Why Your Box Needs Automated Billing

The smartest entrepreneurs recommend automated billing. From Tim Ferriss in his best-selling book, the 4-Hour Workweek, to the writers at Inc. Magazine and Entrepreneur. Automating your billing is a strategic business practice that all affiliates need to adopt, and here’s why…

You’ll Save Time and Money

Automated billing eliminates the manual work it takes to get paid. No more running reports to see which members need to pay and then chasing them down for payments. With automated billing, you simply add a member’s credit card to their account, and their payment is processed automatically. This streamlined efficiency ensures you don’t miss collecting a member’s payment, which is inevitable when you’re manually chasing them down each month.

CrossFit Chili

The struggle to chase down payments each month was what led Brian Lelli, Owner of CrossFit Chili, to find a way to automate his billing. Brian said he and his team would have to “corral” students after class to collect their payments. “The system we had for managing memberships was an extremely labor intensive and painful process,” Brian said.

But now that CrossFit Chili has automated billing in place they save time and collect every payment that is owed. Plus the streamlined system simplifies the whole membership management process. “One of my favorite things about {our automated billing system} is how seamlessly it integrates the class calendar and membership management into my website,” Brian explained.

Most automated billing systems also allow you to customize the automations to work for your business. From selecting the notifications you want to send your members to deciding the exact day you want your payments processed, you have complete control of every timesaving step along the way. And because automated billing is integrated with your member accounts, you can run customized business reports that streamline your operations and accounting.

You’ll Get Paid On Time, Every Time

Automated billing guarantees payments are processed on a recurring schedule. When member credit cards are about to expire, the automated system alerts you so you can contact the member, update their credit card information, and continue being paid on time.

Before adopting an automated billing system, Mandy Kinzett, Head Coach and Owner of CrossFit Wired had to manage this whole process manually, and it took her away from coaching her athletes. Mandy said, “I started searching for an {automated billing} system when I began spending more time keeping track of payments than I did coaching. I certainly didn’t want to continue being buried in a spreadsheet. I wanted to spend time doing what I love, which is coaching our athletes.”

Now that CrossFit Wired has a system in place, Mandy has the time she wants to spend with her members. In all, she thinks she saves about 10-20% in administrative time because her member’s payments come in and post to their accounts automatically.

CrossFit Wired

You’ll Make Being a Member Easy

Services with recurring monthly billing are the norm in our life. Can you imagine if you had to connect with Netflix each month and give them your credit card number? That’s almost too crazy to imagine. You might not even bother renewing your service if you were busy one month.

The same is true for CrossFit memberships. If you don’t automate your billing members have the choice to swipe – or not to swipe- their card each month. That means you’re letting the success of your business rest on the mercy of those on again off again members and their spotty attendance.

But affiliate owners who make the membership process automated and easy keep more members than those that don’t. In fact, boxes using automated billing average about 15% less monthly churn. That means a box with 50 members will save $750 in revenue each month, just by having automated billing in place. That comes out to almost $10,000 annually that can be saved with automated billing.

You’ll Protect Against Fraud and Theft

Finally, when you automate your billing, you keep your members’ information safe. You no longer need to store credit card or banking information at your gym, which removes the liability from your business. As for the payment processors, they are held to high safety standards and encrypt their stored data. In all, this removes the worry from you and protects your members.

Automated billing is a win-win for your affiliate. It streamlines the entire process and frees you up to take on the strategic work required to run a growing box. It gives you a steady, reliable cash flow and peace of mind. Your members will be happy because they’ll get the professional billing experience they expect from a business today. If you could do one thing to improve every aspect of your business operation, it would be to automate your billing process.