A member may request for their membership payments to be frozen for a number of reasons, and is designed to give your member a break in their payments to then start again in the future.
IMPORTANT NOTE
This feature is available for Cash, Card, ClubRight Pay and GoCardless customers only.
Please also be aware that if you set the membership to freeze LESS than 4 working days from when the membership payment is due to be made, the payment will still be taken because ClubRight Pay/GoCardless operates on a 5-working-day notice when requesting payments.
For example, if a member wishes to freeze their membership payment from the 1st of August but their membership fee is due to be taken on the 3rd of August, that payment will still be taken because not enough notice has been given.
Frozen memberships will still expire as the contract runs down, however, payments will not be requested.
The member's payments will continue on the same date as before, if the customer pays on the 15th and you freeze from the 5 till the 20th they will next pay on the 15th
How to set up a Freeze
Step 1:
Firstly, find the member that wants to freeze their membership and go to their profile. Then, select the Membership Plan you want to Freeze.
Step 2:
Click the blue Edit button.
Step 3:
Go To Options.
Step 4:
Here you'll see the freeze option. Click Freeze Membership.
Step 5:
Once you have clicked on the Freeze Button, you will be able to set the period of time for which you would like to freeze the membership.
If you are happy with how the freeze has been set up, you can go ahead and click Freeze Now. If you've changed your mind, simply click No - Go Back.
Now that the Freeze has been applied, it will be clear in that member's plan that the Membership Plan status has been Frozen.
It will now be easy to see within Payments which payments are frozen - both when the freeze began and when the payments will recommence.
If a member with a Frozen Membership tries to gain access to your club, the Welcome Screen will present them with the following message, as their membership is considered inactive - because it's frozen.
Your Member Communications
The process of applying a Freeze with GoCardless means that a Subscription is ended and a new one set up in the future - all at the same time.
This will generate 2 emails from GoCardless saying that a Subscription has ended and a new one has been set up - which is what the Freeze essentially is.
The Member now also gets a dedicated email from your club to clearly state that their membership has been Frozen, and the changes have been applied to their membership payments. You can see what this email will look like below.
Note: Complete customers will be able to customise the contents of this email.
How to unfreeze a membership plan
Step 1:
Firstly you will go to the member's profile.
Step 2:
Then to the membership plan tab.
Step 3:
Now click 'edit' on the frozen membership plan.
Step 4:
And 'reinstate'
Step 5:
Then you can setup the payment method again.
Important notes
When unfreezing a plan it will keep the same payment date as before, so if they paid monthly on the 15th and you unfreeze on the 1st. The next payment will still be on the 15th.
You will need to ensure the unfreeze is 5 working days before the payment is due to it can be automatically collected if you are using a direct debit.
You cannot pro-rata after the plan is unfrozen you would need to charge the amount manually.
How to amend a frozen membership plan
If you have set up a future freeze, to cancel the future freeze you will need to set up a new freeze to start right away then reinstate this and it will cancel the future freeze.
Please do not do this within 5 days of the next member's payments otherwise a payment may not be taken.
You can then add in a new freeze with alternative dates.
Today's date: 28/06/2023
Initial freeze: 01/08/2023
Set up the new freeze to take place today.
Reinstate the freeze.
This removed the future freeze.
