Time Cards

If you are like most tutors, your main focus is probably on your tutoring sessions; communicating with your tutee, being able to present a problem in clear steps, and making sure that your tutee is able to improve in whatever subject he or she needs tutoring.

If these are the kinds of thoughts that are your main focus, congratulations! You are undoubtedly a great tutor.

But now I'd like to talk about another important, often overlooked, aspect of tutoring sessions - the time card.

I’ve always hated paperwork. It seems like a waste of time that could be spent on more worthwhile things. But a tutor’s time card is probably one of the more valuable parts of any tutoring business.

Besides lending an air of professionalism when working with tutees, a well designed time card can assist in billing, help with future appointments, and maintain good customer relations.

I like to use a time card that includes the following:
1) Date of session
2) Subject tutored
3) Tutee name
4) Start/stop times of the session
5) Tutee/parent initials

Date and start/stop times are pretty obvious. Both my tutees and I need this info for billing purposes. Subject helps me remember what I worked on with a particular tutee. In fact, I tutor a few tutees in more than one subject. In those cases, the subject info is especially useful to both of us. I like having session time so that my tutee and I can verify that the stop-start calculation was correct. Tutee/parent initials adds some proof that the tutoring actually occurred as logged.

Although I’ve never had a problem, I’ve had a few friends who have had issues with tutees regarding a particular tutoring session or the times. Including the initials on the time card helps to avoid any billing issues that may otherwise arise.

When it is time to bill my tutees I total up the session times, multiply by my hourly rate, and send a copy to the tutee.

One last thing. I only include one tutee per time card. Otherwise the billing scheme doesn ’t work. By doing these things, I have always had an easy time with billing, and with balancing the books. Keep track of everything that happens during a session, use the time card methods listed above, and soon you will be on your way to a well organized tutoring business.