You can use Acuity to set up your scheduling for your yoga studio! While each yoga studio may have different specific needs, most will use the same features in Acuity to get those downward dogs going in no time.
Set Up Your Staff
Calendars For Instructors
If you are assigning yoga classes to instructors, setting up a calendar for each of your teachers is where you’ll want to start. You’ll need a Growing Plan (6 calendars) or the Powerhouse Plan (36 calendars) to create more than one calendar. More about our Plans here!
As the main admin create a calendar for each of your staff members (no need to create the availability as the staff member can do that themselves).
To give each staff member access to their calendar to manage their class offerings or private sessions, set them up as sub-users on the account. You can find our more about this here: Add Additional Users and Staff to Your Acuity Account.
Set Up Your Classes
To start, create appointment types for each of your class types by clicking Business Settings > Appointment Types > then click +New Type of Group Class
In the class’ settings, you will set up the following features for each class:
- Time and date
- Duration
- Frequency
- Class size
- Categories
- Price-this is your price for a drop-in session (discounts can be worked in using packages, see more below)
- Facilitator/teacher of the class
- Private or public settings
- If the class is a one time, or required series of class times
Our comprehensive guide to Appointment Types can be found here.
Clients can then sign up for classes before showing up at the studio. If a drop in student shows up you can add them to the class list easily as well to keep record of attendees. More on adding students in on the admin side here.
Class Packages, Class Memberships, Gift Certificates, & Add-Ons
If you also offer class cards for a discounted class price or memberships you can set that up in Acuity. Understanding the difference between appointment types and packages is a great place to start. Explore that more here.
When creating the packages it's helpful to think about how this will work: the client will buy a set number of appointments or classes for the price you put on the package. The discount for the individual appointments will be worked into the package price. *Note: You do not need to set up a package for individual or drop in sessions the client can pay when booking into the class. Once the client purchases a package they will head to your scheduling page and book their appointments, either all at once or individually.
If you'd like your clients to mix and match which classes they can attend select the option "Redeemable for Total Number of Minutes" and flash back to algebra class to math out the total number of minutes. For example, if you're offering a 3 class pack, you have beginner, intermediate, and restorative classes that are all 60 minutes long the max number of minutes you'll enter for the package will be 180 (60 minutes x 3 classes included in the package).
If your classes are different lengths this might be tricky to figure out, in that case you may want to use the setting "Redeemable for Total $ amount..." setting. In that field you'd add up the total price that the 3 classes would cost if they were a drop in. For example, if each class costs $15 as a drop in you'll enter $45 that the package can be redeemed for, but the package price is probably less than that as you're looking to give your clients a deal! The client will not see that the package is redeemable for $45, it's just a setting for Acuity to keep track. You'll tell the client in the description of the package how much it's worth, if you'd like
To understand the flow of packages and how it works for your client it will be helpful to test on your scheduling page. Here you'll find the link to your scheduling page. Purchase a package (you can create a coupon for 100% off to test without payment), check out what the client will see then head to the scheduling page and book the appointments! You can delete all test stuff later, don't fret!
If you have a need to provide service add-on, for example if your yogis need to rent or borrow a mat or a towel, you can use Acuity's add-on feature! You can keep your add-ons free, or assign a price to the service.
Here's a bit more info on these topics:
- Gift certificates
- Appointment packages
- Memberships, subscriptions, recurring billing options for classes
- Add-ons
Once you're clients get rolling with buying their class cards you may want to explore...
- How to add a student into a class as the admin
- How to apply a package code to an appointment
- How to check students into class
- What the purchasing and redeeming packages looks like to clients (video)
Set Up Payments
Set up a Payment Processor
To process payments for individual classes, packages or class cards, subscriptions and gift certificates, set up a payment processor in your Acuity account under Business Settings > Payment Settings in the left hand menu.
Your account can be set up with a payment processor (Stripe, Paypal or Square). Note: Subscriptions cannot be paid for via PayPal in Acuity. Of course you can manage payment outside of your scheduler, but this is a great way for clients to pay when booking or managing their classes.
Reporting and Payroll
If you have instructors you’ll need to divvy out payroll outside of Acuity, but we have some tips on doing that at Reporting for staff payroll.
As always, if you have any questions about getting set up, let us know. Namaste!