For Yoga, Dance & Pilates Instructors: Studios, Privates and Workshops

Most yoga, pilates and dance instructors are running three businesses without realising it. One is the group classes taught at someone else’s studio — invoiced once a month to the studio owner. Another is the private clients booked directly — paid per session or in packs. A third is the occasional workshop or retreat — a single big invoice with deposits, split payments, sometimes a refund line.

Each pays differently, expects a different invoice, and shows up in your calendar the same way.

Meet Eglė

Eglė teaches across two studios in Kaunas, plus a handful of private one-on-ones at her home studio. A normal week is maybe 12 group classes at the studios (paid €25 per class taught, settled monthly), 8 private sessions at €60 each, and a workshop every other month at €90 per participant for 12 participants.

Three revenue streams, three billing cadences. Her studio owners want one clean invoice on the first of the month with the date and time of each class taught. Her private clients want a receipt the same day. Her workshop participants want an invoice the moment they register, before they’ve even shown up.

For the longest time she was running an Excel file with a tab per income stream, recreating invoices from scratch each month-end.

The Real Billing Reality

The three streams have very different paperwork shapes:

• Studio invoices are B2B. One invoice per studio per month, with each class listed by date and rate. The studio owner forwards it to their accountant; if a class is missing or duplicated, you find out a week later when the payment is wrong.
• Private sessions are B2C. Either paid on the spot or invoiced monthly per client. Some clients want a single monthly summary; others want an invoice per session for their HR/insurance.
• Workshops are events. One invoice per participant the moment they sign up — for many, this is the deposit that confirms their seat. If the workshop is cancelled or someone drops out, a credit note follows.

The common ingredient is the calendar: every class, every session, every workshop slot is already on it. The work is just turning that into the right invoice for the right audience.

How Haiku Fits an Instructor’s Practice

Three pieces of Haiku do most of the work:

• Bulk-create studio invoices from the calendar — at month-end, point Haiku at the previous month, group by studio name in the event title, and one invoice per studio falls out with every class listed. The same flow handles your monthly-billed private regulars. Bulk-create invoices from Google Calendar.
• One-off invoice in under a minute for a new private client, a workshop registration, or anything irregular. Customer details save for next time. How to create an invoice.
• Send everything from your own Gmail so studio owners see “Eglė Yoga” not a no-reply, and your sent folder doubles as an audit trail when a studio queries “did we actually pay you for the May 12th class?” Set up Gmail for invoice sending.

Whether you teach hatha, ballet, contemporary, pilates reformer, or a hybrid mix — same workflow: studios as monthly B2B summaries, privates and workshops as individual invoices, all sourced from one calendar.

When It’s Not the Right Fit

If you only teach at one studio that handles all your invoicing for you, you don’t need a separate system — though most studios push that responsibility back on the instructor. If your calendar lives outside Google, the bulk flow won’t connect; the one-off invoice still works.

Getting Started in 3 Steps

1. Sign up free at haiku.lt and connect Google — 500 invoices in the free plan covers a full year of mixed teaching.
2. Create one invoice for each stream — a studio’s monthly summary, a private session, a workshop registration. Three templates Haiku reuses.
3. At month-end, run the Calendar wizard, grouping by studio name. The first run is fifteen minutes (clean up the calendar naming); from the second month, it’s five.

From “Did I Bill That Studio?” to “Done by 9 a.m.”

Sign up free at haiku.lt and try it on this month’s classes.

Questions? Email dalius.dobravolskas@gmail.com.