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Setting up an upfront payment plan for courses

Updated

Introduction

This article is about how to configure Payment Plans in Perfect Gym for upfront payments related to courses. This configuration is essential for selling course enrollments where the full payment is required at the time of sign-up. It provides a detailed guide to setting up and modifying the necessary parameters to ensure accurate pricing and payment processing for your courses.

  • In this article, you will learn the required settings for creating or modifying a Course payment plan for upfront payments in Perfect Gym Manager.

  • This article will be helpful for PG Champions and other staff responsible for configuring and managing memberships and courses within Perfect Gym Manager.

Before you start

  • With all Payment plans, this is the template for all contracts attached to it. If you modify a price, this will be reflected on all contracts attached to the payment plan, causing members to be in debt or in credit.  So please be careful. If you are planning to increase member pricing, please follow the relevant guides.
  • Courses is an additionally paid module, please contact sales if you wish to use this module.

Fast Lane 

This is a brief overview of the steps. The following sections contain more detailed information.

1. Go to PGM / Sale / Memberships / Payment Plans.

2. Copy an existing Upfront Courses payment plan or a similar one you wish to modify to save time.

3. Change the name of the payment plan (must be unique) and press Insert as new.

4. Press Edit on the new payment plan.

5. Review and adjust settings in the Header, Fees, Payment Methods, Periods, Settings, Initial payment for online registration requirement / contract payment due date settings, Assigned Clubs, Access Rules, and Available for sections, following the detailed instructions below.

6. Press Update to save all changes.

Instruction

1. Go to PGM->Sale->Memberships ->Payment Plans

To save on time, it is easier to copy from a previous payment plan rather than creating a new one from scratch.

2. Find the payment plan template named Template - Upfront Courses or a similar existing plan you wish to copy.

3. Change the name of the payment plan. Note that the payment plan name must be unique. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and press Insert as new to create a copy with the new name.

 

4. On the new payment plan you just copied, press the Edit button to the left of the payment plan.

You will now see a detailed configuration page. Below is a breakdown of the key settings.

Most settings in the template provided are already correctly selected and may not require modification.

Header

Start Date / End Date - Start and end date of when the payment plan is available to be sold.

Minimum Age / Maximum age -  To restrict age in enrollment, please use Age limits within Groups and Class Types.

Active - Set to allow the payment plan to be sold or hidden from view.  Does not have any effect on members with active contracts from this payment plan.

Plan type - This must be set as Course – Failure to do so will not allow you to choose it in PGM->Classes->Enrollment Rules.

Additional payment plan - This is ticked by default.

Fees

Fees:  Leave as Gross for all Australia and New Zealand Customers as price will include tax.  The % drop down box next to each value is the tax charged.

Membership Fee: If you are charging a cost per class, this needs to be set at $0.00 as PGM->Classes->Enrollment Rules covers the cost, however if you are doing a cost per interval (eg. Cost per fortnight) then the pricing needs to be set here.

Joining Fee: If you charge a joining fee, this will be charged at sign up date of the contract.

Deposit value: Not used in this variant of the payment plan

Administration Fee: If you charge an admin fee, this will be charged at sign up date of the contract.

Freeze available: The cost on freeze is the charge per interval (requires set up on PGM->Sale->Freeze Type), Tick box allows this payment plan to be frozen.

Allowable Debit: This is for all cashless debit sales in POS, what limit the club member has before it will block them from any further sales.  Cashless debit is a system where they can buy a product, put the amount on their balance and it will be charged in the next debit.  If you do not want to use this feature ensure it set at a super low amount (ie. -0.01)

Penalty for unpaid installment: Not used in this variant of the payment plan

Penalty charged after (days): Not used in this variant of the payment plan

Payment Methods

  • Credit Card: Ability to pay the contract using a credit card via the direct debit system
  • Direct Debit: Ability to pay the contract using a bank account via the direct debit system
  • Paid at reception: Used for upfront contracts, to pay at reception at POS, or online.
  • Invoice: Used in combination with the corporate module.
  • Money Transfer: Not compatible with the groups/course module.

For Upfront payments, only select "Paid at the reception"

Periods

  • Payment interval - This is your payment interval, how often your membership fee is charged.
  • Commitment Period - This is the minimum length of the contract, rules such as early termination fee may be triggered if a cancellation of the contract happens within this period.
  • Minimum cancellation period - Not used in Courses
  • Maximum cancellation period - Not used in Courses
  • Minimum cancellation period after commitment date - Not used in Courses

For upfront or term based courses, the payment interval and commitment period need to be the same value and greater then the term period.

Settings

In the settings area, only use the following settings for courses

  • First payment on sign up date - This will move the first membership fee to the sign up date, forcing the club member to have their payment due on the sign up date.
  • Payment interval occurs on contract start day (no pro rata) - This needs to be ticked for upfront courses, as the payment date will start on the contract start date.
  • Template of rules:  This is where you add your Terms and Conditions information to. This will be attached to the membership agreement.  This will need to be uploaded prior to creating.

Initial payment for online registration requirement / contract payment due date settings

  • Initial payment is required during online registration : This will force the member to pay during registration on client portal as it will open up a payment gate.
  • Payment in advance summary (client portal) : This will ensure all due dates of payments are set to the sign up date. 
  • Payment in advance for contract : This will require the contract to be paid for in advance.
  • Use advance due date schema policy for contract fees : Leave unticked. Not used for upfront term based courses.
     

Assigned Clubs

If you have multiple clubs, you can set your payment plans to only be visible at certain locations only.

Access Rules

Access Rules: You can select how the member can get access to the club.  Settings for this is in PGM->Sale->Access Rules.

Membership Add on:  You can select membership add on for this payment plan.  This could be an additional class pack not covered by the Course Enrollment Rules.  All are set up in PGM->Sale->Membership Add on

Note: These need to be set prior to selling the payment plan.

Available for

Only tick Web - PerfectGym (this website).  Enrollment rules is used to determine where the payment option is used.

Listed below is a reference to the different sites.

Final step

Press Update to continue. This will update the payment plan.

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