Which Software is Right for your School?

Which Software is Right for your School?
By Phil Gomes
From Martial Arts Professional Magazine
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If you've ever wished you could use your computer to manage your martial arts business better, then your wait may be over. There are a number of industry-specific programs on the market to help you do just that, and there are more being released all the time. To help you evaluate which program might work best for your needs, we've created this Software Comparison to assist you in determining what features are available in each package.

We have refrained from offering a, "Best Buy" review as the martial arts school software product line is quite limited at this early stage in its development. We were also surprised with the lack of cooperation from some of the software developers in the construction of this article. This leads us to believe that many software developers are not full time professionals. We recommend that, in addition to reviewing the features of the programs, you also investigate the level of technical support provided with the program. Also, when contacting any of these companies, ask for a list of users you can contact to see if they are satisfied with the program and the technical support.

Tracking Your Accounts
What are the advantages of using an industry specific software over an off the shelf program! Actually, there are many. The needs and demands of a martial arts school are quite unique. The typical school is a combination of a number of different businesses and services under one roof. Retail, inventory, attendance tracking, membership dues collections, renewal alerts, absent call lists, prospecting follow up, marketing and classroom support are just a few of the areas a custom software package can automate for you. The trick is to find the right package for you with the right level of support. Most of these programs offer ways to track accounts payable and accounts receivable. This is a real nice feature for keeping your bills in order. Would you like to have information about your profit margin, but make sure that your staff and employees do not have access to it! Some of these programs offer function level security so that you can limit just how much information your staff and employees can access.

Technology Can Add A Competitive Edge
According to a survey conducted by Martial Arts Professional in September of 1997, the estimated number of martial arts schools has grown to 18,000. In a telephone interview conducted with John King of the National Association of professional Martial Artists (NAPMA), he estimated the number of martial arts schools at close to 24,000 for the United States and Canada combined. King estimated that the average martial arts School has around 80 students, which means there are about 2,000,000 active students of martial arts on any given day While this represents less than one percent of the population, it's still a sizable number. To put this growth into perspective, there were exactly five martial arts schools with listings in the Yellow Page directory when we opened our first school in the Puget Sound area, south of Seattle, in June of 1980. That number has now grown to 35. Keep in mind that I'm only talking about four cities that lie in South King County. That number doesn't include the 16 or so martial arts schools that have gone out of business over the past two years. This means that the 35 martial arts schools advertising in the South King County Yellow Pages are competing for 1,800 students (one percent of the population).

It would certainly be fair to say that the population of our area has grown since 1980, just as most high-tech areas have, but the number of new martial arts schools has far outpaced the population growth. This growth in the number of martial arts schools competing for about one percent of the population has created a very competitive environment. In this kind of environment, any tool, technique or strategy that can improve the control and operations of a school becomes critical. This is why desktop technology is no longer an option for managing your school. It's a must.

70% of Martial Arts Schools Use Computers
According to the Martial Arts Professional survey, approximately 70% of the 18,000 martial arts schools are using computers for one task or another. With the power and affordability of the modern computer, martial arts school owners are discovering a power that was never available to them before. The computer and the Internet have given the martial arts business owner the ability to network with other successful martial arts business owners, worldwide, to discuss strategies and to share ideas.

While 70% of schools use computers, most schools do not use software developed specifically for the industry. Many owners expressed confusion about the packages offered and concerns about the stability and service level of the companies. Paying upwards of $3,000 for a software package only to find the company won't return your phone calls when you need help is no fun. Many school owners are using off the shelf programs like Quickbooks and PeachTree to take care of their accounting and Point of Sale (POS) needs. Excel and various spreadsheet programs seem to be very popular, as do a wide range of desktop publishing programs. Some school owners are even attempting to write their own basic martial arts school management programs, using programs like Filemaker Pro, Access and FoxPro.

Your Choice of Software Must Meet Your Needs
Certainly some of the programs we reviewed offered many more features than others did. As with most items, these features come with a price. We hope this comparison helps you in choosing the features you need so you don't end up with extra features that you will not actually use.

Some of the programs we reviewed seem to have been develdped for another industry and then modified to fit the martial arts field. There have been programs on the market for a number of years to help churches and schools track enrollment and attendance. While the existing programs may work well for these specific needs, the martial arts industry has unique needs that need to be addressed.

As we conducted our comparison of the software available to our industry, it became increasingly obvious that martial artists have developed some of the programs. It is great to see martial artists involved in developing these programs since we are ultimately going to be the customers for these products.

However, some of the programs seem to have been developed for a particular system, style or school, which may leave a large number of martial arts schools unable or unwilling to use these programs. When I started the software evaluation, I thought it would be an easy matter to simply compare the various programs side-by-side, feature-by-feature. As I got progressively further into the evaluation, I began to realize just how difficult it would be to do the comparison, since the different programs offered similar features but not necessarily similar enough to do a side-by-side comparison. As our team worked through the programs, I began to see a totally different direction developing for our evaluation. Our evaluation began to move in the direction of comparing what was available on the market to what our industry wants, needs, and is willing to pay for it. As we proceeded in the evaluation, discrepancies began to develop.

What School Owners Will Pay For
As a part of the software evaluation, we decided it was important to find out just what the martial arts industry, as a whole was looking for in a program and what they were willing to pay for it. One of the surveys I conducted on the NAPMA Online Network was entitled the "Software Wish List." I asked the question, "If there were a martial arts management software program that would do everything that you wanted it to do, what features would it have and in what order of importance?" Most of the responses included requests for features that most of the programs we reviewed already included. A number of requests were for "a program that would support the NAPMA management system." Many of the NAPMA members seem to be looking for a program that would allow them to sit down the end of the day, plug in the number of calls, and have the program do the rest. This would provide reminders for 2-4-6 calls, birthdays, etc., all with a disable feature for those who don't use them -- as well as for a monthly planner, ready to have NAPMA's monthly projects put in as the package arrives. One other suggestion that I found very useful was to have a preprogrammed Motivational Message of the Week.

Software developers may want to take these suggestions to heart since NAPMA now boasts nearly 1,700 member-schools, and it continues to grow each year. With this kind of growth, it probably won't be long before a software program will need to be developed specifically for these clients. Another obstacle that software developers will need to overcome if they hope to be successful is the price of these programs. In the survey I conducted, I asked the question, "If there was a martial arts school management software program on the market that would do everything that you wanted it to do, how much would you be willing to pay for it!" Almost without exception, the overwhelming response by martial arts school owners was a willingness to pay between $100 and $100. One respondent replied that he would be willing to pay up to $400 if the program was very good.

I think the reason that martial arts school owners are not willing to pay more is that there are so many off-the-shelf programs available that will help them accomplish many of the tasks they must do. QuickBooks, for instance, can be purchased for under $100, and is an excellent accounting and bookkeeping program.

It was good to see that some of the programs provide security features. It is understandable that martial arts school owners probably will not want their employees to be able to access sensitive information that may be contained in the program. This makes function-level security control a very important feature, in order to limit all employee's accessibility to sensitive information.

In talking with martial arts school owners, I found that there is a varying range of computer experience, as would be expected. Computer programs that are written to be user friendly and will allow the users to employ their intuition in running them, will probably be the most successful. With that in mind we had a number of requests for more Macintosh programs. Presently, Physical's Kick-Soft is the only Mac compatible software.

Does The Company Have Good Technical Support Service?
Because of varying computer skills in the martial arts good technical support will be very important. Some of the programs we reviewed offered free technical support. The customer will have to pay for the long-distance telephone call, however, since most of these companies don't offer toll-free telephone numbers.

Some common features, such as document merge, were offered in most of the programs, but varied drastically in the actual use. A document merge allows you to merge a file with a mail list or other information to create personalized custom documents. Many of the programs require you to toggle back and forth between the word processor to create a document, and then another program to get the numbers or addresses to complete the merge. This is both confusing and inefficient.

The programs we reviewed that were the easiest to use didn't require the user to jump to another program in order to print out a form, contract or document. This is a definite plus in developing a good martial arts school-management program. Many of the people that I talked to want to be able to run one program and have everything take place from inside that one program. In other words, they want to be able to push one key or click on one icon and have a contract or document instantly appear at their printer.

How Stable Is Your Software Developer?
Customer confidence is an absolute must if a software developer hopes to turn his program into the next Microsoft product. Unfortunately, some of the software companies developing software for our industry don't stay in business very long. Some of the companies I attempted to contact have gone out of business. Indeed, some of the companies in this comparison may have gone under and others emerged in the time between our comparison and the actual publication of the magazine. It is understandable that if customers are going hundreds or even thousands of dollars in a martial arts school management program, then they need to know that the company selling the program is going to be around for awhile.

There are a number of horror stories from martial arts schools that bought an industry-specific program, at a rather hefty investment, only to find the company they purchased it from had gone out of business a short time later. This is probably why there seems to be a lot of reluctance on the part of many school owners to make any large investments in industry-specific software.

While martial arts school owners feel comfortable purchasing programs from established developers like Claris, Microsoft and Intuit, it will take a concerted effort on the part of software developers to win over the confidence of its potential customers for industry-specific software. It may serve these companies well to align themselves or create partnerships with large, well-known and respected organizations such as NAPMA.

All in all, the general consensus of the software evaluation team was that there are some good programs on the market today and they will continue to get better with time. We recommend that you review a demonstration copy of any program you are considering purchasing and grill them on technical support. If you are interested in reviewing any of the programs that we evaluated, please feel free to contact the software company since most of them have demonstration copies of their programs available.