Deploying a scheduling software in your organization is a great way to streamline the processes used in the organisation as well as to reduce employee stress and to avoid the issues caused by overlapping appointments and overbooked resources. Scheduling software packages can be efficiently used by any type of organization – whether your company or institution provides services of education, healthcare, fitness, beauty, it is engaged in production or operates in any other industry segment, accurate scheduling is surely an essential process in your company’s or institution’s relationship with clients and customers as well as in interdepartmental processes and relationships.
Whether consisting of software run through the organization’s own servers and accessed by employees via the internal communication network or consist of modules accessible online, via the cloud, most scheduling software solutions are quite affordable – here are some factors that influence the costs.
- The number of users and calendars – many solutions are either completely free or come for a subscriptions fee of around 5 dollars per months when they are used by a single user to manage a single calendar, making these options perfect for solopreneurs and very small businesses. The fee increases with the number of users and of the calendars to be managed;
- The number of appointments – the number of the appointments that the software will need to manage also influences the price. Subscriptions usually include a specific number of appointments made monthly and charges a very small for each appointment over that limit;
- The number of months for advanced scheduling – many school scheduling software solutions offer scheduling for one or two months in advance, that is the period that is managed by the basic subscription. However, most tools offer scheduling for longer periods, some subscriptions can manage appointments for years in advance, but the feature will influence the price as well;
- Payment modules – the option to include the management of payments via your website is also available with scheduling software solutions and a feature that comes for a small fee, too. Most payment modules can manage multiple credit card types;
- Payment plans – most scheduling software packages are subscription-based, which means that you can choose not only the package that best suits your requirements, but the payment plan as well. Monthly subscriptions are usually the most expensive (though they are very affordable as well), the percentage of discounts increasing with the duration of the subscription, allowing you to save considerably if you choose to pay for your subscription semi-annually or annually;
- Personalization – tailoring the software package to your organization’s specific needs and requirements is also available, for a fee, of course.
To make sure that the software that you choose is, indeed, the perfect fit, it is a good idea to test it before you subscribe for it or buy it. Many of the available software packages are available in demo version that you can test for a couple of weeks for free, so you will be able to decide whether software you are testing is a good start.