Offer memberships with member discounts, included hours and classes

What this does

A membership is a recurring charge with perks. Customers you bill for it become members. A membership can give:

• a discount, added to every new estimate and work order for them automatically;
• included hours of a service each billing period, which you can mark as included on their work orders;
• included places in your paid group sessions each billing period, which they use by signing up.

Members see their membership, and what they have left, in their customer portal.

Before you start

• The Customer Portal add-on is turned on for your business.
• The discount your members get exists in Settings → Pricing → Discounts (for example “Members 10%”).
• The membership itself is a recurring charge in Settings → Pricing → Recurring Charges (for example “Gold membership, $29 monthly”).

Make a recurring charge a membership

1. Go to Settings → Pricing → Recurring Charges.
2. On the charge, select Membership.
3. Tick This is a membership.
4. Under Member discounts, tick the discount (or discounts) members get.
5. To include hours, select + Add included hours, choose the service and type the hours each billing period (in quarter hours, for example 2 or 1.5).
6. To include group session places, select + Add included places, choose a group session (or Any paid group session) and type the number of places each billing period.
7. Select Save. The charge now shows a Membership badge.

Make a customer a member

Bill the customer for the membership the same way as any recurring charge: add it to a work order and send it, or set a first bill date on the customer’s own charge. While it is billing, they are a member. On the customer’s Pricing → Recurring Charges tab, their charge shows the Membership badge.

What happens on a member’s work orders

• When you create a new work order for a member, the member discount is already on it. In the work order’s discounts it is marked Membership.
• To leave it off one work order, remove it there like any other discount.
• A discount set as a fixed amount only goes on work orders in the same currency.

Included hours on a member’s work order

1. Open the member’s work order and add the time as usual (a timer or typed time) with the included service.
2. A purple box at the top of the work order says how many hours are left this period.
3. Select the button that names the line, for example Use 1 hr 30 min included on Network setup. That time is now charged $0 and marked Included in membership. If the line is longer than the hours left, only the hours left are included and the rest stays charged.
4. To undo it, remove the included line. The hours go back to the member. Deleting the work order gives them back too.

Included hours can’t be changed or merged with other time once marked (remove the line instead), and they only apply to time, not products.

Included places in group sessions

A member uses a place by signing up on your booking page while signed in there (the sign-in by email on your booking page). For single sessions in their current billing period, with places left, the sign-up shows Included in your name membership: nothing to pay (with the membership’s name), and there is no card or deposit. If they cancel in time, the place goes back to them. A no-show keeps the place used.

A sign-up for a whole series or a package, a session after the current billing period, or more sessions than places left is charged as usual.

Use it or lose it

Included hours and places are for each billing period. Anything not used doesn’t carry over to the next period.

When a membership ends

• If you stop the automatic billing, the customer stays a member until the date they paid up to, then the discount, hours and places stop.
• If you archive the charge, the membership ends straight away.

Good to know

• Changing a membership’s discounts changes them for every member of it.
• Invoices created automatically by recurring billing do not get the member discount.
• A discount used by a membership can’t be deleted. Open Pricing → Recurring Charges, select Membership on that plan and save without it, then delete it.
• If you archive a discount that members get, they stop getting it. It disappears from the Membership popup, and the next time you save the popup it is taken off the membership.
• A service or group session a membership includes can’t be deleted. Take it off the membership first, or archive it instead.