Introduction
This guide has been created to troubleshoot an issue where an upfront contract has extra charges applied to it.
- This article is for the PG Champion, Administrators or Managers.
- Upfront contracts may also be known as PIF, Paid in Full or Lump Sum contracts.
Before you start
It is recommended to look at the changes log, as this may explain why the issue happened.
To access the change log on the user profile, go to Data then Changes tab.
The following scenarios are covered
Issue: I have another membership fee added to the end of the contract.
In this scenario, we have the following contract where there is an additional membership fee added to the end of the contract, this could be due to a few issues within the settings within the contract and/or payment plan. Listed below are the most common causes.
End of commitment date has been extended
The most common cause of the additional payment is due to the minimum commitment date being extended. An example of this is in the picture above. PerfectGym calculates the payment interval (per 12 months as pictured) between the start date and the end of commitment date, so in the example above, there are two payment intervals in the 13-month period set by the start date and end of commitment date.
How to correct this issue:
- Check the changes log in the customers profile by going to Data->Changes tab.
- Look for the following entry “Membership changes: - MinContractTime”. This indicates that the minimum commitment period has changed.
In the club members profile on the contract screen, press Edit.
- Press Next.
- Change the date of the minimum commitment period to the original date listed. If unsure this needs to be less than the payment interval of the contract.
- Continue pressing next and save to complete editing the contract.
- The contract will automatically recalculate and remove the additional charge.
Ways to prevent this from happening:
- Prevent the Minimum commitment period from being edited using System Permission “Edit min contract time” for selected employee positions (note, this will affect all contracts).
- To extend the end date of a contract, on the contract screen press More then Move end date function.
End date of contract has been extended; end of commitment date not extended
In this example, we have the end date extended from the contract and the end of commitment date set correctly. This issue is due to the configuration of the payment plan.
Click on the payment plan name to go straight to the payment plan set up screen.
Scroll down to the settings area and find the setting Stop charging after min period.
If this is unticked, then the system will automatically create new charges after the end of commitment period to cover the days remaining of the contract.
To fix this tick the setting Stop charging after min period and scroll down to the bottom of the page.
Note: this will affect all contracts attached to this payment plan
Press Update.
The system will scroll back up to the top of the page to refresh itself, scroll back down to the bottom of the page.
This will list all the contracts which are using this payment plan. They will have to be recalculated from this modification of setting; press confirm to start the recalculation process in the background.
Note, if you have made other changes on this screen, this will also affect all contracts with this payment plan.
I have a charge appearing after a freeze
In this example we have a freeze causing a charge to appear on the contract. The reason behind this is due to the settings within the freeze type used on this contract.
In the example above, the freeze “Direct debit – free” was used, the settings below it only moves contract end date and commitment date, however one additional setting is needed.
For all upfront freezes, the setting “Moves contract recurring payment date” is needed to prevent the additional charges from happening in an upfront contract freeze.
To fix this issue, you will need to press Freeze on the club member’s contract.
Press Added then the bin icon to delete the freeze. Then create the freeze again using the correct freeze type.
To prevent this issue from happening, ensure you select individual payment plan for the freeze type to appear. It is recommended to have at least one freeze type for direct debit contracts, and one freeze type for upfront contracts.
Go into PGM->Sale->Freeze Type and select the payment plans you wish to use with this freeze type.