Mindbody ships more than a hundred reports. That is not a flaw: a system of record should have every answer somewhere. But every answer somewhere is not the same as knowing your studio, and most owners I talk to sit in between: a few bookmarked reports, a Sunday spreadsheet, and a nagging feeling they are watching the wrong numbers.
Underneath the menu are seven reporting jobs, each with a report that does it well, a trap that flatters you, and one number or list it should hand you. Reports are named here by job, not menu path, since names and screens vary by version and permissions. One invented studio runs through it all: a room of 24, about thirty classes a week, 240 members at $169 a month.
The seven reports in one minute
- Every report is one of seven jobs. Find the one that does each job, save its filters, and leave the rest of the menu for lookups.
- Every job has a trap that flatters you. Gross sales, the fill average, a steady member count and the payroll percentage all look fine while the problem sits one level down.
- The eighth job is the one that slips. Pulling the seven on a schedule and doing the follow-up is a part-time job. Give it a day and a name.
| The job | What to pull | The trap | The one output |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Yesterday's money | sales by pricing option, refunds in view | gross sales | dues to date vs the same day last month |
| 2. Failed auto-pays | the auto-pays that did not go through | a list nobody owns | every line owned, tracked to resolved |
| 3. The intro funnel | intro sales, later visits, memberships | counting intros sold | intro to member, per start month |
| 4. Who is fading | visit history for active members | one threshold for all | members down on their own pattern |
| 5. Class fill | attendance, last four weeks | the studio average | attended average per slot |
| 6. Membership movement | starts, cancels and freezes | a steady member count | joins minus exits |
| 7. Payroll vs revenue | payroll, attendance and rent | payroll as a share of revenue | slots under break-even |
Which Mindbody reports should a studio owner run?
Seven, one per job, plus whatever a specific question sends you looking for. The seven cover the money, the members, the new people and the schedule. The rest of the menu is for lookups (one transaction, one client, one odd day), which Mindbody does well and which do not run the studio week to week.
1. Yesterday's money: which line of the sales report matters?
Membership dues, net of refunds, against the same day last month. Run yesterday's sales grouped by pricing option or revenue category, with refunds in view. The total at the bottom is what everyone reads first, and the wrong number to steer by.
The trap: gross sales flatter you. A class pack is cash today for classes you still owe, a gift card is a class nobody has booked, and an intro is not a membership that renews itself. In the invented studio, yesterday read $3,200, the best Tuesday in months. Take out $300 of refunds and $1,400 of packs, intros and gift cards, and $1,500 was dues: an ordinary day.
The one number: dues to date against the same day last month, with packs on their own line, because packs and memberships behave very differently.
2. The auto-pays that failed this week
Somewhere in your billing area is the list of auto-pays that did not go through: revenue already earned and not yet paid, and the list most often read by nobody. What to pull: the failed or declined auto-pays for the last seven days, on the same day each week.
The trap: the list is only worth its follow-up. A decline nobody chases can become a canceled member within weeks, and usually nobody chose to leave; a card expired. In the invented studio, six auto-pays failed this week: $1,014 of dues. By Friday the list should read like a case file: three collected, two notes waiting, one call to make.
The one list: every failed payment with a name and a status, tracked to resolved: collected, not "we sent an email". The failed-payments playbook has the seven-day version, and the revenue leak calculator sizes your own year.
3. The intro funnel, end to end: how many became members?
Count a cohort: of everyone whose intro started in one month, how many hold a paid membership 90 days later. In the invented studio, 30 people started an intro in May and 9 are members: 30%. What to pull: intro sales (the sales report filtered to your intro pricing options), those clients' first and second visits, and the memberships they bought.
The trap: counting intro sales, not conversions. A great month of sales with weak conversion is an expensive way to meet people. Decide once whether you divide by intros sold or intros attended, and keep it (counting intro conversion honestly explains why), then work the leaks in order, starting with speed in the first hours after someone buys.
The one number: intro to member per start month, plus the names whose offer ends this week.
4. Who is fading, before the cancellation
Members rarely quit cold. The three-times-a-week regular becomes twice, then once, then a name you have not seen in a month, and the fade shows in visit history weeks before the cancellation. What to pull: each active member's last visit and her visits in the last 30 days, against her own usual month.
The trap: one threshold for everyone. "Not seen in 14 days" flags the once-a-week member on vacation and misses the regular who went from twelve visits a month to four. Judge each member against her own pattern. In the invented studio, 14 members are at half their usual month or less: $2,366 of dues a month, drifting. Five dropped sharply, and they come first.
The one list: members slipping against their own pattern, sharpest drop first, with the dues at risk beside each name.
What to do this week:
- Give every name on the list an owner and a day.
- Write as a person: name the class she used to come to, invite her back, ask nothing else. No discount, and never "we noticed you've been away".
- Check again next week. Whoever booked comes off the list; whoever did not gets a call.
5. Class fill, honestly compared: how should you read attendance?
Slot by slot, attended rather than booked, lowest first, never by the studio average. Run the attendance report for the last four weeks by class and start time. A half-empty room is the quietest way to spend payroll.
The trap: the average hides the story. The invented studio reads a comfortable 75%, yet both 6pm classes are full with a waitlist and Tuesday noon averages 9 people in a room of 24: 38%. Across locations, sites counted differently (booked or attended, canceled classes in or out) flatter whichever counts loosest.
The one list: every slot by attended average, lowest first. The bottom is where the payroll job starts; the top is where a second session might earn its place.
6. Membership movement, not just the count
Total members is a vanity number until it moves. What runs a studio is the flow underneath: who joined, who left, who froze. What to pull: memberships started, canceled and frozen, for the same dates, side by side.
The trap: freezes. Count frozen members as members and the count flatters you; count them as exits and churn looks worse than it is. Count them as their own group (the invented studio has six) and watch how many come back, because a freeze that never ends is a cancellation without the paperwork. How to define a member covers the edge cases.
The one number: joins minus exits, weekly, freezes apart. The churn calculator shows what the exits do to a year.
7. Payroll against revenue: which classes pay for themselves?
The ones whose attended average clears their break-even headcount: what the class costs to run, divided by what an average visit brings in. It turns schedule debates from opinions into decisions.
What to pull: last month's payroll report, beside that month's attendance by slot and your rent. Whatever else you use, this job starts in Mindbody's payroll report, because that is where each instructor's pay lives. For each slot, add the instructor's pay to the hour's share of rent and the desk, then divide by what a visit brings in.
The trap: payroll as a share of revenue. In the invented studio it ran at 31% last month, within a point of a year ago. Slot by slot is another story: a class costs about $220 to run and a visit brings in $20, so a class needs 11 people, and three slots average fewer.
The one list: the slots under break-even, read monthly. Before you cut one, check whether its regulars come to anything else; the instructor pay piece covers when a losing slot is really a retention line.
The reports were never the problem. The part-time job of assembling them, and acting on them, is.
The eighth report nobody has
Seven reports, pulled with the right filters on the right day by someone who then does the follow-up: that is the real job description of "knowing your numbers", and why it slips. Assembling reports is one part-time job; acting on them is another. The eighth report is the one that has to come to you, because in a busy week nobody goes to it. The spreadsheet version is honest about how long the Sunday routine lasts; what an owner's dashboard should hold is the other half.
The rhythm: money daily, the five lists weekly, and payroll once the month has closed.
What to do this week:
- Find the one report for each job in your version of Mindbody, and save it with its filters.
- Write the definition next to each number (what counts as a member, when an intro starts, where a freeze goes), because most arguments about studio numbers are two definitions disagreeing.
- Give every job a day and a name, and end each sitting with the follow-up, not the report.
Where this lives
Keeping most of the seven current and drafting the follow-up is the layer Xyzios adds. It works with Mindbody (and is an approved Mariana Tek integration); Mindbody stays your system of record, and nothing is written back except what you tap or approve. Every weekday morning a short Today email brings yesterday's numbers, a paragraph and the day's priorities, and points to your owner's brief in the app. A failed membership payment gets a kind fix-up note drafted (Xyzios never retries a card), members slipping against their own pattern are flagged, with a save note drafted for those at high risk, and intro-offer holders go on a ranked daily call sheet, with follow-ups drafted for offers ending this week if you switch that on. The same sheet, which a person works, lists members who canceled in the last 30 days without switching plans (job 6's exits), for a person to call; nothing is drafted to them.
The programming board shows each slot's fill and attended average and flags the heaviest waitlist. With QuickBooks connected it adds an estimated cost per class (payroll plus rent over classes run, last three closed months) and one estimated break-even headcount per location, set against each slot's attended average. It does not show instructor pay per class, or pay by instructor: for that, Mindbody's payroll report remains the place, and the per-slot sum in job 7 stays yours. Nothing reaches a member until you tap approve.
The Mindbody analytics page shows the boards, and the honest comparison names the studios that should simply keep Mindbody's built-in reports.
Whatever you run it in, start with the job you are most blind to: take the two-minute studio check.