Should you run class bookings in Google Sheets?

A Google Sheet is often the first booking system a studio, club or trainer has. It’s free, everyone knows how to use it, and you can set it up in ten minutes with a tab per week, a row per class and names in the cells. For a while it works. Then the classes fill up, and the sheet starts costing you more time than it saves.

When a sheet is fine

If you run one or two classes a week for the same group of friends, nobody pays online and nobody minds texting you when they can’t come, a sheet is enough. The problems below start when strangers book, when you keep a waitlist or track passes, or when you run more than a handful of classes a week.

1. Two people take the same spot

A sheet has no idea when a class is full. Two people open it in the evening, both see one empty row in Thursday’s class and both type their name. Or someone writes their name below the line you drew for capacity. You find out at the door, with twelve people and eleven mats.

Booking software checks the capacity at the moment someone books, so a twelfth booking in a class for eleven can’t happen.

2. Nobody reminds anyone

A name in a cell doesn’t send a reminder. People forget, and each forgotten booking is a spot someone else could have had. With a sheet, either you type the reminders the evening before or nobody sends them. Reminders the day before and a couple of hours before class are one of the simplest ways to cut no-shows (see how to reduce no-shows).

3. Cancellations don’t reach the waitlist

When someone deletes their name at 21:00, the spot is free, but nobody knows. The people who wanted that class have given up, or they keep checking the sheet. If you keep a waitlist in a second column, someone has to notice the change and message the next person by hand.

A real waitlist books the next person automatically and tells them within seconds, so the cancelled spot is filled.

4. Anyone can change anything

For people to add their own names, they need edit access. That also lets anyone delete someone else’s booking, move a row, overwrite a formula or wipe a whole week by accident. Version history lets you undo it, if you notice, and if you can work out which change was wrong.

In booking software each client can book and cancel only their own spots, and staff roles decide what each person can change.

5. Everyone’s details are in one shared file

If the sheet holds names and phone numbers, everyone with access sees everyone else’s. A sheet shared with “anyone with the link” can be read by anyone the link reaches, for example when it’s forwarded in a group chat or posted by mistake. Under the GDPR you’re responsible for that personal data, and a public spreadsheet of your clients is hard to defend.

Booking software shows each client only their own bookings, and staff see clients’ details in an account they sign in to.

6. Passes and payments live somewhere else

Who paid for a 10-class pack, how many classes they have left and when it expires usually ends up in another tab, another sheet or a notebook. Someone has to cross off each class by hand, and mistakes only show up when a client says “I thought I had two left”. Taking payment when people book isn’t possible at all.

7. You can’t see what’s working

Which classes are always full? Who stopped coming? How many no-shows did Tuesday evening have last month? The answers are in the sheet, spread over dozens of tabs, and getting them out takes an evening of copying and counting.

What Groopla does instead

Groopla is booking software made for group classes, and it takes over the jobs a sheet leaves to you:

• It enforces capacity. A full class shows “Join waitlist” instead of “Book”, so nobody is double-booked.
• It sends reminders by text or email, the day before and two hours before each class.
• Its waitlist fills cancelled spots automatically and tells the person who got in.
• Clients manage only their own bookings. They book, cancel or move a class from their phone with a code sent by text or email, with no password or app to install.
• It applies your rules: when booking opens and closes, the free cancellation window, what a late cancellation costs and a limit on no-shows.
• Passes and payments are part of booking. Clients pay by card or use a class pack or monthly pass, and Groopla takes the class from the right pass.
• Owners, staff and instructors each see and change only what their role needs, and you can see who did what.
• Reports show bookings, attendance, no-shows and revenue for every class, and export as CSV if you still want a spreadsheet for the numbers.

Groopla is free for up to 20 customers a month, so you can move one class off the sheet first and keep the sheet for the rest until you’re ready. When you are, this switching plan works for spreadsheets too. See pricing.