In this article, I’ll show you how to set up ‘Subscription’ as a payment method in the Bodillo system.
Subscription payments are used when you want to spread the cost of your sessions over a certain number of months, or even every month of the year. This is a very popular method for our system users because it means that you will automatically collect payments from your customers each month on a day of your choosing, without having to chase anyone.
Customers that join midway through a month will be charged pro-rata (meaning, if they join half way through a month, they’ll only pay for half, handy!). They’ll then automatically pay the full amount for each month after that.
Billing is fixed. This means your customer will always pay the same monthly amount, even if one month is shorter than another.
So, let’s walk you through how to set up ‘Subscription’.
Walk through:
- Payments & Billing:
When you want to create or manage a payment method, you should head over to the ‘Payments & Billing’ section in the side nav, then select ‘Payment Methods’.
Here, you’ll have the option to amend an existing payment collection, or create a new one.
Step 1: To create a new ‘Subscription’ method, click the ‘Create New’ button. You are given a few options here (PAYG, subscription and pay upfront). Select ‘Subscription’ and then click ‘next’.
Step 2: payment details: Choose a payment reference for this collection which will make it easily identifiable to yourself and your customers. Then enter the amount that you want to collect monthly. The system will then calculate the amount that session will cost based on the number of times that session will occur during the date block.
Step 3: payment date: Next, define the payment date you wish to collect payment on. (If this date falls on a weekend or bank holiday, the money will be billed the next working day).
Once that’s done, click on ‘Save’ and a little box will pop up to let you know that’s been created.
You can manage the ‘Subscription’ collection method you just created and all others from the ‘Payment Collection’ table. Feel free to make any changes you require by clicking on ‘Manage’. You can also deactivate a ‘Subscription’ collection method if you no longer need it by clicking the little trash can next to your payment collection. If you accidentally delete a payment method by mistake don’t panic – you can find them again by clicking on the ‘Deactivated’ button in the top right, which will take you to a list of all of your deactivated payment methods. Find the one you want to use again and click on the ‘Reactivate’ button to bring it back to your ‘Payment Collection’ table.
Great! You’ve just set up a ‘Subscription’ payment collection.
2. Sessions
Next, we’ll show you how to assign the payment method to a session.
Head over to Programme > sessions. Create new session.
Step 1: Session details: Fill out the data about your session.
Step 2: Trial details: Decide if you want to run trials or not.
Step 3: Weekly plan: Fill out the details about your session.
Step 4: Payment collection: Here, we will assign the ‘payment collection’ method you created earlier on. (In this example we created a ‘Subscription’ collection, so we are going to click ‘Subscription’).
Step 5: Payment details: Then, select the appropriate session charge you created earlier.
And that’s it! You’ll be able to collect the money for your sessions each month, automatically! All without the need for customers to reauthenticate their card details. Which means no more chasing payments!
Please note: Billing stops when the date block is not marked as active. Billing pauses when there is a break in between date blocks, or there is an exclusion date set.
