Billing & payments
Your front desk should not be
a collections department
Most membership businesses do not lose money to bad debt. They lose it to small administrative leaks — a discount nobody removed, a member who stopped training in March and stopped being billed in July, a sibling on the wrong cycle. This is the part of the product built to close them.
The actual problem
Revenue leaks quietly, one exception at a time
A membership roster is not a list of identical monthly payments. It is a pile of exceptions: the family with three children on two different programs, the adult who trains twice a week and pays by the class, the student on a rate that was supposed to go back up after the summer, the member who moved away and whose payment is still running.
Software that only understands “monthly, per member” forces every one of those into a spreadsheet, a calendar reminder, or somebody’s memory. That is where the money goes — not to members who refuse to pay, but to arrangements nobody updated.
How it bills
Ten cycles, including one nobody else offers
Every billing line chooses its own cycle. A single family can hold several at once, and each line keeps its own next billing date rather than everything firing on the first of the month.
By attendance is the one worth stopping on. If someone pays for what they actually use — open mat, drop-ins, private lessons, a swim block — that is a billing cycle here, not a monthly membership with a manual adjustment on the end of it. There is also a separate per-additional-class fee for members who train beyond what their package covers.
Where the exceptions live
The detail is on the billing line, not in your head
- Percentage discounts with an end date
- A billing line can carry a discount percentage and a date for it to stop, so an introductory rate does not have to be removed by hand.
- Family and member, on one account
- Billing is held per line, and a line belongs to a member and to a family. Three siblings on different programs bill correctly and arrive as one statement to one parent.
- Its own start, end and termination date
- A term that runs to June stops in June. A member who leaves stops being billed on the date they left, not the date somebody got round to it.
- Registration and tax handled separately
- A joining fee is not tuition and is not taxed like it. Each line carries its own taxable flag and registration fee rather than being folded into one amount.
- A ledger account per line
- Revenue arrives already categorised — tuition apart from retail, testing fees apart from tuition — instead of as one deposit you unpick at month end.
- Autopay per line, not per person
- One member can have a membership on autopay and a private lesson paid at the desk. The two do not have to agree.
Taking the money
Cards, ACH, and fees you set yourself
Cards and ACH are enabled independently, so you can run both or offer ACH to the members it suits — usually cheaper per transaction on larger monthly amounts. Processing runs through your own merchant account, so the rate is yours to negotiate rather than ours to mark up.
Late fees are configuration, not policy we impose: you set the amount, the number of days after the due date before it applies, and whether it is added automatically at all. Returned payments carry their own separate fee. The billing run can also be set to raise charges a chosen number of days before they are due, so statements arrive with warning rather than on the day.
In practice
How this runs in your business
Martial Arts
Ranks, promotions and testing fees are first-class here — not a custom field someone bolted on.
Gyms & Fitness
Recurring revenue, real retention numbers, and a front desk that is not chasing failed cards.
Dance, Gymnastics & Cheer
Tuition, siblings, levels and competition season — handled on one account.
Swim, Music & After-School
Session packages, weekly and daily rates, pickup services and parents who need one bill.
Questions
The things people actually ask
Can two children in the same family bill on different dates?
Yes. Billing is held per line, not per household, and each line carries its own next billing date, cycle and amount. A family can have one child on a monthly membership, another on a term that ends in June, and a private lesson billed by attendance — all on one account and one statement.
Do you take ACH as well as cards?
Yes, where your merchant account supports it. Cards and ACH are enabled independently, so you can run both, or run ACH only for the members who prefer it. ACH usually costs less per transaction on larger monthly amounts.
How do late fees work?
You set the amount and the number of days after the due date before it applies, and choose whether it is added automatically. A separate returned-payment fee covers ACH returns and NSF. Nothing is charged on a schedule you did not configure.
Can I bill for a class someone attended rather than a flat monthly fee?
Yes. "By attendance" is a billing cycle in its own right, and there is a separate per-additional-class fee for members who train beyond what their package covers. Drop-ins, make-up classes and open-mat visits do not need a workaround.
Does billing feed our accounting?
Every billing line carries a ledger account, so revenue arrives categorised — tuition apart from retail, testing fees apart from tuition — rather than as one undifferentiated deposit you have to unpick at the end of the month.
Included, like everything else
From $39 a month with every feature switched on. Thirty days free, no card and no contract. If billing is the reason you are looking, it is the fastest thing to test with your own numbers.