Welcome to TutorCruncher! It's great to have you on board. TutorCruncher is a comprehensive business management solution and a very feature-rich platform. It can do a lot - which means, for new users, it can be somewhat overwhelming.

But don't feel overwhelmed!

In this guide, we're going to give you an overview of the dashboard. Then we are going to add in your first Tutor, Client and Student profiles. With those added, we'll then go ahead and create our first Job and then schedule our first Lesson within that Job.

Then, we're going to arrange for prepayment of that Lesson using Credit Requests, and also go through raising an Invoice for the Lesson as well. Finally, we will be arranging for the Tutor's payment of that Lesson using Payment Orders.

With those areas covered, you should have a broad understanding of TutorCruncher's core functionality - scheduling and accounting.

So you've signed up for a free trial, you've waited a couple of minutes for your platform to be set up, and now you're finally in. What exactly are you looking at here?

The TutorCruncher Dashboard

This is the dashboard - the first thing any Administrator will see upon loggin into TutorCruncher. It contains various panels containing different pieces of at-a-glance information for a quick overview of what is happening on your platform. These panels are fully customisable.

More specifically, the information you'll be seeing upon first logging in is dummy information from your demo branch, which is a testing environment from which you can test out different parts of your TutorCruncher platforms without those changes affecting anything in your main branch. We strongly recommend you use this branch to test different areas of the system out before switching to your live branch via the Switch to Live button on the top nav bar.

The accordion menu.

The accordion menu on the left hand-side of the dashboard contains tab groups for all of the main parts of TutorCruncher. The three main areas we will be focussing on in this article are the People, Activity and Accounting sections.

Now that we know what we're looking at, it's time for us to start adding in our users. Your different user types can be found by expanding the People tab of the accordion menu.

The 'People' section of the accordion menu.

There are four main user types - Tutors (the people who provide your tutoring services), Clients (the people who pay for Lessons), Students (the recipients of your tutoring services) and Administrators (that's you!)

Let's start by adding in our first Tutor - click the 'Tutor' tab from the 'People' section of the accordion menu to open your Tutor list.

An example of a Tutor list.

From here, click the Create New Tutor button to add your first Tutor.

Adding a Tutor.

Fill in their information and click Submit.

Our new Tutor profile!

You can read more about setting up Tutor profiles here - for now, let's create another user.

Now that we've added our first Tutor, it's now time to add in our first Client. Click the 'Client' tab of the 'People' section in the accordion menu to open up the Client pipeline.

An example of a Client pipeline.

You can select the 'Live' tab to open up a list of your live Clients. For now, we're going to select Create New Client to add in our first Client.

Adding a Client.

Fill in their information and click Submit.

Our new Client profile!

You can read more about setting up Client profiles here - for now, let's add another user.

Next we're going to add our first Student. Select the 'Student' tab from the 'People' section of the accordion menu to open up the Student list.

An example of a Student list.

From here, click Create New Student to create your first Student.

Creating a new Student.

Fill in their information - you will also need to specify an associated Client via the 'Client' dropdown menu - typically this would be the Student's parent/guardian. For our purposes, you can specify the name of the Client profile we just made.

Our new Student profile!

You can read more about setting up Student profiles here. For now though, let's move on to scheduling some Lessons.

Now that we're comfortable with creating the various user profiles, let's start scheduling in some Lessons. To do this, let's open the Activity section of the accordion menu.

The 'Activity' section of the accordion menu.

You're probably asking - "Where is the 'Lessons' section!?" - there isn't one! Within TutorCruncher, Lessons are scheduled via the Jobs system. With this in mind, we're going to click 'Jobs' from the 'Activity' section of the accordion menu.

This will open your Jobs list, where you can find a list of your ongoing, and finished Jobs.

To create our first Lesson, we'll first need to create a Job to store it in. To do this, select the Create New Job button.

Creating our first Job.

Here you will need to give the Job a name and a description. You will also need to specify a default charge rate (how much we're charging the Client) and a default Tutor rate (how much we're paying the Tutor). You can also define a 'Charge Type', which defines whether the rates are given on a per-Lesson, or per-hour basis.

Click Save to create the Job.

Our new Job!

Now that you have created the Job, you will next want to add in your users. Students can be added by selecting the Add button within the 'Students' panel and selecting the Student from the dropdown menu that appears before clicking Save. Similarly, Tutors can be added in by selecting the Add button within the 'Tutors' panel and selecting the Tutor from the dropdown menu that appears before clicking Save.

Adding a Student to the Job.

The Job, now with the users added.

Now it's time to schedule in our first Lesson. To do this, select the Add New Lesson button within the 'Lessons' panel.

Scheduling a Lesson.

Give the Lesson a start/end time and a topic title. If you're doing in-person tutoring, you can also specify a Location at this stage. If the Lesson is scheduled for a time in the past, then you can click Record Lesson to create a Lesson marked as 'Complete'; if the Lesson is scheduled for a time in the future, click Schedule Future Lesson to create a Lesson marked as 'Planned'. You can read more about Lesson statuses here.

Our newly-created Lesson!

Now you have scheduled in your first Lesson! If you want to repeat this Lesson over a certain amount of time, head here. You can also read about

In the next getting started guide, we're going to be billing this Lesson.

If you want to facilitate payment for this Lesson up front, you can do so via Credit Requests. Open the 'Accounting' tab of the accordion menu.

The 'Accounting' section of the accordion menu.

From here, open the Draft Credit Requests page.

The Draft Credit Requests page

Next, select the Regenerate button to open the 'Regenerate Credit Requests' panel.

The 'Regenerate Credit Requests' panel.

From here, you can specify a date range - we're going to want to specify a date range that our planned Lesson(s) fall in. When we click Regenerate, TutorCruncher is going to find any Lessons marked as 'Planned' that are scheduled within our specified date range and generate Credit Requests for those Lessons. Click Regenerate to begin this process.

The Draft Credit Requests page after regenerating Credit Requests.

You can select the relevant Credit Request from the 'Draft Credit Requests' list to view its items.

Viewing our Credit Request.

You can then select the Confirm button at the top of the page to confirm the Credit Request.

The Draft Credit Requests page with a confirmed Credit Request. Note that multiple Credit Requests can be confirmed in bulk using the checkboxes next to their items in the draft list.

If you're happy with the confirmed Credit Request, click the Raise Confirmed Credit Request button to open the 'Raise Confirmed Credit Request' panel, from where you will be asked if you want to notify the recipients via email. Click Raise Credit Requests to raise the Credit Request.

Raising a confirmed Credit Request.

Once the Credit Request has been raised, you will be redirected to the Raised Credit Requests page.

The Raised Credit Requests page.

Here you can select your Credit Request by selecting its ID from the list.

The raised Credit Request.

You can click on the email address found in the 'Related Emails' section to view the Payment Request email that was sent to the Client. You can also mark the Credit Request as 'Paid' via the Mark as Paid button.

Marking the Credit Request as 'Paid'.

The Credit Request will now be marked as 'Paid'.

Now that the Lesson has been paid for up front, we need to log the Lesson in TutorCruncher and raise an Invoice for it so that the Client's credit can be allocated to the Lesson.

Firstly you will need to navigate back to the Lesson's page and mark it as 'Complete' so that it will be picked up when we regenerate our Invoices.

Click the Complete button to mark the Lesson as 'Complete'.

You will be prompted to confirm that you want to mark the Lesson as 'Complete' before being redirected to fill in a Lesson Report. Fill in the report (or skip it) to log the Lesson.

Our completed Lesson.

Next, navigate to Draft Invoices within the 'Accounting' section of the accordion menu.

The Draft Invoices page.

Select the Regenerate button at the top to open the 'Generate' panel.

Regenerating Invoices.

Specify a date range that covers when the Lesson took place and click Regenerate. TutorCruncher will then look through all Lessons marked as 'Complete' within the specified date range and generate Invoices for those Lessons.

The Draft Invoices page now showing a drafted Invoice for our previously-created Lesson. Note that, as a Credit Request had previously been raised to pay for this Lesson, the Invoice has been labelled as being 'Fully Paid' - if you had not done this step, then the Invoice won't have this label.

Click on the Invoice's recipient in the list to view the Invoice.

Viewing the drafted Invoice.

Click the Confirm Invoice button to confirm the Invoice.

The Draft Invoices page showing our confirmed Invoice.

If you're happy with the Invoice, you can click Raise Confirmed Invoice(s) button to open the 'Raise Confirmed Invoice(s)' panel, from where you will be asked if you want to notify the recipients via email. Click Raise Invoices to raise the Invoice.

Raising a confirmed Invoice.

Once the Invoice is raised, you will then be redirected to the Raised Invoices page.

The Raised Invoices page.

You can view the Invoice by selecting its ID from the list.

Viewing the raised Invoice.

You can click on the email address found in the 'Related Emails' section to view the Payment Request email that was sent to the Client. In this particular example, we already raised a Credit Request for this Invoice which was used to automatically pay the Invoice, so we can only refund this particular Invoice.

Viewing an unpaid raised Invoice.

However, if the Invoice was not paid using preexisting credit (as in the example above) you can use the buttons above the Invoice to mark the Invoice as being paid from credit, take a manual payment, take a card payment, send a reminder, or cancel the Invoice altogether.

Taking a manual payment for an Invoice.

Click Save and the Invoice will be marked as 'Paid'.

In the next and final step, we're going to facilitate payment of our Tutor using Payment Orders.

We've added in our users, scheduled in our first Lesson and taken payment for that Lesson. Finally, we need to pay our Tutor their share. We do this using Payment Orders. Open the Draft Payment Orders page from the 'Accounting' section of the accordion menu.

The Draft Payment Orders page.

Next, we're going to select the Regenerate button and set our cut-off dates.

Generating Payment Orders - note that, by default, TutorCruncher will only generate Payment Orders for Lessons that have a paid Invoice associated with them - you can have TutorCruncher generate them regardless via the checkbox shown above.

Click Regenerate to generate the Payment Orders.

The Draft Payment Orders page showing a drafted Payment Order.

You can select the recippient's name from the list to view the draft Payment Order.

Viewing the draft Payment Order.

From here, you can select Confirm Payment Order to confirm the Payment Order.

The Draft Payment Order page, showing a confirmed Payment Order.

To raise the Payment Order, select the Raise Confirmed Payment Order(s) button - you will be asked whether you want to notify the recipient Tutor via email.

Raising the confirmed Payment Order.

With the Payment Order raised, you will then be redirected to the Raised Payment Orders page.

The Raise Payment Orders page.

You can view the Payment Order by selecting its ID from the list.

Viewing a raised Payment Order.

At this stage, you can pay the Payment Order using this as a reference before selecting the Mark as Paid button to mark the Payment Order as 'Paid'.

Marking a Payment Order as 'Paid'.

And that's your pay roll, scheduling and accounting all done!