March Invoice Information - New Venmo username, ZELLE IS HERE!!!!

 I hope everyone is enjoying their Spring Break, for those of you who have it this week, or are looking forward to it, for those who have it next week.

For those of you who have requested to send payments via, Zelle, we now have that option for you.  Just send it to the email address on your invoice.  We have already run a few test payments through it, and it has worked fine.  It took us a while to find a local bank in Denton that accepted Zelle and also didn't require us to keep a large balance on our account.  We have a long history at our regular bank, as well as many open accounts, so we were not interested in moving everything over to a new bank just for Zelle.  But since we don't have to tie up a lot of money with this new bank, we felt it would be worth it.

For those who prefer Venmo, I have changed my username for those payments.  I don't know how that may affect those of you who have been using Venmo to pay me previously, so please let me know if you encounter any problems.  The reason for this change is that we have had a few instances where payments were sent to the wrong person.  The less common spelling of my first name probably had something to do with that, so I went with something unique and also familiar to mitigate those issues going forward.

Looking forward to April, I do not expect any disruptions to my lesson schedule other than school holidays at this time.

If you are a new student and haven't already done so, please see the following helpful blog posts with information about lessons and payments:

• https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/10/welcome-new-flute-students.html
• https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/04/how-to-pay-for-lessons-in-remote.html

If you are traveling, I hope that you have a safe journey.  And I hope everyone has a safe and restful break.

I look forward to seeing everyone next week!

February Invoice, March Lessons, Welcome New Students, ZELLE IS COMING SOON, Venmo changes coming next month

 Wow, what a crazy week with the weather!!!!  I hope this finds everyone warm and safe.

Once again, life conspired against us to delay our invoice for this month.  We were working on it going into last weekend, but then the weather was getting crazy, and the forecast looked bad, so we held off so we could account for all of the missed lessons due to the school closings, blackouts, and spotty internet, which we had all-of-the-above here at the Hudson house.  I know some of you faired better or worse, but I hope everything has returned to normal for everyone.  Thankfully we didn't have any damage, and all of our utilities are back up and running at this point.

I will be out of town and unavailable for lessons on March 11th through the 14th.  Depending upon your school's spring break dates, you may choose to miss that week.  I will be available for lessons throughout, except the dates I just mentioned, however, if you want to have lessons during your spring break.  I will work that out with each one of you as I set up schedules for March.

I have had yet another wave of new students sign up over the last several weeks.  For those of you who are new, please see the following blog posts about lessons and payments:

• https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/10/welcome-new-flute-students.html
• https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/04/how-to-pay-for-lessons-in-remote.html

With these additions to my schedule, I'm pretty much 100% full, and will likely be starting a waiting list for any new students.  This also means that, while I do my best to maintain some flexibility in my schedule for missed lessons, there are now very few spots I can move students if they just forget or miss lessons with little or no notice.  As always, the key is to communicate.  Let me know as far in advance as possible if you will miss a lesson.  That will give me the best chance on finding an alternate time.

As I mentioned last month, we are adding Zelle to our payment options.  We opened an account at a local bank that accepts Zelle just yesterday, and will be setting it up to accept Zelle in the next few days.  We will send the Zelle payment information out to everyone as soon as we have it set up and working.

For those of you who use Venmo, I will be changing my username when we send out the March invoice.  I have had a few students at this point who inadvertently sent the payment to the wrong person.  I have realized that the uncommon spelling of my first name, and the similarity to another username is causing the issue.  Please continue to use the current username until then.  I'm not certain how changing the Venmo username will affect those of you who are already sending those payments to me, so I will be sending out notices before that actually heppens.

January Invoice - looking forward to February - Zelle????!!!!!

Welcome back!

I hope everyone had a great holiday break, and had plenty of time for family and rest!

Ok, so I admit, we're not doing so great on getting the invoices out in a timely fashion.  It seems like life conspires against Paul and I getting together to go over the billing.  This month, as I have shared with a few of you, my husband's sister passed away after a long battle with cancer.  He wants you to know that he appreciates the words of support that have been offered.  While it wasn't unexpected, the end came suddenly, so he and his entire family have been dealing with that for the past couple of weeks.

Since this month's invoice is so late, and we will try to send out the February invoices here in the next two weeks, we will understand and it will be ok with us if you decide to wait until you receive the February invoice to pay your balance.

As usual, any payments that we received after December 31 are not included on this invoice.  We have tried to include payments like that on the invoices before, and it always ends up creating problems with our accounting.  Also, since it is the end of the calendar year, it keeps our tax records neat and tidy.  If you have made a payment and you need confirmation that we received it, just send us a note, and we will get back to you about it.

Just a scheduling heads up: I will not be teaching any lessons on February 5.

Also, we are looking at being able to accept Zelle payments.  It is still not available at our current bank, but as we have had many requests for it, we are considering opening an account at a local bank that does accept it.  Stay tuned for more information.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in lessons.

And, as always, thanks for letting me share my love of flute and music with your child!

December Invoice and the Holidays

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday!  We had a great time her at the Hudson house with our two sons home, and our oldest's roommate who was stranded here away from home in Montana.  We had a lot of food, but with three big strapping young men at the table, we didn't have the usual mountain of leftovers, and I think that was a good thing.

For lessons this month, I expect to teach my regular schedule through December 16, and only a few lessons on the 17th and 18th.  If I plan on teaching you those days, I will let you know personally.  I will resume lessons on January 4th.

I apologize that we are late with the December invoice.  I have added several new students over the last couple of months, and that always means my schedule is in flux, and that means I can't give accurate information to Paul for the billing, and that delays everything.  Add to that the normal busy-ness of life and we have had a hard time finding time to sit down and get it done.  Hopefully as my schedule is at almost 100% capacity at this point we will be able to do the invoices closer to the first of the month going forward.

If you are a new student, please see these posts for general information about lesson invocies and payments:

https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/10/welcome-new-flute-students.html

https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/04/how-to-pay-for-lessons-in-remote.html

I look forward to seeing all of my students over the next week and I hope everyone has a great holiday break!

November 4 Holiday and Billing Update

 Good evening!

I want to thank everyone for the kind words outpouring of sympathy during my mom's final days and after her passing.  It meant a lot to me, and makes me appreciate all of you even more.  I know I have the most wonderful students, and they have some wonderful parents!

My husband and I have started working updating our spreadsheet to reflect the lessons I missed while I was away.  If you paid in advance for lessons in October, please know that you will receive credit for any missed lessons on your November invoice.  Also, in the chaos that was trying to schedule lessons through August and September, we discovered an error in our spreadsheet that caused a few of you to be billed for fewer lessons than you received in the July-September timeframe.  We are currently working on a statement that will give you (and us) a full accounting of all lessons and payments since July so that you can double check it for any mistakes.  For most of you, this will not cause any changes, and we apologize for any inconvenience it may cause those whom it does affect.  We thought about just sending the detailed statement to just those few that we knew were affected, but we thought that it might be better to give everyone an opportunity to look at everything to make sure it looks right to you, and that will simplify our billing process.  As I'm sure you can relate, simple seems like a good option right now!  =)

Depending upon your school, you may have a holiday on either November 4, or November 3 and 4. My plan is to see all of my students that week, and so will be rescheduling as needed to accommodate that.  If I need to reschedule your child's lesson that week, I will be in touch.

I hope everyone has had a great weekend, and I look forward to seeing all of you this week!

And, again, thanks for everything!

Welcome New Flute Students!

Good Evening!

I so excited to start lessons with your child!  Learning flute and music can be such an exciting and fun adventure.  Thanks for letting me share this time with them!

This is my blog that I use for keeping in touch with all of you about general lesson information.  Posting all of it here makes the emails and texts you receive from me shorter and to-the-point, which if you're like me and reading everything on a phone, I hope you appreciate.  This particular post is just to introduce a few things to you so you know what to expect going forward.

First, you should know that my husband, Paul, helps me with this blog and with my billing.  So, if you email or text me with a question about your invoice, he is probably the one who will respond.  He started helping me with this a few years ago so I could focus on managing my schedule, giving your child the best possible lesson experience, and giving you the feedback you want about your child's progress.

We used try to always bill lessons for the month in advance.  Billing in advance is the common practice for lessons, and most school districts' private lesson guidelines expect that.  I understand the reasoning behind those guidelines, but over the years, I have found that billing in advance causes confusion in some circumstances, especially if we are not able to get the invoices out exactly on the first of the month, and is completely unworkable in the summer when most students don't take lessons on a regular weekly schedule.  So, for the time being, I will be billing at the end of the month.  That means I will expect full payment promptly after I send the invoice.  I am very flexible, however, in making payment arrangements with you if you prefer to pay week-to-week, on the 20th, at the end of the month, etc.  Just let me know what payment arrangements work for you, and we'll make it work.

Flexibility is one of my hallmarks when it comes to many aspects of scheduling and billing.  Over 20 years of experience teaching lessons in schools has taught me to expect the unexpected.  There are always unexpected interruptions in our schedule. It used to be fire drills and picture days, but we often have unexpected testing days and the like anymore.  Of course, we still have doctors appointments and the usual life-happens type of stuff.  So, I plan with flexibility in my schedule, and will rearrange things to make sure your child gets a lesson every week to the best of my ability.  That means, occasionally, I will switch your child's lesson day to make that all work.  I do keep track of each lesson your child takes, and then on the invoice the following month, you will see an accounting of the dates your child received lessons.  If, for some reason, your child receives more or less lessons than what you have paid for, you will see a credit or charge for that on the next invoice.

I accept various forms of payment, and I mention those on the invoices.  I have a blog post that covers all of the different payment options here: https://www.hudsonmusicstudio.com/2020/04/how-to-pay-for-lessons-in-remote.html

I hope this helps you understand the billing and payments.  Please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or concerns.

And, as always, thanks for letting me share my love of music and flute with your child.

Flute Lesson Invoices: September and looking forward to October

 Good Evening!

This is Paul, Lynne's husband, and as most of you already know, I help Lynne with the billing for her lessons and with this blog.  Lynne, by necessity, spends a lot of time communicating with you about schedules and your child's progress.  That personal touch on things is important to her, so last year I started helping her so she could focus on giving all of you the best lesson experience she can.  So, for those of you who are new, when you get your bill or ask questions related to that, often, but not always, I may be the one replying to your message.

Of course, scheduling and billing go together, and at this time of year the scheduling is always a little crazy.  With almost all students doing remote lessons right now, it's been an exceptionally challenging year for her, so we are a being a little more flexible with the billing until things settle in.  Of course, when and if the schools transition into a more normal, in-person situation, and she start to see students face-to-face, there will be some more upheaval.  As long as we all remain flexible and understanding, we will get through it all just fine.

So, here's the billing plan for the next few weeks.  If it has to change for some unexpected reason, we will let you know.

• We are billing for September as we solidify weekly lesson times.
• Some of you have already received the September invoice, previously or tonight 
• You will not be billed again until the October invoice.
• If you have not yet received a September invoice AND you have lessons scheduled, you may expect to receive the September invoice sometime over the next few days.
• If you made a payment for any lessons after 8/30, you will see that payment on on the October invoice.
• If you have any questions about those payments, please send a message.
• We will bill for October based upon the schedule that is in place at the end of September.
• That's the most optimistic schedule
• You will receive credit/charges on the November invoice if we miss/add any lessons in October due to schedule changes
• We will try to have all October invoices sent out by October 5th.

Thanks to all of you for being such great parents and having such great kids.  Lynne has been so happy and having a lot of fun meeting with all of them.

Take care!

-Paul