What are Sawyer users saying about the software?

Sawyer has made my life easier!

Very easy to use and adds a professional look to my website

Pros

1. I love that HiSawyer is specific to use for children activities and classes. I tried other booking plugins or websites that were a "one size fits all" (appointments for nail salon or doctor's office) and well... they didn't quite fit for my business. For instance, HiSawyer allows the possibility to see the age and birthdate of the kids, having an "older sibling discount", adding semesters or multiple locations, specially because our class doesn't have only one location... Bookings are specific for a kid's class, and it's awesome. 2. Very easy to use! All what can be done in point #1, is very easy to set up! 3. Professional look. Some other plugins I had tried before look very outdated and amateurish. I love HiSawyer fresh and professional design. It's exactly what I was looking for for months until I bumped into HiSawyer.

Cons

I really love everything about it. If I had to really look for perfection: it would be awesome if there was an app. It might be just me, but checking it from mobile can be a little bit frustrating sometimes. Nothing out of this world, not bugs or errors, just think about checking social media from a web browser in your phone. But other than that, I love this!

Sawyer Review

We are solving are registration process by using Sawyer. Originally, we were using about 6 different spreadsheets that were all complicated on their own level. Because of this, the registration process became very lengthy because parents couldn't register on their own but instead, they had to register with me, an individual, and would have to wait for a process to be completed in order to move forward with registration. This became extremely difficult because one individual registering over 500+ students is not an easy task.

Pros

I like how easy it is to manage and use. Our clients seem to enjoy it as well since it allows them a lot of accessibility and privacy especially when registering. I also appreciate all of the options that we can do for creating camps and classes. Overall, there are a lot of options that we can do for our programs now that we have Sawyer.

Cons

Because of how easy the program is to use, there are some options that we would appreciate having but do not have yet. For one, it would be nice to have the ability to send out receipts to clients on the financials page if we were to increase their balance or charge them through there. It would also be nice to have a notes section on the financials page so that our accountant and I don't have to look through all of our emails to find information regarding a client but instead have it readily available. Another thing, we would appreciate is if the financials alone had the ability to sort the clients by payment method and etc. And if we move to another page and press the back button, it would be nice to not have to restart but instead just have it still remaining on the clients that we searched for.

The steel your patron information

Pros

I am so disgusted by the deceit that this company does not make it clear that they use your patrons personal information to advertise to them.

Cons

They take you patron person information and use it for their own marketing purposes. This was NOT made clear prior to contract. We are getting so many complaints about spam from sawyer.

Great product! Still working out some bugs

Class management was the biggest thing I needed help with, and it's amazing at that! There are still some bugs or feature requests that haven't happened, but I hope they'll come soon!

Pros

Easy to set up and get started. Ease of use, most things are pretty instinctual. The automatic charging is fantastic! Class management is SO MUCH easier with this system!

Cons

No way to cancel all future payments, so have to go in one by one.

Sawyer has made my life easier!

I have been very happy overall with Sawyer; creating classes and schedules is easy, reports are a breeze, and parents find it much easier than our other system.

Pros

Financials - reporting, payment plans, etc. I used to spend so much time creating and managing payment plans for parents! Our previous software made it almost impossible to get information about our deposits, fees, etc. It is very transparent with Sawyer.

Cons

It is more for children at this point and we have classes for children and adults so sometimes we have to do a lot of explaining to people. A little more flexibility for that would be nice.

Best value and stupid simple!

Amazing!!! Best customer service and feature updates for the price!

Pros

The software is SO easy to use! When you’re setting it up and training other employees it’s easy to see that it’s hard to mess anything up!

Cons

No Point of sale feature available. We still pay for another 3rd party software for this part

Finally found something that fits my needs!

Sawyer has been the best registration system I have come across so far after countless demos, trials, and meetings from other systems. The system is easy to use on the administrative side and on the user end. No complaints from customers! The learning curve for this system is quite small, very easy to use! The best part is its functionality! It works the way it is supposed to which seems to be an issue for some registration systems I have come across. It is straight to the point! It was easily embedded onto my site and they provided me with the links I wanted for my registration landing page. Customer service is via email and they get back to you very promptly. Sawyer also has great support and information readily available through their website with step-by-step instructions. From what I have noticed, they are constantly working on improving the system and put in requests for certain suggestions. There are a few downsides: -Fees per transaction are pretty high. This system is a pay per transaction rather than subscription pay, transactions are a little over 5% per transaction. -The ability to customize is not there. I would like to have categories and subcategories to differentiate the many types of services I offer or listing the classes in a different manner. With that said I have still managed to post everything I have needed. Overall I love the system and do not see my business parting with it any time soon!

Pros

Ease & functionality for admin and user.

Cons

Not very customizable for class display.

Game-changer for this small youth theatre!

Pros

Always rolling out new functionality Great design

Cons

Lengthy learning curve - takes a while to get into the flow Few options for custom coding

We are very happy we switched to Sawyer

We truly believe our programs are consistently selling out with wait lists because of the ease of use of Sawyer for our parents. It saves them time, and it also saves our staff untold hours of time we were wasting before with a clunky and inaccurate registration sytem that had absolutely horrible tech support.

Pros

Their tech support is beyond compare. Anytime we have a problem, we almost always get a response, from an actual person with a name, within an hour. The response often comes directly from our account manager. They also listen to feedback from their users to continually improve the software.

Cons

My only real complaint is that it does not integrate with Quickbooks, which causes some additional accounting headaches, but still SO much better than the previous registration software we were using.

It’s works great for what it’s intended use

Our team and customers love it!

Pros

I love that it’s for kids. There are features different softwares might overlook (like number of siblings or sibling ages). Also, it’s key turn ready to use. Once a user starts setting up classes, it’s pretty simple from start to finish.

Cons

The reason I love it as also a small reason I find flaws. It’s a extremely easy to use registration and class tracker for childrens events. If you need a more customizable, advanced system or one setup for a different target demographic (adult patients for example), it might prove challenging.

Exhaling With Sawyer Tools

Sawyer Tools has allowed the people in my business to finally exhale. Our admin team is now able to do the work that my business partner and I used to have to do all by ourselves.

Pros

Sawyer Tools is, for the most part, user friendly making it pretty easy to navigate.

Cons

I am confused as to why we have to set up an activity AND a camp or semester. This always feels like an extra step. In my opinion, it could all just happen together in one easy step.

The software + a community that helps my business grow

Sawyer truly changed how my customers see my business, booking on my website is easy, professional, trustworthy, with a beautiful and sleek design. All my sales, bookings, reports, refunds, and most of my business, in general, run on Sawyer so I'm beyond satisfied with the product.

Pros

Let's start for the basic: It's a software specifically for booking children's activities, which is my exactly what my business does, so every single feature in Sawyer is just perfect for what we do. I had tried 5 or 6 different software companies and all of them are for other industries (spas, gyms, consulting businesses), so they weren't ideal to use. I love Sawyer has children-activity-specific features such as camps, semesters, drop-ins, sibling discount, caregiver needed in the class, ages for the class, etcetera. Also it supports different locations, gift cards, and most important for us: a widget to add the registration form to your website.

Cons

Sawyer keeps improving and adding new features, I've run into tech problems when they just launch a new functionality but I consider this normal and I appreciate they keep improving their product. Tech support always replies fast when there have been issues.

Wish Sawyer had the same features for adults...

Well I'm terribly frustrated I'm also very grateful because I needed something quick and I was not able to pay a web designer to develop this deep of the system. I have a bit of a love-hate relationship to it, I want more features for adults and I want more flexibility in general.

Pros

Because I was not a web designer and didn't have backend experience, I needed a platform that I could basically input information into, I wish however it was more customizable. I also was drawn to Sawyer because I wanted to create memberships as well as classes and this gave me the opportunity to do both.

Cons

There are more things I dislike them like unfortunately. Some of them small like wishing I could customize the color other than red, some of them huge in that the forms are rigid meaning I can't have a different form intake for a member from my students. I need more flexibility and options for my businesses I was hoping everything could live under one umbrella. I find it almost impossible to navigate and find things with ease, it is not user friendly and various features are buried inside other futures and I'm constantly going back and forth trying to find things. I get super frustrated with having to pull up FAQs and directives online. The window doesn't stay open when you move from one area of the website to another so I constantly have to keep it searching for the same information. Some days it's brutal and I feel like I spend way too much time on this program.

Sawyer - a perfect fit for our dance school

It has been great for our company. I feel it presents us as a more professional group because of how it looks and operates. It has made our job so much easier as directors.

Pros

I like how easy it is to set up. They do all the inputting of information and then send you the code to embed on your website. I like that as a parent, it retains my information from year to year so registering my child is quick and painless. I like how they handle all the gathering of money. For the first time, all our accounts paid their tuition and I didn't have to track anyone down.

Cons

It's hard to get reports of how many kids have registered or print lists by ages. I would like for them to work on that capacity. The last software we used, you could print all kinds of reports but I have a hard time getting what I want on Sawyer.

Excellent Customer Service & Platform

We LOVE Sawyer tools to help streamline our registration needs and enrollment. We have access to easily upload our camp forms, medical forms, and easily disseminate information to our families. This is a very caring company that really cares about their customers. They even sent flowers when they found out we had a newborn. Your aren't just a number to this company, but part of their family. Very user friendly, competitive and inexpensive pricing structure compared to other processing out there.

Pros

I love that parents have a username and password that saves their information and helps them easily sign up for future events quickly and efficiently. Easy to collect payment and quick deposit times. Love the attendance feature and how quickly I can assign users so they have access to all medical information.

Cons

Sometimes it is difficult to set up classes . But once I got the hang of it I found this software to be great.

Review for Sawyer from Tiny Tunes Studio

I love having Sawyer. I don't know what I would do if I didn't have this platform. Simplifies things so much. I would do it over again.

Pros

I love that it's so easy to use and very user friendly. I didn't need to "learn" to use it - it's very self-explanatory. I like that I get paid very fast with Sawyer direct deposits. I like this new party booking feature - haven't tried it yet but intend to sign up for that!

Cons

- it's less flexible in terms of creating one off classes. for example, in pearachute, i am able to create an "impromptu" class with a certain musician. On Sawyer I have to create a new schedule, then a new activity, etc. it's a bit overwhelming. I don't always necessarily want to create an event for one offs but the way the Sawyer system is no you almost have to. - some glitches along the way. i can't always access all the functionalities in my phone (like adding packs to people's accounts for example); certain coupon codes not working after awhile (even without me putting any time restrictions on it); duplicate accounts in Contacts and not being able to delete them (even when there is no packs attached to them) - Reports. I don't really understand how to use them. I will be calling support team to learn more about how I can customize them - If someone comes to studio and pays cash for the class there is no way for me to check them in and note that this is a paid customer because there is no such function in the system. For report purposes I would like to understand paid vs not paid customers. - Function that prompts emails/messages to customers who haven't come to studio in a while. Maybe not an automated email but a reminder email to me saying "Hey, Johnny Smith hasn't come to Tiny Tunes Studio in a while, maybe you want to send them an email offering some sort of a discount for his next visit?" and maybe have like a standard email that each owner can customize then.

Great software for small business owners/teachers

The customer service it the very best. If I ever have a question all I need to do is call or email and I get an answer right away. Help is from a real live person where you are not put on hold for ever. When I set up the program I had an appointment with a tech who put it onto my website and she made sure it was working before she got off the phone with me. I was up and running in 30 minutes!

Pros

I am a visual arts teacher and have a website where parents sign up their children to take classes from my studio. What I like most about Sawyer is how professional it makes my website look and how easy it makes my registration process. All my listings are set up in order of time of week and time of day with a bright red button that is irresistible to push! I love that parents can pay online using a payment plan or pay in full. I don’t have to hassle with trying to get payments each month as it is done automatically. All my forms are set up through the software so I get all the information I need about the parents and students. This is all kept in a client list where I can reference when needed. Total Organization tool!

Cons

Some of the things I would like Sawyer to fix or change about their software are the following: 1.) Allow more personalization to the registration page. When I don’t have classes to register for, I would like to have my own personal message instead of the generic one Sawyer has. I would also like to allow more personalization on the registration page to look like the rest of my website. I had to change my color scheme a bit to make the red button fit in my layout. 2.) The cost to use this software is not cheap when a customer uses a credit card. It is over 4% of the purchase price and that adds up over the year. I do like that if a parent pays by cash or check there is no charge for using the software. When you have a small business this really cuts into your profits. 3.) One feature I wish Sawyer had in the clients list was a roster you could look at that has your current students and what class they signed up for. As it is now, you have to go to each class and click on it to see who registered for it. It would be so nice to have a roster list separate from the class.

Review

The Sawyer support team has been very helpful to me, especially in recent times. While I wish there were less technical issues, I still plan to stay with Sawyer for the forseeable future.

Pros

I like the simplicty of the software and the easy navigability. I also appreciate the ease of making payments. The quick pay feature can be a lifesend for unique billing situations. In addition, Sawyer has an active directory listing. We've gotten a number of new clients this way who have become committed customers. The group development meetings have been helpful, along with the additional office hours with both the front-end and back-end teams. I've gotten much better results from Sawyer when I've been able to communicate with people directly about my issues.

Cons

The main issue I have is the frequency of bugs in the system. I've had many bugs appear on Sawyer such as difficulties logging in, glitches in payment processing (thankfully no double payments have been made though), glitches in changing pre-existing schedules, glitches in viewing reviews, and more. I also wish the Sawyer software could be more automated and more easily integrated into other services. We have to recreate a lot of inforamtion from Sawyer events such as Google Calendar events, payment reminders, and automated emails because these features are not fully included. It creates extra effort on our part that I would prefer to avoid.

Happy Sawyer Customer

The customer service has been great since my first phone call. They helped me set everything up and always answer my questions promptly.

Pros

For me I need scheduling to be easy and not complicated but most importantly I want the parents of my students to book a class with ease! I am not a big tech person but I found setting up everything on Sawyer to be very straightforward. I have used other scheduling systems in the past and am so happy that I went with Sawyer.

Cons

The only thing I find a little frustrating is when I post a picture as part of a listing it takes several tries to get it to look good. It often repositions and doesn’t look good. But after a few attempts I get it right.

Terra Arts is Delighted!

I wish you had a PHONE!

Pros

Our customers have very precise needs that have been difficult to handle for our bookkeeper. Even our CPA or QuickBooks expert was not able to satisfy our needs. Our customers sign up with a Nonrefundable Deposit about 6 months before classes begin. We almost always sell out in a couple of weeks of registration opening. Then some pay with a monthly purchase order, but not till class has already begun, and some want to be billed monthly on their Credit Card. This has been a nightmare for us and no bookkeeping system has been able to automate it, give us a roll sheet, contain a database, bill the customer, send statements and receipts, give us a list of accounts receivable, etc! We are delighted! Plus it looks great on our website and our customers believe we have stepped it up a notch! We love the financial reports and we have not really gotten started yet! I think it does so much more!

Cons

The thing we also needed but have not been able to implement in our organization we also have theater performances and we can not figure out how to sell tickets to the shows. We had to put event espresso back on our website to accommodate ticket sales.

Sawyer should be the "GO TO" software for running summer camps and classes

Being brand new to teaching summer camps and kids' classes I am grateful to have found Sawyer. They help me to present my brand professionally and they are affordable.

Pros

It's very easy to use and minimal learning curve. I launched a summer camp for kids and was figuring it out as I went. Sawyer made that easier for me because they had everything in place already including things I hadn't even thought of. Sawyer had all the features I needed and they continue to add more, especially when the pandemic hit and businesses needed to pivot to online classes. Their onboarding couldn't have been easier. Their front-end AND back-end interfaces are modern and "Apple-like" making it easy for me as well as users. The other softwares I tested were outdated and extremely clunky. Their customer service is very helpful.

Cons

I've used the software for going on 2 summers now and I cannot think of anything I don't like. Oh, I wish I was able to embed my Registration page on my website myself but Saywer does it quickly so really not a big deal to me.

Highly recommend Sawyer

I’ve really liked using Sawyer and how easy it is not just for me to use but my customers as well.

Pros

I really like how Sawyer has great customer and created a product that reflects how they listen to their clients’ needs.

Cons

So far I haven’t had any issues. I like that they recently added monthly pricing, which made it easier for me to offer the pricing structure I wanted.

Sawyer Product Review 2020

Its been great overall. Very happy

Pros

Marketplace, Easy to use/train employees, design, customer service/tech support, form fields, messaging system, coupons, pivot to online learning was incredible and easy!

Cons

Stripe takes too long for deposits, inablilty to copy semesters so it takes a long time to set up new ones, would love to be able to attach files in roster emails

Glad to Have This Service

Overall I am happy to have the service. I wish the pages were easier to navigate and there weren't so many steps to go thru to set things up. But customer service is pretty quick to answer questions (tho not always willing to make the changes for me unless they are REALLY complicated). I am happy to have a way for parents to sign up online and I am too overworked to find an easier software, so I am here for a while.

Pros

I love that I can be doing something else -- anything else -- and I will look at my phone and see that I have a registration. It's always exciting to see who has registered for what and how much money I just made while doing something else! My customers love that they can register online without having to call in!

Cons

It's not intuitive. Even after all the years I have been using it I sometimes still have to search around to find what I want to do. But I am getting better at it! So far there is no way to create online registration for our rolling enrollment.