Martial arts on rails is essential if you want to save money running your gym whilst keeping track of costs, memberships and anything else you spend your time managing.
Whilst Martial arts on rails (MAonRails) is not just for BJJ, it is typically suited towards our sport. This is because gyms outside of BJJ such as boxing and judo are not fully commercialized and often do not treat their academies as a professional enterprise. With that being said, MAonRails it not just suited for BJJ and can be used for a variety of other martial arts gyms if you’re running a more professional organization.
Table of Contents
Manage Members
Check-In
There are a variety of ways used to check in to MAonRails for your members. Really it’s going to depend on what suits your gym the best.
One option is to manage the check-in completely by yourself. If for whatever reason you don’t want your members having to do this by themselves, there is an option to mass check-in members after a class.
Another way to check in is by using a scannable QR code within your gym. Each member can simply scan a QR code when they enter the gym, instantly checking them into the class.
Front Desk Mode
Perhaps the easiest way is the apps “front desk mode”. If you’re running MAonRails from a computer or tablet within your gym, you can manage various other things and then switch into front desk when you’re ready for a class. This hides all of your finances, marketing campaigns and any other personal information. After this, your computer/tablet will simply display an electronic keypad. Your members will simply type their personalized pin into the pad and then their checkin is complete.
Attendance Management
The members area allows you to easily track attendance. This can be done on both the micro and macro level. For example, if you’re wanting to track your gyms average attendance over the last month, this is easily visible automatically from the overview page.
However, if you’re wondering whether a particular member has quit or is injured, the members area allows you to view this easily too. You’re able to track an individual members attendance with relative ease and can search by their name as you would do normally.
Waivers
A crucial feature in today’s modern world is the ability to create and send waivers to your customers. You may not like to think about it because it’s not a nice thing to happen. But it’s a real possibility that someone tries to sue you. Hopefully, it will never amount to this, but if you have a waiver, your likelihood of being sued is significantly reduced.
Instead of having to print hundreds of copies from your computer and put them in a filing cabinet, you’re able to setup a simple waiver which is required to be signed when joining the gym.
This saves you both time and energy in keeping track and managing paperwork.
Manage Payments
You’re able to easily connect with your payment processor whether it be stripe, square, or another merchant entirely. Every monthly payment your members make is recorded and you’re able to see who hasn’t paid with ease. With this area of the program, you will no longer have to check your bank statements and slowly figure out if your membership revenue is where it should be.
Depending on which state or country you’re in – it’s easy to select how much tax you’re required to collect. This way you can just set your own prices and have the tax added automatically. You can also change your currency if you’re outside the USA. This is done through a single click and is not difficult at all.
Manage Marketing Budgets
By tracking membership sign-up. You’re able to view how people found your gym and see if your marketing dollars are being wasted or not.
If you’re spending $300 per month advertising on instagram and $200 on facebook. You will now be able to see who found you through which channels. If it turns out that nobody from facebook is finding you, these will be evident in the sign up results. You can quickly terminate this $200 per month and spend it on something else.
Without this feature it may take you months or years to figure out which marketing campaigns are effective and which ones are worth every cent.
Send Members To Your Own Website
A great thing about MAonRails is that you do not need your own website. If you don’t wish to spend the time and money to create your own website, members can still do things like check out timetables, check-in and purchase products from the subdomain.
If you do have your own website and want your members to sign up and login from your own domain, this is easy too. You can simply fill in a URL of your own which goes straight to the domain you want.
Product Inventory Management
Another nice feature is the inventory management and sales system. If your gym sells anything like rashguards, kimonos or drinks, you are able to add these products to your database. This will then record how many of each product have sold. If required, an alert can be setup to display when a specific product is becoming low on stock.
In addition to this, you’re able to setup your own online shop which allows you to sell products (such as rashguards) to your own members without them being in the gym. They can simply login at a time they choose and buy whenever they want.
This might not be essential for every small gym, but is still included in the monthly price. You may not want to use it right now, but nonetheless it is still there if you ever want to use it.
For larger gyms this is an essential feature as it will track where your money is coming from, as well as your stock levels.
Manage Your Own Gym (Backend)
From this menu option you can manage a variety of things. Some, which once setup you likely will never change again such as timetable.
If you are running a larger organization this is an essential feature as you’re able to add other members of staff to the software. This way you can give receptionists and instructors access to any features. They will then be able to change the timetable, manage stock or check-in members if needed. This allows you to spend your time on more important issues.
You’re also able to access features such as sending members notifications such as membership expiry, manage your gyms payroll. If you don’t want other staff viewing these more sensitive areas then you’re able to restrict their access to view these things.
Cost
It should first be noted that there is a 1 month free trial. Unlike most other “free” trials on the internet, you aren’t required to sign up with your credit card beforehand. This actually makes the trial legitimately free, and if you aren’t using it, you won’t forget to cancel and waste your money.
MAonRails runs a progressive pricing system which scales up if you become bigger. A standalone gym with under 100 members costs $60 per month. This isn’t the cheapest software available on the market, but neither is it the most expensive.
As you scale up you will be paying around $40 per month if you’re running a franchise with several locations. This works out cheaper and also allows you to keep an eye on how each location is performing. It will be easy for you to make comparisons and see which areas need improvements if you’re running this package.
Tutorial & Interface
The interface of MAonRails is one of its main selling points. It looks really good and performs very well too. Once you login, you’re able to manage all areas of your gym from a variety of different menus. Transitioning through and finding what you want is relatively seamless even as someone who is new to the program.
The front desk mode mentioned earlier in the review also allows you instantly to switch into a checkin for your members and can be turned back into gym management software once everyone has left the gym.
If you are a real technophobe then there is a tutorial with screenshots available for every area of the program. To be honest, it’s very easy to figure out everything by yourself anyway, but if you are stuck this is a nice addition.
A good example for the use of this would just be to leave a new member with the instructions of how to sign up. They can then follow the instructions and complete the process by themselves without taking up your time.
