults who take holidays in term time, because their slot is protected for them every single week. Just because they go on holiday during term time doesn't mean you shouldn't be paid, because you can't use that time for another student for the odd week or two when they're away during your teaching weeks. The lesson not happening is their choice, but it's not a change in your availability.
However, I know not everybody operates the same way. If you do let your adult students take holidays during your teaching weeks without charging them for those lessons, you can still run a monthly billing system. You just need to make sure adults book a set number of lessons per year, rather than having a fixed weekly slot. You agree the total number of lessons at the start of the year, calculate the annual fee from that and divide by 12. It just means the monthly fee for those adult students will be lower than for students attending every lesson you offer in the year.
If those adult students then want additional lessons beyond what was agreed, for example extra lessons during the summer holiday, you can invoice separately at the adjusted per lesson rate the calculation tool gives you, and sort it out separately. It's not a big load of extra admin; it's just one last addition before the end of the school year.
There's one scenario where a reduced annual total can be practical, and that's with shift workers. It needs the stars to align: you'd need to coordinate two adults sharing the same slot, each attending fortnightly in alternating weeks. That could work if the scheduling lines up, but I've never seen it happen, which is why I don't take on people who need a lesson once a fortnight.
So for the vast majority of adult students, it's a blanket approach: the same monthly fee and the same expectations as everybody else. That's the cleaner and more sustainable option. It also doesn't open the door to refunding lessons missed because of something like a holiday. When you keep your policies strict and consistent, it doesn't invite, "Oh well, because it was a pre-booked holiday, I didn't have to pay for that. So what about this one? And what about this one?" It opens the door to all these extra conversations you don't want to have.
You don't want to waste your brain power and anxiety, dare I say it, on those conversations. None of us likes talking about the money side of running a teaching business, and the less we have to say about it, the better, which is what this fabulous monthly billing system provides. It's a stable, secure system that runs in the background. You set it up once, and then you can concentrate on being a music teacher and delivering fantastic lessons to your students, without worrying, "Have I been paid for all these lessons? Am I giving my time away for free? Is this student taking advantage of my goodwill?" We don't need all that in our heads, do we?
What if you don't know how many lessons you'll teach?
If you decide on a certain number of lessons per year, and by the end of the academic year you've intentionally taught more (for example, you've booked lessons outside term time), you can tidy those up with a final invoice in August, in addition to the regular monthly amount. I know it's not as simple for everyone to pluck a number out of the air and say, "I'm going to teach this many lessons this year." If you're in that situation, you could go for the lower end of your estimate and then do a final invoice at the end, to account for any lessons over that number. The only downside is needing one extra invoice per student, covering different numbers of lessons, which takes a little more time.
The way I choose my number of lessons is to base it on the academic calendar. I choose to teach 38 lessons a year, because it aligns with the state school system and lets me start one week later at the start of one or two terms. Sometimes you need a bit of leeway in the first week back, especially after the summer holidays, to let things settle before music lessons begin.
But it's a completely personal choice. I've had conversations with lots of teachers about the number of lessons taught per year, and some of them decide over the years that they'd like to teach fewer, so you can reduce the number each new year. If you want to teach to more of a private school timetable, you could do 30 lessons per year, because they have 10-week terms. Obviously that's a lower income, but if you're comfortable with your fees and you were feeling overworked doing more lessons per year, it's a good thing to reflect on when you're considering the next academic year. Think about how you felt this year: did I teach too many lessons, or did I have capacity to teach more without feeling overwhelmed or burnt out?
You can review it year on year, because each year might be different. Different things happen in our lives. Some years are more difficult, and we might need to give ourselves a bit more space. Other years we might be raring to go, or saving for something, and want a bit of extra income. You can build that into your plan, so it gives you that flexibility.
What if I still want to refund missed lessons?
Some teachers have asked, "What if I still want to refund lessons missed by the student?" For example, if the student was sick, and you'd normally refund that lesson, can you still do that with monthly billing? Yes, you can, but I strongly advise against it. You could keep the monthly income going and settle up at the end of the year, issuing any refunds in one go on a final invoice. But you risk having to give back far more money than you anticipated.
It's a really good way of showing you just how much income you're giving back when you refund missed lessons, for student illness, for example. When you add it all up at the end of the year, it can be a hefty amount. I did a post last year where I totted up how many missed lessons I'd logged for my students in that academic year. I have a policy that I don't refund missed lessons for those reasons, except in cases of bereavement, and those weren't included in this calculation. I ended up saving over a thousand pounds in income just from these odd missed lessons here and there. I think it was about £1,300; I'll have to look up the post. That's not a small amount. And I don't have particularly flaky students. This was just the general, run-of-the-mill illnesses that sweep through in different seasons, and the family emergencies that crop up, across a studio of between 32 and 35 students.
I made that post to show just how much income you give away when you refund all the missed lessons, even though at the time each one probably feels like a small amount you can absorb. So I strongly recommend against refunding missed lessons, for all these reasons. I go into it in more detail in Episode 3 of the podcast, which you're welcome to listen to if you'd like to learn more.
This exercise makes the cost of the refund habit visible in a way the termly system never does. With termly billing, when you carry lessons over to the next term, you can see the invoices shrinking, but it's not so obvious, because each term has a different number of weeks.
Make it a clean break
So my recommendation, if it's welcome, is that if you're switching to monthly billing, use the switch as an opportunity to stop refunding missed lessons as well. It can be a clean break, and the two changes work really well together. It keeps things consistent, and it draws a line in the sand that lets you start enforcing your studio policies, if you have them and haven't been reinforcing them, like I never used to.
It makes it clear that you're taking control of your studio's admin system. You're a professional, running your studio in a professional way: "My studio policies are as follows, and if you'd like to sign up for lessons, this is how it works." It does a lot to give you the confidence to stand up for your policies. I'm saying that as someone who has struggled quite significantly with self-confidence in this respect. That's why I want to tell you how powerful this change can be. I'm no longer worrying about my policies. They're established, everybody knows how it works, and I'm not apologising for them any more. And my relationships with my students and families are better than ever. So it's a win-win.
What about fortnightly lessons?
There's absolutely no difference to the monthly billing calculation. You add up the total number of lessons you're teaching that student, which would be about half a weekly student's total, and divide by 12, so their monthly fee is about half. They still pay monthly, on the same date and by the same method, and you still send a monthly invoice. They just come for lessons half as often.
Keep as many fees the same as you can
One thing I'd say at this point is to aim for as many students as possible to be on the same monthly fee, because it makes logging payments so much easier when you're looking for the same number coming in from most families.
There will be some natural variation. For example, a few of my students have 45-minute lessons, so their monthly payments are slightly more. I also rent digital pianos to two of my student families, so they have slightly different monthly fees too. Apart from those few, everybody is on exactly the same amount. I currently teach two sets of siblings, so each of those families pays double everyone else's monthly fee, because it covers two students.
Keeping it consistent really cuts down the minutes you spend checking and logging payments, and you get faster and faster at logging them in a spreadsheet or an accounting system. It's not a brain-heavy workout. You don't finish your invoicing and need a lie down, or not speak to anyone for an hour. And, to be honest, one of the very satisfying things is looking at your bank account, scanning down and seeing the same figure repeated. It's one of the small satisfactions of a well-run system.
What if a payment fails?
If someone's standing order payment fails, which can happen if it was set up incorrectly or there's some kind of fault, Zoho Books lets you send reminder emails directly. You can also generate a link to send by WhatsApp or text, which is what I normally do for students who don't check their emails as often, or if I need them to know the payment is late without waiting for them to check their emails. It generates a unique link to that invoice that they can open on their phone, which is much easier than finding the original invoice, downloading it and screenshotting or attaching it. It's much, much simpler.
As an aside, if a student consistently pays late, it becomes visible very quickly with monthly billing, which is another advantage. If you're always having to remind one or two particular students, you could use it as an opportunity to have a conversation with them, find out why their payments are always late, and see how you can help them set up a system so they don't need reminding. It's not nice to send a reminder saying, "I sent you an invoice and you haven't paid me yet. Please can you pay me?" It doesn't feel very nice, but it's one of those things we need to do as business owners. If you can reduce how often it happens, it's better for everybody.
It might also raise issues you weren't aware of, and it will probably help the student feel more comfortable if they're struggling with things. When I've had to send reminders a couple of times to the same student in the past, it has opened up a conversation where it turned out money was a bit tighter for them that month. It wasn't that they couldn't pay; they just needed to wait for their income to come in. And that's fine, because once you know, you know you're not being ignored. Your student isn't choosing not to pay you because they don't value you, or because they believe they're owed a refund for a missed lesson or whatever. It opens a conversation that helps you work with your students and families, because life happens. So it's quite a good system in that sense.
What about families with mid-month paydays?
I have one student who gets paid near the middle of the month, and he asked if he could pay for the next month in the middle of the previous month, so a couple of weeks early. Yes, absolutely, no problem. I'd always recommend doing it that way round, rather than paying two weeks late, because otherwise you can't log all payments as done by the second or third of the month.
It's just one student, so when I'm checking payments, I know I'll see that one come through halfway through the month, and the rest come through any time between the 24th and the first. If it makes regular payments easier for a family with odd payday timing, that's worth this minor exception, because you're still getting paid on time (early, in fact), and it works with their monthly household bills. The less friction there is, the better, and that's a nice, easy way to be flexible without compromising your system.
The question I was asked most
When I made the switch to monthly billing, the most frequently asked question was about having holidays during term time, and it came from my adult students. It was an area that tested my ability to stand up for my policies. But having made this clean break, it was a little bit uncomfortable, and so much easier than it had been in my head. It's a bit uncomfortable the first time you say, "No, I can't refund lessons missed because of holidays in term time." You just have to say it clearly, cleanly and directly, and then we all move on, and it's fine. But of course, if you're asked directly, the question has to be answered.
Part 4: Life on the other side
Calmer, smoother and predictable
I want to give you a taste of what it feels like on the other side. Having had many years of termly billing, and now being in my fourth year of monthly billing, life is so much calmer and smoother, with much less psychological burden.
On the first of the month, I open my bank account and see nearly all the payments from all my students. It's quite a reassuring feeling, knowing it just appears in my account without me having to ask for it every month. With automated invoices, I'm not spending any extra time each month thinking about sending invoices out. They just happen, on a rolling basis, until the end of August for me.
Summer holidays are so much easier, and there's no income gap at Christmas or Easter either. I get paid in July and in August, just like any other month. It's so much easier to plan financially for the year, and you don't get the feast and famine you get with termly billing.
Because so many people have standing orders set up, I'm very rarely chasing late payments. The most it gets to is maybe two or three students. I just click the reminder email button, and those payments arrive the same day, if not the next. There's none of, "Oh, that's a huge amount for the term, and we need to wait until next payday because we can't afford it right now," especially after Christmas, when none of us have any money. Having this smaller monthly payment makes everything run much more smoothly. You don't have to keep chasing payments, so you feel better about it, and it's not this annoying thing getting in the way of your relationship with your student families.
Admin freedom
Oh, the admin freedom you get from monthly billing. You set up the invoices once and off they go. I don't have to sit down every term, go back through my diary and work out how many lessons were attended, how many were missed, how many I'm carrying over to the next term and how many I've agreed to refund directly, and there's no recalculating for different term lengths. I just allocate one hour around the second or third of the month, log all the monthly payments, and it's done. Then I can go back to exploring more music, and the beautiful music books that have arrived in the post.
The most awkward conversation I have with parents now is about practice, and encouraging their kids to practise. All the stuff about payments, policies and cancellations rarely comes up. It just runs in the background, because everybody knows how it works. And whenever questions have come up, I've reinforced my policies in a professional, clear way that leaves no room for doubt, argument, ambiguity or negotiation. It's all clear: this is how I run my studio, and if you want lessons here, you sign to agree to these policies, and that's that.
It's not done in a stamp-your-foot kind of way. It's done in a "You're welcome to have lessons with me, and this is how it works" way. That feels so much better than grappling with the emotional pull of, "Oh, but I normally refund those lessons if they go away on a school trip," or "No one wanted to get sick, did they? So I'll refund the lesson, even though I don't get paid when I'm sick." It takes all that burden away.
For me, it's made a really big difference to the amount of mental energy I have. We're almost running on empty these days when things get busy, especially towards the end of term. If you can relieve some of that mental burden with a system that more or less runs on its own (you update it once a year, which is what I'm doing this month), how good is that? You can save a lot of mental energy for the things that really matter.
A boost to my professional self-esteem
The other thing is that it's done a lot for my self-perception in a professional sense. It's given me a big boost to my self-esteem as a teacher, because the system works really well, everybody's happy, my studio is running smoothly, and I'm in control of it. I'm not waiting for payments to come in at random times, hoping I can pay the car bill that's just come in unexpectedly. Everything is much more controlled.
And when I feel more professional, it's self-fulfilling. I believe I'm a professional music teacher because I am one, because I run my teaching studio in a professional way. Each confirms the other. Better self-esteem as a music teacher can only be a good thing.
Taking that further, it lets me be more confident as a music teacher in general, because I'm confident in the decisions I've made, and that helps me make all the other decisions we need to make: how to help a particular student progress if they're struggling with practice, reading or rote learning; deciding when a student is ready to start taking exams; and having the professional conversation with parents who are asking for their child to start exams when you know they're not ready. Seeing yourself in a more professional light does wonders for the whole package.
It might seem quite trivial; how you bill is just how you bill. But it has had a profound impact on my self-perception as a music teacher. So, however trivial it might sound, going through the transition from termly billing to monthly billing has had a huge impact for me. If you'd like to experience that too, I can help you with it. I've produced a lot of information about it. You know about the Monthly Billing Transition Toolkit, which is linked in the show notes. I've also written some blog posts, so if you want to read more about it, visit the blog on my website; I'll put the link in the show notes. And of course I'm always here to help individually, one-to-one. If you'd like that kind of support, I offer Focus Sessions, which you can book through my website.
Just taking on board the idea that you can bill monthly, even if you teach termly, is one step towards making it a reality, and one step towards freeing yourself from an enormous admin burden that takes up valuable space in your head every term. And throughout the term, to be honest, when you're chasing unpaid termly fees halfway through, which isn't a good place to be, is it? But this is the solution, and it's very accessible.
A two-minute calculation
So if you've been sitting there thinking, "Hmm, monthly billing could be a possibility for me," one thing I'd like you to try is to work out what your total number of lessons could be for the year. Take your lesson rate, multiply it by the number of lessons, and divide that number by 12. That gives you your approximate monthly fee. It won't be a nice round number; it'll be a weird number with decimals, but that's fine. You've got the idea of what you could be charging per month.
Just getting that number in your head, and picturing how your student families would feel paying it every month, is the first step towards making the switch a reality. It costs you nothing, and takes about two minutes and a calculator. Of course, if you want the calculation tool, I've already talked about that, and you can access it via the show notes.
And if you haven't heard about it by now, I have my free studio policy template, which will be linked in the show notes. It will help you set up your studio policy agreement so you can protect your time and income, and it works hand in hand with monthly billing for a smooth, problem-free admin life as a music teacher.
Five or six years ago, I had no idea I could run my studio with monthly billing, as a teacher who only teaches in term time. But you know what? I'm so glad I made the leap. I have so much more of my time and mental energy back. I have far fewer uncomfortable conversations, and far less chasing of late payments. So I've got more energy to spend on my teaching, engaging with my students, and coming up with new ideas and plans to solve this or that. It's a much better way to be, and I hope you take it on board and give it a chance.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode, all about switching from termly billing to monthly billing. I hope you found it informative, useful and, dare I say it, inspiring, to make a positive change for your studio. If you're enjoying these podcast episodes, I'd be beyond grateful if you could leave me a review on whichever podcast platform you use. Your review will help other music teachers find this show, and the support and advice they might be searching for. And if you know a music teacher who bills termly and could benefit from this episode, please share it with them directly.
If you have any particular questions about today's topic, I always welcome emails. You can email me directly. I read every single one and respond to every single one, even if it takes me a couple of days to get round to it. I'm more than happy to help. I hope you enjoy your day, and I'll see you in the next episode.
