How to Revamp Your Health Club Billing & Collections

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Managing a thriving gym is hard work. From attracting members and directing employees to securely maintaining your members’ data, gym owners have a lot on their plate. Delinquent payments don’t make things any easier, but there are steps you can take to revamp your health club billing and collections, improving the cash flow at your fitness club. The following three steps will help you build a more efficient and accurate billing process.

Steps to Revamp Your Health Club Billing

1. Review Financial Reports

The first step in improving your health club billing process is to review your financial reports. These reports are critical in measuring success and making improvements to your business model. You should have a deep understanding of where you are spending money and if any problems are consistently causing you to lose money. Some key factors to think about are:

How efficient is your current billing process? In what ways can you speed up the billing and reporting process?
What errors are being made? Are there metrics that don’t add up? Is there miscommunication in the billing process?
How often do late payments occur? Are specific members consistently making late payments?

Once you answer these questions, you should have a solid foundation of where you need to make improvements. You might even notice a trend of delinquent payments, as many other gyms have. Maybe you only have a few, or maybe you have a lot, but either way, knowing who your delinquent members are will help you solve the issue.

2. Implement Payment Processing

A payment processing system helps to save you time and money, while also enabling you to refocus your attention on providing exceptional service to your members. Payment processing systems use Electronic Funds Transfer as an easy method for members and gym owners to make and receive payments. Members are able to enter their account and routing numbers or use debit/credit cards to set up recurring monthly payments, so delinquent payments become almost impossible. In addition, using gym management software can allow your members to customize their payment plan to pay dues weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. This helps members feel in control of their finances, so they are more likely to make payments on time, while you take back control over your health club billing process.

3. Automated Reminders

People are forgetful—it’s in our nature. But that doesn’t mean the financials at your fitness club should suffer. There are a variety of tasks gym management software can automate, so you and your employees won’t have to worry about forgetting to do them and drive efficiency into your business operations. Payment processing, as recently discussed, is one of them. However, another method you might not have thought about is sending automated emails to members, reminding them to make their payments.

Within these reminders, you can also stress your billing policy. Lay out for them where their fees are coming from (membership dues, personal training sessions, late fees, and so on), so they know exactly what they are paying for and aren’t delaying payment because they don’t understand the total sum. Also, state when and how the payment will be processed and how you will handle late payments. If they understand the repercussions, members will be more likely to pay on time.

Implementing these three steps will make your health club billing and collection process more reliable and efficient. However, there’s more to managing member payments than just these three tips.

To learn more about member payment and retention challenges, read our eBook! Learn different reporting tactics, onboarding best practices, the importance of automation, and more.

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