I've built in a new way of setting up discounts for Ensemble/Class enrolments.  Previously, discounts had to be set up as FIXED amounts.  You can now set up a discount as a PERCENTAGE of the ensemble/class fee.

For example, you may offer a sibling discount of 10% for all classes.  You can set up a discount called 'Sibling' in the Discounts section of the Tuition Fees file, tag it as a 'Percentage' discount, and enter a '10' in the amount field.

Whenever you enter an ensemble/class enrolment and select   a 'Sibling' discount, Music Monitor will calculate the discount as 10% of the ensemble fee.

Most of my Music Monitor schools bill in 'batches'.  That is, they enrol students on an almost-daily basis, but they 'send to accounts' in a batch when the billing is due.

I'm aware, however, that for conservatoriums, it's slightly different.  Although you still do the 'batch billing', you are also required to do lots of on-the-spot enrolments, entering data and spitting out an invoice straight away.

I'm also aware that if someone is enrolling for 3 ensembles (including discounts) and 1 private tuition, a LOT of clicks are involved to send all this information to the Accounts file.

Well, it's still not as quick as I'd like it to be for you (I'll keep working on it), but I've added a couple of new buttons to the Tuition tab and the Ensembles/Classes tab on the Students Form View layout.

Send all CURRENT to Accounts
You can now enter your ensembles and then, rather than having to click the binoculars to send each record to accounts individually, you can click this button.  It will find all the CURRENT ensemble/class enrolments for this one student (be careful with your Enrolment Date... if it's a future date, the status will be 'Pending' rather than 'Current') and send the amounts to the Accounts file.  It will then look for any discounts attached to these records and send them over, too.  Unfortunately you still have to select Category, Term and Year along the way (twice if there are discounts sent over as well), but hopefully I'll be able to tighten this up in future.

You can do the same on the Tuition tab.

Then check the amounts in the Accounts tab and click the green Process Unbilled Amounts to produce an invoice for this family.

Hopefully that speeds up the process somewhat for you!

This feature is available in V7.18.7.

For those of you who do a LOT of invoicing, and therefore need to do a LOT of interrogation of the Accounts file, I think you will find these 3 little scripts very handy.  They are found under the scripts menu and here's what they're called:

• Show related LINE ITEMS for found set of records
• Show related DEBTORS for found set of records
• Show related INVOICES for found set of records

And they do exactly what they say!  So, say for example, you're looking at a bunch of records on the line items screen.  You may want to see the Invoices attached to these same records.  Select 'Show related INVOICES for found set of records' and Music Monitor will jump to those invoices on the Invoices layout.

Or you may be looking at one debtor, trying to work out why their account balance doesn't seem right.  To view ALL their line items, simply select 'Show related LINE ITEMS for found set of records' and you'll see all the line items belonging to this debtor on the Line Items screen.

LOTS of ways to use these scripts!  I'm sure you'll figure out more.

This feature is available in V7.18.7.

I've added the 'Print Letters, Envelopes & Labels' script to the Student Accounts file, so it is now possible to produce letters (or envelopes or labels) for a found set of debtors.

To run the script, FIND the group of debtors first, then select Scripts from the menu at the top of the screen, then 'Letters, envelopes or labels'.

Note:  You can also run this script from the Invoices or Line Items layouts.  Letters will be produces for the RELATED debtors (so, for example, all the debtors belonging to the found set of invoices).

This feature is available in V7.18.7.

Yes! For those schools that are using the Send SMS feature in Music Monitor, you can now send SMS from the Contacts file.  Find the record of group of records that you wish to SMS, then select Scripts from the menu at the top of the screen, then 'Send SMS'.  (By the way, it doesn't matter whether your mobile phone numbers are entered with spaces or not.  Music Monitor now filters spaces and non-numeric symbols from the data so that the numbers can be used in SMS.)

This feature is available in V7.18.7.

I'm excited! I've just added some 'filter fields' underneath the portal on the Attendance tab in the Students file.  Basically this means you can FILTER the records in that portal to show only one Subject (if a student learns more than one instrument), or only one Attendance Code (for example, only the absences).  Have a look at the document below to see how it all works.  This feature is available in V7.18.6.

And while I was at it, I've updated all the printable rolls (for those who use the 'Roll Marking' in Music Monitor), so a key for the Attendance Codes now displays in the footer of the roll. 

I've just added a new script to the 'End-of-Year Procedures' in the What Do You Want To Do file.  Music Schools and Conservatoriums that do NOT import student details from another school database can now automatically update the Year Level for all students at the end of each year.

A few things to note:

* If you are a school that imports student details from another system, you should not run this script. If you accidentally click the button, a message will pop up telling you not to use this function, and the script will halt.

* There is NO UNDO button for this script.  But if you click the button, a message will appear explaining the process, and you will be given the opportunity to cancel.

* The script performs a FIND in the Students file for ALL records (active and inactive) with any of the following values in the Year Level field: P, K, 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.  Records with anything else (or nothing) in this field will not be found and therefore will not be updated. The values will stay the same.

* Records with a P, K, or 0 in the Year Level field will change to 1.

* Records with a 12 in the Year Level field will change to empty.

* All other values will increase by 1.

The script finishes on the Students List View screen.

This script is available in V7.18.4.

This suggestion was made by someone at a recent workshop.  I thought it was a GREAT suggestion, so here it is!  You can now enter performance details against particular pieces of music in the Resources file.

Find the piece of music on the form view screen, click the new Performance Details tab and enter Date, Event, Performed By, Soloist, Conductor, and Notes.

Here's a screenshot:

If you're one of the schools that uses the 'online' Ensemble Roll-Marking (teachers can mark the roll in Music Monitor, and the data is permanently stored), you'll notice a couple of changes the next time you update.

You can now enter notes without having to open a separate window (making it easier to mark students as 'Late').  You can also now enter 'Penalties' which will be calculated as absences in the percentage attendance.

Below is a document explaining the changes.

I thought you might like to see a couple of the new Tuition Attendance Roll options.  One has been in the system for a few months now, and the other I have just added.

Attendance Roll 9 displays the length of the lesson, and the total number of lessons charged. It also highlights yellow any students that have not been given photo permission.

Attendance Roll 10 includes student email and parent phone numbers. It also includes space for the student to sign each lesson attended.