Once you have created and activated one or more membership plans for your facility, they are ready to be sold. All membership plans work by billing a subscribed customer's card on file either monthly or yearly.
Please see our article on membership plan creation for more information on how to set up pricing.
Multiple members may be a part of the same subscription, but you may only have one paying customer per subscription. The paying customer is referred to as the Account Owner, and does not necessarily need to be a part of the subscription. A customer may also pay for multiple subscriptions, but a customer may only be a part of one subscription at a time.
Here are several examples to illustrate these different scenarios:
- A family signs up for one subscription to a membership plan. The father is the account owner, and is billed for everyone that is included in the subscription.
- A fathers signs his children up for one subscription to a membership plan. He himself is not a part of the subscription, but is the account owner and pays for his children.
- A father signs one child up for one subscription, and another child up for another subscription. He pays for both but is included in neither subscription. There is no limit to how many subscriptions one customer may pay for.
NOTE: Party Center Software 2.0 MUST be enabled for your facility in order to use Memberships. Enabling Memberships will automatically and permanently enable 2.0.
Once a subscription has been activated, it may be viewed and edited from any member's profile.
Adding a Subscription to a Customer Profile
Once Memberships has been activated for your facility, navigate to a customers profile from the Customers page. You will see Subscriptions and Billing History sections under the Memberships tab:
Click Add Subscription and select a membership plan:
The pricing for each age range and the the activation fee for each member (if applicable) will display in a preview:
When you have selected a plan, click Add Subscription to add it to your customer's profile:
The subscription cannot be activated until you have set up the billing information with a card on file.
Subscription Configuration
The status of the subscription will display next to the plan name:
This will be inactive by default, and the subscription may be removed at this point by clicking the three dots and choosing Remove Subscription:
Last Bill
This is the amount that the customer was previously billed for their last billing cycle. This will be empty for a brand new subscription, but will display this amount once a payment has actually been made:
Estimated Next Bill
This is a calculation of the amount that the account owner will be charged for the subscription's next bill. This amount will change as you add or remove members. It will also change if you choose to wave activation fees:
Members
This displays the current number of members included in the subscription. If you choose to remove a member at the end of a billing cycle, it will not update until the billing cycle is completed:
Welcome Email Used
This displays the name of the Welcome Email Template that was sent or will be sent to the account owner and any other members that you select:
Receipt Email Used
This displays the name of the Receipt Email Template that was sent or will be sent to the account owner and any other members that you select. The recipients you choose will receive a new receipt email each time a new billing cycle begins:
Members
Customers or dependents must be associated with each other to be part of the same subscription. If they are not already, click Add New in the Associations section to create new or associate existing dependent or customer profiles:
NOTE: Organizations cannot be added to a membership plan subscription.
Add New Member
Clicking this button will display a list of currently associated customer and dependent profiles:
You may notice that some profiles may not be added to a subscription. This is either because they are already part of a subscription, they do not have a birthdate set, or the subscription does not have a price tier for their age.
Select the customers and/or dependents that you wish to be a part of this subscription and click Add Members:
The new member will now display on the subscription:
NOTE: Customers and dependents MUST have a birthdate set to be part of a subscription.
Click the trash can icon to remove a profile from the current subscription:
Activation Fee
This section will only display if you have set an activation fee for this membership plan. All activation fees will be checked by default when activating a new subscription or adding a member to an existing subscription, but you may choose to wave them. Simply uncheck the fee to wave it for a member:
Activation fees may only be charged or waved once for each member. If you wave the fee for a member, you will not be able to charge it in the future.
Communication
You may choose who gets a welcome email and who will receive receipt emails for this subscription. The account owner is checked by default and may not be unchecked:
You may choose to check receipt emails, welcome emails, or both for any other customer who is part of the same subscription:
Dependents do not display in this section because an email cannot be added to a dependent profile at this time.
Billing Information
This information must be completed before activating a membership plan subscription.
Next Billing Cycle
If you offer both a month or yearly billing cycle for this membership plan, you may select either one or the other here:
A customer may wish to switch from monthly to yearly or vice versa during the middle of an active billing cycle. You may change the next billing cycle at any time, but the current cycle must be completed before the change takes effect.
If this option is changed during an active billing cycle, the change will be cued and will happen automatically once the current cycle ends.
Account Owner
The account owner is the customer who will be billed for the membership plan subscription. This may be any customer that is part of the subscription, and it may only be one customer at a time.
Click the three dots and choose Change Account Owner if you wish to change the customer that will be billed for the subscription:
Only customers may be account owners, it is not possible to select a dependent profile.
Click Add Payment Profile to add credit card info for the currently selected account owner. You may click the button under the account owner's name, or in the three dot menu:
Select the payment profile you wish to use after the card information has been added:
This will be used for recurring billing once the subscription is activated. The account owner's payment profile may be updated with new credit card information at any time. One account owner may have multiple cards on file. If a new card is selected, it will be billed at the start of the next billing cycle.
Subscription Activation
Once you have added all members, chosen an account owner and billing cycle, and added a payment profile, you are ready to activate the subscription.
Scroll up and click Activate:
The Subscription Summary will now display, giving you a chance to review this customer's subscription before it is activated:
If the customer does not wish to make any changes before activation, click Confirm & Pay to activate the subscription:
This will immediately charge the customer and initiate the first billing cycle. The customer will not be billed again until the next cycle begins. This will happen either a month or a year from the day the plan subscription is activated, depending on the plan settings and which option is selected for this subscription.
The account owner and any other customers selected in the Communication section will be sent welcome and receipt emails.