Driving school software that keeps count of every lesson credit

The best driving school software is the one that joins lesson bookings to prepaid lesson packages and GST invoicing, because packages are how most Australian driving schools sell. Generic booking tools such as Calendly or Square Appointments handle the calendar but have no concept of a 10-lesson pack drawing down per lesson, so schools end up tracking balances in a spreadsheet next to the booking tool. OneBookPlus combines online lesson bookings, a prepaid credit ledger, student and parent CRM, GST invoicing and accounting in one platform, with the Driving School Suite app adding automatic per-lesson credit deduction, live balances, expiry rules and one-tap top-up invoices.

The core platform starts free (unlimited one-off bookings and jobs, 10 invoices and 5 quotes a month, a booking page, up to 250 contacts). Starter is $29/month for unlimited invoices and repeating bookings, and Growth is $69/month for multi-instructor schools with marketing tools. The Driving School Suite app, which adds prepaid lesson packages and automatic credit draw-down, is $29/month on top with a 14-day trial. Driving School Complete bundles the Suite with the Instructor & Vehicle Scheduler for $49/month, cheaper than buying both individually. All prices are in AUD.

You build a package template once: name, price, number of lessons, validity period, and whether a no-show forfeits a lesson. When a student pays, you sell them the package and a GST-inclusive invoice can be raised automatically. From then on, every lesson you book against that student deducts one credit. Cancellations and reschedules return the credit automatically, manual adjustments (a goodwill lesson, a correction) are logged with a full audit trail, and the ledger is atomic and double-spend-safe, so a credit is never consumed twice or lost.

Yes. Any booking page can offer lessons, packages or both, and you can run a packages-only page at its own link if you want a dedicated shop front for your packs. Each package also has a direct link that opens its buy form, made for the buy buttons on your own website. Depending on how you set the package up, the buyer picks their instructor at purchase or chooses one lesson by lesson. No card is charged at that point: the request lands in your dashboard as a pending purchase, you confirm it and the GST invoice goes out as usual, and the student can get a text when the purchase is received and again when the pack is activated.

Only if you set them to. Each package template can carry a validity period, for example a 10-lesson pack that expires six months after purchase, and once past expiry the remaining credits can no longer be booked against. Expiry stops dormant credits piling up as a liability on your books, but it is your policy to set. Be upfront with students: put the expiry terms on the package invoice and apply them consistently, as Australian Consumer Law expects clearly disclosed terms on prepaid services.

Cancel or reschedule a lesson and the credit returns to the student's balance automatically. No-shows are your call: each package template has a no-show forfeit setting, so you can have a no-show consume the lesson per your cancellation policy, or leave the credit on the balance. Either way the ledger records what happened, so there is never a dispute about where a lesson went.

Yes. The Instructor & Vehicle Scheduler (included in Driving School Complete) puts every instructor and every dual-control vehicle on one timeline. Assign each lesson to a specific instructor and a specific car, and the scheduler blocks a vehicle double-booking before it happens and warns you when an instructor is already out. It also tracks each car's rego, insurance and service-due dates so a vehicle never goes out with lapsed registration.

Yes. Set the suburbs your school covers, and each instructor can carry their own pickup areas, so a student who enters their suburb sees only the instructors who genuinely drive there. In strict mode, a pickup outside your area gets a get-in-touch card with your phone number and email instead of bookable times, so the enquiry still reaches you but a lesson you cannot deliver never lands on the calendar.

They find it themselves. The Find my lessons page on your booking site asks for the phone number or email the student booked with, sends a one-time code, and lands them back on their own page with their lessons and package balance. Codes are single use and rate-limited, so the link stays private, and nobody has to text you on a Sunday night to ask for it.

Each one is a switch you control. Students get a confirmation text when a lesson is booked, and package buyers can get a text when their purchase is received and another when the pack is activated; those are on by default. Instructors can get a text when a new booking lands in their diary, which is off until you switch it on. Every text counts against your plan's monthly SMS allowance, and all the switches live together in Settings.

No, and we would rather tell you that plainly. OneBookPlus does not connect to state licensing systems (Service NSW, VicRoads, Queensland's Department of Transport and Main Roads and so on), does not book practical driving tests, and does not record hours in the official learner driver logbook or its state-approved digital apps. What it does include is competency-based training sign-off against your own syllabus, so any instructor can see what a student has covered and who is test-ready. Licensing paperwork stays between the learner and the state authority.

Driving lessons are a taxable supply, so once your school is registered for GST (required from $75,000 annual turnover) you charge 10% GST on lessons and packages. OneBookPlus raises GST-inclusive invoices with your ABN, tracks the GST on every sale and expense, and gives you a BAS-ready summary each quarter. If you want to double-check a package price, the free GST calculator linked on this page splits any amount into its GST and net components.