12 CutTime Features to Know (and Love) in 2025
Happy 2025! While a new calendar year begins anew, you’re probably taking a deep breath as you cross the halfway mark of your music, theatre, or dance program’s season. As you reflect on what went well and where you can improve things creatively, I also want to encourage you to look at your operational routine. While things may be running ‘just fine’, it’s the little things that can really make a difference in your daily productivity and general overall mood. As a choir member and thespian, I’ve found that small tweaks make a big impact on my performance. The same is also true when it comes to handling the administrative side of things.
Many of us resolve to do things better, but committing to those resolutions often falls short of our expectations. If you are looking for a less challenging way to get more done for your program this next year, check out my list of twelve terrific CutTime features that can help you run things more efficiently and effectively (and put a smile on your face).
1. Auto-Save and Edit Draft Announcements
Communicating with your program is an endless, day in and day out task. But dedicated writing time is fleeting and often unpredictable, right? I’ll bet you’ve found yourself jotting things in multiple places and then scrambling to find where they went! With our Auto-Save and Draft mode in Announcements. you can start your message and come back to it anytime! Perfect for jotting notes and then composing and editing them into your final newsletter or weekly reminder bulletin. You can also see which User started drafts to make sure that you and your team are on the same page and not doing double the work. Simply click Edit on your saved draft to continue where you left off. Learn more about this feature here.
2. Email and SMS Flexibility
Do you have parents and guardians that prefer one communication method over another? Or members that may only have an email address as a contact method? With CutTime, you have the flexibility to select which method each Announcement goes out with by choosing Email, SMS text messaging, or both. You can also track the deliverability of your messages to ensure they are being received For more information about how this works, read more here.
3. Add Attachments to Announcements
You have a lot of information to share with your program members and guardians. Schedules, supply lists, scholarship opportunities, classroom assignments - longer form content can be tough to wrangle into a single message. With CutTime, simply scroll down past the message body of your announcement page to find Add Attachment when drafting your message to add any files or information that needs to be included. Receivers of your Announcement will access the file(s) via an online link included in the body of your message.
4. Member Exports
Pulling roster lists can take on a life of its own. We’ve enhanced our Member Exporting feature with more fields to help you get more information in less time. Apply any filter that you need such as a Group before exporting your list. The next time you export, CutTime will remember the filters you selected. Or if you need to pull multiple roster lists, reset your filters and extract your search again. Learn more about this here.
5. Member & Guardian Last Login Visibility
How many times have you heard this: “Gosh, I never received your email?” or “I didn’t realize the rehearsal time had changed!”, or “Can you tell me my account balance, I don’t know where to look for it” from your members or guardians. Too many! Thankfully with CutTime’s Last Login feature, you don’t have to keep playing the ‘misinformation game’ with your kids and their families. You can quickly see when (or if ever) a person last signed into their CutTime portal page. For individuals who have never signed in, in one tap you can resend their welcome message containing their unique magic link. Watch this video for a quick tutorial on how to do this here.
6. Simple Raise Integration
Fundraising - so vital, yet so time consuming! All of the extra paperwork and bookkeeping tasks associated with running a fundraiser can be a huge productivity drain. We’ve dramatically simplified all of this administrative noise for you thanks to the sweet connection with our new sister platform - Simple Raise. Use your existing CutTime Group Member contact data to quickly select and add participants to any fundraising campaign. On the backside, Simple Raise will apply the credits earned through your fundraising campaign to individual student balances or to your program’s Angel Fund at the conclusion of your fundraiser. Nice, eh?! Get more details about it here.
Even better, you can also use your CutTime credentials with Simple Raise to create a digital storefront in minutes to sell fundraising products or use as a pop up shop for spirit wear, seasonal goods, or program accessories and supplies. See our store functionality in action by watching this video here.
7. Sell Event Tickets
Does your program need more fundraising opportunities? Try event ticket sales. Add ticket sales to any event you create in CutTime, simply check the 'Yes' box under 'Ticketing' at the bottom of the page. Creating this Event will connect you with your SimpleRaise store so that you can now start collecting fees for your tickets for this Event. This feature is in beta and will be released at the end of January, 2025. Learn more details here.
8. Manage and Safeguard Equipment Inventory
The newest addition to CutTime’s Inventory suite focuses on Equipment. Yes, I’m talking about those sometimes boring, but very, very vital items that can make or break your program’s performance. Stands, sound equipment, lighting, props, risers, and other necessities used for your various events experience their own wear and tear. But would you have the necessary details such as the original purchase date and cost when it comes time to replace any or all of them (or ask for a capital expense investment)? You WILL if you take the time to upload them with CutTime!
But my favorite thing about the Equipment Inventory is using it to assign LOCKERS and LOCKS to your members. Now your students will have their combination codes and locations at their very own fingertips! Yes, another annoying thing you can confidently cross off your list. Learn more about managing your Equipment Inventory here.
9. Track Repairs
Don’t leave your repair and inspection notes to chance. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard from customers who swore they had ‘that notebook’, ‘that spreadsheet’ or ‘their volunteer supposed to hand over the inspection logs’. Worse, trying to go back to various piles of paper, inbox folders, sticky notes can quickly turn into a dark rabbit hole of epic proportions. Use the Inspection and Repair fields for instruments, garments, and equipment liberally and often. Keep in mind, while Repairs records can be added in your Inventories, they do not affect the current Condition Status of items. That is why we recommend creating a Repair Record first, and then adding an Inspection record to update the Condition of the item to “needs repair”. This way your reporting will be accurate to which items are currently out for repairs and should no longer be available for Assignments until the item is fixed. Once your repair has been completed, you can then add a new Inspection to update the Condition of this item again and place it back in circulation for assignments to members. Learn more here.
10. Scan Attire Barcodes
Speed up your check ins and check outs, especially around uniforms and other attire! With CutTime, you have the flexibility to scan and locate your items with any mobile device or laptop camera or with a USB traditional scanner, which means more helping hands can get involved to lighten your load. Learn more here.
11. Save Payment Details
In case you missed it, students and guardians can save their payment information when making an online payment! This will save your members the additional hassle of having to enter their credit card information every time they need to make a payment towards their account balance. If you haven’t enabled online payment with Stripe or Vanco, what are you waiting for?! Learn more about these payment processing options (Stripe here and Vanco here).
12. Quick Add Event Details to Announcements
Let me guess, you have a LOT of events to communicate about to your members? Are you still copying and pasting from a separate document to include in your weekly bulletins and program newsletters? Say goodbye to all of that extra finger gymnastics. With CutTime, we recently introduced the ability to “Quick Add Events” to Announcements. With just a couple of moves, you can copy the details from your next three upcoming Events as well as a block of the week’s events and paste them directly into your message body. You can see how this works here.
Hopefully this list gives you some fresh ideas as you get cracking with the start of the new year! There are lots more feature productivity boosters and brilliant enhancements to love coming your way. Be sure to regularly open AND read through our monthly Product Update newsletter for the latest updates and sweetest additions to CutTime. Should you have some tough challenges and tasks that you need to accomplish - we want to hear from you! Reach out via chat or email or visit with us at an upcoming event in a city near you (see where our team is headed next in 2025 here). Let us know more about what you’re struggling with on a daily basis and we will work hard to help you cut back on those daily administrative headaches. Have an amazing rest of the year and finish strong!
Discover More Awesome Tools from CutTime
Make no mistake, getting the boring stuff done is critical to any fine arts program’s success. But it doesn’t have to rule your day. Learn how CutTime can revolutionize your communication, financials, fundraising, and inventory load.
