This walkthrough takes a fitness, yoga or wellness studio from a new account to a week of classes with people on them. Follow it in order.
1. Create the business
- Choose Start free on BookNovi's site, or Create an account on the sign-in page, and make your account. The guided setup starts on its own.
- Type the studio's name under The business’s name, pick Gym, Fitness studio, Yoga studio or Pilates studio under Fitness, and choose Next. Each fills in private sessions on the menu, the studios or reformers, and a waiver and an intake form; members or students, coaches, instructors or teachers are what the booking page calls things.
- Check the Time zone, type the address and phone (or leave them for later), and choose Next.
- Under What do you sell and book?: say yes to packages or memberships (class packs and unlimited plans), to forms (waivers), and to rooms if a class or a private session books a room. Choose Next.
- Say how many people work there, how you heard of us and, if a rep or a partner gave you a code, type it in. Choose Start my business.
Classes and events, and client progress, are on for every studio.
The business opens with What to do next: the steps of this walkthrough as a list that ticks itself as each gets done, under the top bar and in your menu at the top right. Your free trial starts the same day; see Plans and billing.
2. Set up the business
Open Settings, Business: set the Time zone and the calendar's hours. Under What You Call Things, change Staff to Instructors if you like, and choose Save. Fill in Location and Tax and choose Save.
3. Add your instructors
Open Staff (or Instructors), choose Add, and set each one's Work hours. A class blocks its instructor's time on the calendar, so nobody is booked over it.
4. Put classes on the schedule
- Open Classes and choose New class or event.
- Give it a Name, the Day, when it Starts and how long it Runs for, and who it is Led by.
- Set a Price for a place, and switch on Limit the places with how many. Once it is full, people go on a waiting list and the first one waiting moves up when a place opens.
- Under Repeats, choose Every week (or every day, every weekday, every few weeks) and How many sessions in all.
- Choose Add the class. Open it to add a picture and a description for its flyer.
To put someone in a class, open the session and choose Add a client, or Add to the waiting list when it is full. After class, mark each person Came, or Did not for someone who stayed away. See Classes and events.
5. Waivers
Open Settings, Records, and under Forms start from a ready-made waiver or write your own. Switch on Signed with a typed name and a signature. Hand a new client the tablet from their Forms tab before their first class.
6. Class packs and memberships
At the register, open Offers:
- A package is a set of visits paid for up front, used one at a time.
- A membership is a plan with a price each period and a standing percent off every sale.
See Offers, packages, gift cards and loyalty.
7. Client progress
- Open Settings, Records, and under Progress add what you measure (a mile time, a plank hold, weight), saying whether lower is better.
- Add a plan with its steps, or start from the 8-week plan.
- On a client's Progress tab, add measurements over time, set goals, and put them on a plan. Each measurement is drawn as a chart.
8. Online booking and cards
Turn on Take bookings online in Settings, Online booking for private sessions, and Set up card payments under Card payments. Events you promote in Marketing, under Events, get a public page anyone can open to reserve a place.
Best practices
- Build the schedule as repeating series, not one class at a time. Call off a single session with Cancel this class.
- Set a place limit on every class with a room. The waiting list does the rest.
- Mark attendance after every class. It feeds the reports and the client's history.
- Sell class packs as packages so each visit comes off the count at checkout.
- Measure a client's starting point in their first week. Progress is the best reason to come back.