Memberships Overview
Use this page to see how memberships work and where to find each part.
At a glance
- Memberships in the top navigation bar opens the Membership Dashboard: active members, monthly recurring revenue, new members this month and churn.
- The buttons at the top take you to All Members (sign people up and look after them), Manage Plans, and — when check-ins are on — Quick Check-In.
- The things you set up once are in the More Actions (⋮) menu: Classes, Discounts, Signup Form, your waiver and Bulk Assign Plans.
- Admins and managers can use it. Clerks and drivers can't.
- If Memberships is missing from your navigation bar, it isn't switched on for your store. Contact Brother POS support.
Setting up for the first time? Build your plans, then enrol members, then set up auto-billing. Add discounts, signup questions, online signup, classes and the check-in desk as you need them. Track how it's going in Membership Reports.
Common questions
What's the difference between a plan and a punch card? A recurring plan is billed every week, month or year until it is cancelled. A punch card (class pack) is bought once for a set number of visits.
A member is injured or away for a while. Use Pause on their membership, not Cancel. When you resume it, the end date moves out by the days it was paused.
Why don't demo signups show in my figures? Signups made in preview mode, before payments are connected, are marked Demo and left out of the dashboard and reports. Clear them with Clean Up Demo Data at the bottom of the members list.
More detail: turning memberships on, and who can use them
Memberships turn your customers into members: people on a plan that renews, or on a punch card with a set number of visits. A gym, a club, a golf course or any business that charges people regularly can sell plans online or sign them up at the counter, take payment automatically each period, and see who is active, who is paused and who has left.
Everything lives under Memberships in the top navigation bar, which opens the Membership Dashboard.
Turning Memberships On
Memberships are switched on for your store when it is set up — there is no tick box for it in your own settings. If Memberships is missing from your navigation bar and you want to sell memberships, contact Brother POS support.
Once it is on:
- Memberships appears in the top navigation bar for admins and managers.
- The Reports page gains a Membership Reports card.
- The public membership page (your store's web address followed by
/memberships) becomes available, along with the widget you can put on your own website. See Online Signup.
Two related features are switched on separately and are not required:
- Classes — group classes people enrol in. Adds Classes to the navigation bar and to the dashboard's More Actions menu. See Classes.
- Check-ins — recording who came through the door. Adds Check-In to the navigation bar and a Quick Check-In button to the dashboard. See Check-In Desk.
Both are on for stores set up as a gym. If your store has a storefront, Classes can also be turned on or off with the Classes & Courses switch in the Features section of your Storefront page. Otherwise, contact Brother POS support.
Who Can Use It
| Role | What they can do |
|---|---|
| Admin | Everything: plans, members, discounts, the signup form, auto-billing and reports. |
| Manager | The same, unless a permission has been taken away from the Manager role. |
| Clerk | Cannot open any membership page. Opening one by its address shows You don't have permission to access this area. |
| Driver | No access. |
These permissions, in the Memberships & Classes group of the permissions matrix, control it:
-
Manage Memberships — the dashboard, plans, members, discounts and auto-billing. Untick it for a role and Memberships disappears from that role's navigation bar as well.
-
Manage Check-Ins — the check-in desk and the check-in log. Untick it and Check-In disappears from that role's navigation bar.
-
View Membership Reports — the Membership Reports and Check-in Reports cards on the Reports page and the reports themselves.
-
Manage Classes — the Classes pages: your classes, their dates and weekly schedules. Untick it and those pages show You don't have permission to access this area. for that role. The Classes link itself stays in the navigation bar.
See Roles & Permissions for how to change them.
More detail: the Membership Dashboard
The Membership Dashboard
Memberships in the navigation bar opens the Membership Dashboard — "Overview of your membership business".
Buttons across the top
| Button | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Quick Check-In | The check-in desk. Only when check-ins are on for your store. |
| Manage Plans | Membership Plans |
| More Actions (the ⋮ button) | A menu with the pages you set up once and then rarely visit — see below. |
| All Members | Members — the main button, since it is where most day-to-day work happens. |
The More Actions menu holds:
| Item | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| Classes | Classes. Only when classes are on for your store. |
| Discounts | Membership Discounts |
| Signup Form | Signup Questions |
| Front-Desk Waiver / Signed Waivers | Your membership waiver: the tablet version opens in a new tab, and the list of signed ones. See Waiver Registration Page. |
| Set Up Waiver | Shown instead of the two above until waiver wording has been saved in settings. |
| Bulk Assign Plans | The bulk editing grid — see Members |
The four figures
| Card | What it counts |
|---|---|
| Active Members | Members who are active or on a free trial on recurring plans. Punch-card members are counted separately underneath as N on punch cards, and paused members as N paused. |
| Monthly Recurring Revenue | Every active and trialing member's own price (after any discount on them), converted to a monthly figure. A $300 plan billed every three months counts as $100 a month. Punch cards are never counted — they are a one-off purchase, not recurring revenue. |
| New in [month] | Memberships whose start date falls in the current calendar month. |
| Churn Rate | Cancellations this month measured against the members you began the month with, with N cancelled this month underneath. The figure turns red above 5%. |
When check-ins are on, a second row adds Today's Check-Ins (with This week underneath) and Avg Daily Check-Ins (with This month). When classes are on, it adds Upcoming Classes and Class Utilization.
Underneath are Plans Breakdown (each active plan with how many members are on it) and Recent Enrollments (the last five, with a status badge).
Memberships created through a preview (demo) signup on your public membership page are marked Demo and are excluded from the counts, the revenue figure and every report. They do still appear in Recent Enrollments. See Online Signup.
More detail: where everything is
Where Everything Is
| I want to... | Go to |
|---|---|
| Create the plans people can join | Membership Plans |
| Sign somebody up at the counter | Members |
| Charge a member's card or bank account automatically | Auto-Billing |
| Give a family or a staff member a cheaper rate | Membership Discounts |
| Ask new members for their date of birth, injuries or goals | Signup Questions |
| Run group classes people can enrol in | Classes |
| Check members in at the front desk or on a lobby tablet | Check-In Desk |
| Email everyone who is currently a member | Members |
| Let people join from your website | Online Signup |
| See retention, churn and revenue by plan | Membership Reports |
More detail: statuses, what happens overnight, and emails
The Statuses a Membership Can Have
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Active | Paid up and in a current period. |
| Trialing | On a free trial. Nothing has been charged yet; the first charge lands at the end of the trial. |
| Paused | Temporarily stopped. When it resumes, the end date is pushed out by however many days the pause lasted. |
| Past Due | A renewal failed, or the payment processor is reporting failed payments on it. |
| Cancelled | Ended. Kept on the member's history, and it can be reactivated. |
What Happens Overnight
Three things run on their own each night, so nobody has to remember them:
- Renewals. A member set to auto-renew whose period has ended has their dates moved to the next period. If that fails, they are marked Past Due.
- Expiries and trials. A member with auto-renew off whose period has ended is cancelled with the reason Membership period expired (no auto-renew). Free trials that have ended become Active on their first real period. A paused membership with a resume date reaching today resumes on its own.
- Trial reminders. In the last three days before a free trial ends, the member is emailed the amount, the date and a link to cancel.
For members on auto-billing, their status and next billing date are also pulled back from the payment processor each night. See Auto-Billing.
Emails Members and Staff Receive
| Who gets it | When | |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome to [store] | The member | As soon as they are enrolled, online or at the counter. |
| Your [store] trial ends [date] | The member | Three days before a free trial becomes a payment. |
| Activate your [store] member account | The member | When you send a portal invite, and automatically after an online signup. |
| Reset your [store] member password | The member | Instead of the invite, when they already have a portal login. |
| New member signup | Your store email address | Every new enrolment. |
| ACTION NEEDED: ...did not cancel at the payment provider | Your store email address | A membership was cancelled here but the payment processor refused, so a charge may still be scheduled. |
More detail: best practices
Best Practices
- Build your plans before you enrol anyone. A member's price is locked in when they enrol, so tidy pricing first saves you correcting it later.
- Set up the signup questions early. Anything you do not ask on the form has to be asked at the door and typed in by hand.
- Use Pause rather than Cancel for an injury or a holiday. The membership keeps its history and the paid time is given back when it resumes.
- Check the dashboard's churn figure monthly. If it climbs, the Cancellation Reasons list on the retention report usually tells you why.
What's Next?
- Membership Plans — build the plans people join.
- Members — enrol people and manage their memberships.
- Auto-Billing — charge a saved card or bank account each period.
- Check-In Desk — record who comes through the door.
- Classes — group classes and their dates.
- Membership Reports — retention, churn and revenue by plan.
- Customer Management — the customer records memberships attach to.