Fons

Avantages

The Fons community as well as the ease of scheduling and selling packages and appointments.

Inconvénients

I would only like to see more opportunities for more freedom in collecting different kinds of payments detached from any specific package, workshop or appointment. It would also help to be able to sell long-term services with more “in-house financing” capabilities, e.g flexible or graduated payment plan options or the option to pay it down like any other credit account.

Avantages

Automation of my billing based upon appointments completed. I used to use several systems to request and get paid for by clients. And tracking all of them was a big headache. This has saved me an immense amount of time and mental energy.

Inconvénients

I wish I could link my personal calendars into Fons so I can more easily see everything in one place. You can add non business related appointments in Fons. But I would like to be able to just add my calendars (that I have in Google) to Fons so everything would be in one place when I am scheduling.

Avantages

I have had excellent customer service experiences with Fons. It is also wonderful to have a scheduling app where clients can schedule and pay for their appointments and include the option to purchase in bulk!

Inconvénients

This software is a bit complicated to use at times. It is hard to find how to do certain things, and there needs to be more direct options for certain actions. Sites like these should be laid out in the easiest manner for the simplest laymen to use. It would also help to have an option for a business policy to be read by clients before scheduling appointments and when appointments are being confirmed so that the policy is fresh in their minds and for liability purposes.

Avantages

For me, the best part of Fons is that I no longer have to send invoices, record payments, and bother clients who don’t pay on time. It is all done automatically. I also love their personal customer relationships.

Inconvénients

The only issue that I found was the initial onboarding of clients and learning how to use Fons. I am not the most tech savvy. That being said, the customer service team is terrific, and they are always willing to help!

Avantages

The team behind Fons is exceptional. My experience was that they did more than any other SAAS platform to get to know me, my work flow, and connect on a personal level. Extremely helpful and responsive.

Inconvénients

There were features I needed (down-time "padding" before and after appointments, keeping count of the number of appointments used in a billing cycle to name a couple) that I really needed and did not seem to be forthcoming.There were a couple of incidents of clients getting double-billed which, to their credit, Fons made good on right away ... but I just can't have that happening to my clients.

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Fons 

Pourquoi passer à Fons

Avantages

My favorite thing about Fons is that I am able to set up my studio schedule and billing once, and then concentrate on teaching. The automated recurring subscriptions and packages for lessons removed the need for invoicing, so I no longer have to chase down tuition, while at the same time, I can adjust billing easily when needed. It saves me a ton of time every month.

Inconvénients

The only recommendation I have is to eventually allow for two-way calendar sync, but this is a minor concern.

Avantages

Customer service and usefulness. This team has really figured out what small, service businesses need!

Inconvénients

I wish we could get the activation bar to go away

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Fons 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Fons

Avantages

As a music teacher, I strongly prefer to keep my conversations with students and parents about music, building confidence, and having fun in the process. Toward the bottom of the list would be chasing down payments or being the studio policy enforcer on things like last-minute cancellations. With Fons, after some initial setup and onboarding with new students, I generally don't have to talk about payments or scheduling. With a little bit of training and coaching, my students know they will be charged automatically and on a regular basis, which turns out to be a point of convenience for them because it's one less bill they have to remember to pay. So in turn, I can count on getting paid regularly and consistently while giving the vast majority of my attention to my students and their development.

Inconvénients

Fons doesn't have any major issues in my opinion...but in the future, I would love to see 2-way calendar sync so that Fons can determine my availability using appointments on my calendar that aren't related to my business (similar to what Calendly does). This would be a "nice to have" and not a reason I would decide to use/not use the service.

Avantages

Fons makes scheduling and billing so easy. It has reduced my admin hours to at most 2 hours a week.

Inconvénients

There isn't much that I don't like. I wish I could drag and drop calendar appointments. However, they are constantly adding and upgrading new features, so this may be in the works!

Alternatives envisagées 

Pourquoi choisir Fons 

Logiciel antérieur 

Pourquoi passer à Fons

Avantages

Fons is an awesome platform that’s super easy to use and fits my exact needs as a coach & consultant. I love the ease of client booking, options of subscriptions and packages, and the interface of the software. My clients all love it as well!

Inconvénients

My phone calendar stopped syncing with the app (likely my phones issue and not the app). Other than that, it’s awesome!

Avantages

Amazing support, easy onboarding for my students

Inconvénients

Took a bit to adjust to credit card billing, but it is the best!!!

Avantages

I love that my scheduling and billing is all in one place. Students know what the schedule is, when their lessons are, the reminders, and the auto billing.

Inconvénients

This product was challenging to learn at first. I wish the online widget integration was easier.

Avantages

The automatic billing has saved so much time! It has allowed us to easily scale and leave behind all the manual labor we were doing with tracking payments.

Inconvénients

It can be a bit slow but the team is great and fixes any lagging quickly for us!

Avantages

What I love the most is how easy it is set up my schedule for my clients and how to customize packages.

Inconvénients

The only thing I can say is it would be nice to be able to import other video chat software when scheduling besides Zoom.

Alternatives envisagées 

Avantages

The scheduling and payments side of my business is done for me, freeing up time and energy to focus on teaching. Fons handles all the stuff I hate doing, and stays out of the way for the rest. It eliminates a lot of friction for me, my existing clients, and in onboarding new clients. And Fons' integrated Marketplace makes me easy to find and helps boost my existing web presence.

Inconvénients

I can't think of any cons. The interface is self-explanatory, so between trying it out and asking a few questions in their Facebook group, I got up and running very quickly and haven't had any issues.

Avantages

Scheduling and subscription is the most impactful element of this software. Without ease of scheduling and billing, we could not keep our large number of lesson families happy.

Inconvénients

I feel that navigation could be quicker and easier at times. Also, the small quirks you have to remember when adding family members are interesting.

Avantages

Fons has been a game changer for my educational consulting tutoring service.

Inconvénients

There was a period when I ran into a couple problems. It was user error but their customer support was excellent. Then they added a new feature to prevent this error from happening in the future. Amazing!

Avantages

The ease of billing and tracking my customers payments is so valuable. I never have to have the awkward conversations about missed payments or bounced payments, the software handles the issue for me and my clients don't get embarrassed or upset. Also, the scheduling side of this software is so simple and clutter-free, and I don't miss appointments any more.

Inconvénients

At first the various billing options were a little hard to figure out, but customer service helped me to figure out just what I needed.

Avantages

FONS is gave me my life back! Billing was so stressful and time consuming. Now I spend more time teaching students instead of chasing them down for payments. Scheduling and billing is so easy with FONS!

Inconvénients

There is a slight learning curve, once I understood the software it was simple to use.

Avantages

I love the ability to schedule clients and sell packages. Having the software immediately deduct lessons from the packages, and track all billing, has saved me 5-10 hours a week on admin tasks

Inconvénients

It is a little expensive, especially with the Canadian conversion. I'm paying about $45 a month plus around $150 in credit card fees... $200 less a month is pretty significant for my income level.

Avantages

Integrates scheduling and payments beautifully, makes it easy to tie payment requests to scheduled appointments. Killer feature for me is the ability to schedule recurring package purchases that are automatically billed when the previous package runs out.

Inconvénients

I wish it had more bookkeeping functionality, more customizable reports, ability to record expenses, etc.

Avantages

Automates my scheduling and billing and allows me to focus on teaching. I save tons of time--way less email and accounting, and I don't have to play debt collector. Students in my studio love the flexibility. Support is super fast and responsive. Price is a bargain.

Inconvénients

Some of my clients (mostly with older phones) have trouble with the app. The desktop version is no problem.

Avantages

It handled all my needs and the support is world-class

Inconvénients

I have no dislikes and have already seen the constant improvement of applications by the Fons team

Avantages

The time and money it saves. It’s like having a full time secretary and account that are on call for you and your students.

Inconvénients

Nothing really. It’s very well thought out and easy to use.

Avantages

If you teach lessons,or provide hourly services of any kind, and need a more streamlined, easy way to manage your schedule and do billing, this is the way to go.

Beyond having a really intuitive user interface, they have some of the best, most personal customer service I've ever seen. Literally, you can video-chat directly with the creators/ developers. It feels more like joining a team/ family than just purchasing a service, and they pay YOU to give you a personal tour of the site when you join.

Inconvénients

I have no complaints. Any additional functionality I'd like, they are already working on.