I am interested is buying Amelia but have a few questions first. I have tried to find out as much as possible by testing the free version, trying out the demos and reading articles but I couldn't verify everything.
I teach voice lessons and run my own singing school. I would use Amelia for my students and me to schedule lessons through my website and manage payments as well as group classes and courses (I'm using WP and Elementor).
I have two types of students:
Type 1: One-time student
This type of student books a single lesson once in a while and pays up front through Stripe.
What happens with a Stripe payment if a student doesn't reschedule his/her appointment but cancels it instead? Is he/she automatically refunded? If not - how do I keep track of their "credit" i.e. their unused and unscheduled but paid for appointment?
Type 2: Regular student / package student
This type of student pays for a set amount of lessons in advance and comes to lessons either once a week at a regular day & time or books appointments flexibly. These students do not pay online through Stripe but I send them an invoice instead and they pay through bank transfer.
How do I handle this in Amelia? Can I continue to send invoices outside of Amelia and record the payment in Amelia once it comes in?
I only see the option "on-site" for payments and haven't been able to find a way to see other options in the demo-versions. Can I define more options? Like "invoice"/"Online-payment" etc.?
How do I transition existing packages to Amelia? Can I manually add a package to a client in the back-end, mark it as paid and enter already past appointments so that the number of remaining appointments is correct?
When a student cancels an appointment that belongs to a package, is the appointment then added back to their package? And can I make this dependent on whether they cancel within my defined grace period of 24 hours in advance?
Group classes
I also offer various group classes online through Zoom and on site at my studio.
I need to be able to offer different prices for the same class. For my Masterclasses participants need to be able to either book a "coaching seat" and receive vocal coaching during the class, or else an "audience seat" if they just want to watch and listen and not be coached themselves. These two categories need to have different prices and I also need to be able to limit the number of places available per category. E.g. for a 1h class I would only have 2 coaching seats available but 20 audience seats. Is this possible?
Is it possible to offer courses through Amelia and track attendance? So, for example: Tuesdays, 7-8pm, 8 fixed dates, starting February 8th, ending March 29th? (I am talking about a fixed group of people who all commit to attend on all of these dates because the content of the class follows a progression and leads to a particular result like e.g. a certificate. So, not like a Yoga class that one can just drop into once in a while.)
General questions:
My website is available in English and in German. I am based in Switzerland and teach in both languages. I is possible to use Amelia in both languages / can the client determine on their front end in which language Amelia is displayed?
As far as I can tell, clients are not able to see their payments in their front-end. They can only see and manage their appointments. Is this correct?
If I decide to buy Amelia, I would opt for the annual Pro version. Is it possible to change this later on to the lifetime version at a reduced rate?
Thanks in advance for your answers. I am impressed so far with what Amelia has to offer and I hope that what I need is possible. Looking forward to hearing from you!
1. If an appointment that's been paid online is cancelled, you'll need to manually refund the customer through WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, or Mollie. Since Amelia does not store customer payment information, so in the case of refund, it has nowhere to return the amount to.
To make the online payment refunds easier, on Stripe, for example, when activating Stripe, make sure to fill out Metadata and Description section in Amelia > Settings > Payments; the information entered here via placeholders will be sent to Stripe:
Our developers will work on an automatic refund option, but I can't say when that will become available.
2. Yes, you can record the payment in Amelia. In Edit Appointment / Payment tab, you can choose "View Payment Details", and edit the payment.
You can set different payment methods for each service. If, for example, you have one service for which you want your customers to pay on-site and another one that requires payment during the booking process, you can set this now. In order to see the options first, you need to enable all payment methods that you want to use in Payment Settings on the Settings page. After you’ve done this, go to the Services page, open service and you will see the Settings tab. Enable the payment method that you want to have for that service and click Save.
Unfortunately, you cannot add a package via backend, but you can add the appointments your student booked.
If your student cancel the appointment from the package, and the package is not expired yet, he still can book the appointment again.
If you configured Minimum time required before canceling = 24h, and your student wants to cancel, for example, today appointment, he just cannot do it via his panel. You still can cancel (or reject) it from the backend. In case you reject the appointment, it won't be added back into the package again.
For your group classes, please check out the Events option (you can also find info about price customizing here). This article also could be helpful: Recurring VS multi-day events
For multi language settings, please check out this article:
Hi! I'm sorry for not replying any sooner. But I do have a few follow-up questions.
1. About pre-paid appointments that are canceled: I actually don't need to refund people or only very rarely. It is more of an issue that sometimes clients cannot reschedule at the time of canceling because they don't know yet when they will be able to come. So, how do you suggest I handle a paid but not yet rescheduled appointment?
2. Packages that are not bought/ordered online: You write that I can not add a package to a client from the backend but that I can add the client's appointments. How do you suggest I handle existing packages when transferring to Amelia?
3. Is it possible to add recurring appointments from the backend? If I need to manually add all the appointments for an existing package that will take me forever. :-)
Idea: Could I maybe solve this by treating these kinds of appointment as events and not appointments? In other words - my student Helena signs up for a multi-day event that always happens on Thursdays at 2pm and costs a total of $XXX? Would that work? And would the student still be able to cancel or reschedule or would I have to do that from the backend?
4. Languages: After reading the article you sent me a link to I am still not entirely sure whether the clients can determine in which language Amelia is displayed. If they are on the German version of my website can I set everything to be shown in German? And if they are on the English version can I set everything to be shown in English?
5. Thank you for the articles on events etc. What I did not find an answer to is whether I can track attendance. Is this possible?
I appreciate you getting back to me. Kind regards, Martina
1. In those situations, the best approach would be to have your customers cancel an appointment, and then book a new one when they know they'll be available. There's no other way around this.
2. You can't transfer packages from another plugin to Amelia. You need to create new ones. You could only create new appointments that are not linked to a package from the back-end, and inform your customers that they need to purchase new packages once they use their existing appointments (the ones you created from the back-end).
3. You could create events for this, but as mentioned in #2 - you need to inform your customers that this works only for the appointments that were already booked in the previous solution you had.
4. Yes, if your front-end is split between English and German, Amelia will determine the locale of the page, and apply the language from wp-content/plugins/ameliabooking/languages folder. To create notifications for languages which are not your WordPress default languages, you need to first add languages in Amelia's General Settings, and then in Amelia/Notifications you'll have the language drop-down in the upper right corner, so you can switch to another language, and translate the email template to another language.
Please take look at this video that shows some troubleshooting for this.
5. There's no Events Dashboard yet, so you can't track attendance. You can only access Amelia/Events, and see the number of attendees for each event.
Thanks for your reply. All clear now. I think I will go ahead and buy Amelia - even though I will probably need to adapt my processes a bit I have not yet come across another solution that would better handle everything I need.
Dear Support Team
I am interested is buying Amelia but have a few questions first. I have tried to find out as much as possible by testing the free version, trying out the demos and reading articles but I couldn't verify everything.
I teach voice lessons and run my own singing school. I would use Amelia for my students and me to schedule lessons through my website and manage payments as well as group classes and courses (I'm using WP and Elementor).
I have two types of students:
Type 1: One-time student
This type of student books a single lesson once in a while and pays up front through Stripe.
Type 2: Regular student / package student
This type of student pays for a set amount of lessons in advance and comes to lessons either once a week at a regular day & time or books appointments flexibly. These students do not pay online through Stripe but I send them an invoice instead and they pay through bank transfer.
Group classes
I also offer various group classes online through Zoom and on site at my studio.
General questions:
Thanks in advance for your answers. I am impressed so far with what Amelia has to offer and I hope that what I need is possible. Looking forward to hearing from you!
Kind regards,
Martina
Hello Martina
Thank you for your interest in Amelia.
1. If an appointment that's been paid online is cancelled, you'll need to manually refund the customer through WooCommerce, PayPal, Stripe, or Mollie. Since Amelia does not store customer payment information, so in the case of refund, it has nowhere to return the amount to.
To make the online payment refunds easier, on Stripe, for example, when activating Stripe, make sure to fill out Metadata and Description section in Amelia > Settings > Payments; the information entered here via placeholders will be sent to Stripe:
Our developers will work on an automatic refund option, but I can't say when that will become available.
2. Yes, you can record the payment in Amelia. In Edit Appointment / Payment tab, you can choose "View Payment Details", and edit the payment.
You can set different payment methods for each service. If, for example, you have one service for which you want your customers to pay on-site and another one that requires payment during the booking process, you can set this now. In order to see the options first, you need to enable all payment methods that you want to use in Payment Settings on the Settings page. After you’ve done this, go to the Services page, open service and you will see the Settings tab. Enable the payment method that you want to have for that service and click Save.
Unfortunately, you cannot add a package via backend, but you can add the appointments your student booked.
If your student cancel the appointment from the package, and the package is not expired yet, he still can book the appointment again.
If you configured Minimum time required before canceling = 24h, and your student wants to cancel, for example, today appointment, he just cannot do it via his panel. You still can cancel (or reject) it from the backend. In case you reject the appointment, it won't be added back into the package again.
For your group classes, please check out the Events option (you can also find info about price customizing here). This article also could be helpful: Recurring VS multi-day events
For multi language settings, please check out this article:
Using Multiple Languages in Amelia
Your customers are able to manage their appointments (if you let them), that's correct.
Please check out this article about licenses upgrading: Upgrading Licenses
Have a nice day!
Hi! I'm sorry for not replying any sooner. But I do have a few follow-up questions.
1. About pre-paid appointments that are canceled: I actually don't need to refund people or only very rarely. It is more of an issue that sometimes clients cannot reschedule at the time of canceling because they don't know yet when they will be able to come. So, how do you suggest I handle a paid but not yet rescheduled appointment?
2. Packages that are not bought/ordered online: You write that I can not add a package to a client from the backend but that I can add the client's appointments. How do you suggest I handle existing packages when transferring to Amelia?
3. Is it possible to add recurring appointments from the backend? If I need to manually add all the appointments for an existing package that will take me forever. :-)
Idea: Could I maybe solve this by treating these kinds of appointment as events and not appointments? In other words - my student Helena signs up for a multi-day event that always happens on Thursdays at 2pm and costs a total of $XXX? Would that work? And would the student still be able to cancel or reschedule or would I have to do that from the backend?
4. Languages: After reading the article you sent me a link to I am still not entirely sure whether the clients can determine in which language Amelia is displayed. If they are on the German version of my website can I set everything to be shown in German? And if they are on the English version can I set everything to be shown in English?
5. Thank you for the articles on events etc. What I did not find an answer to is whether I can track attendance. Is this possible?
I appreciate you getting back to me. Kind regards, Martina
Hello Martina
1. In those situations, the best approach would be to have your customers cancel an appointment, and then book a new one when they know they'll be available. There's no other way around this.
2. You can't transfer packages from another plugin to Amelia. You need to create new ones. You could only create new appointments that are not linked to a package from the back-end, and inform your customers that they need to purchase new packages once they use their existing appointments (the ones you created from the back-end).
3. You could create events for this, but as mentioned in #2 - you need to inform your customers that this works only for the appointments that were already booked in the previous solution you had.
4. Yes, if your front-end is split between English and German, Amelia will determine the locale of the page, and apply the language from wp-content/plugins/ameliabooking/languages folder. To create notifications for languages which are not your WordPress default languages, you need to first add languages in Amelia's General Settings, and then in Amelia/Notifications you'll have the language drop-down in the upper right corner, so you can switch to another language, and translate the email template to another language.
Please take look at this video that shows some troubleshooting for this.
5. There's no Events Dashboard yet, so you can't track attendance. You can only access Amelia/Events, and see the number of attendees for each event.
Kind Regards,
Aleksandar Vuković
[email protected]
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Powerful Filters | Gravity Forms Integration for wpDataTables | Formidable Forms Integration for wpDataTables | Master-Detail Tables
Hello Aleksandar
Thanks for your reply. All clear now. I think I will go ahead and buy Amelia - even though I will probably need to adapt my processes a bit I have not yet come across another solution that would better handle everything I need.
Thanks for your support and have a great day!
Martina
You're welcome, Martina, I'm glad to hear that!
Glad I could help.
If you need some further assistance, please feel free to reach out to us.
Kind Regards,
Aleksandar Vuković
[email protected]
Rate my support
wpDataTables: FAQ | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Front-end and back-end demo | Docs
Amelia: FAQ | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amelia demo sites | Docs | Discord Community
You can try wpDataTables add-ons before purchasing on these sandbox sites:
Powerful Filters | Gravity Forms Integration for wpDataTables | Formidable Forms Integration for wpDataTables | Master-Detail Tables