How the Fitness pack records membership freezes
How the Fitness pack keeps a freeze on the membership it belongs to, why monthly invoices still follow staff decisions, and how to handle billing.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Launching soon. The Industry CRM add-on described in this article is launching soon. This article describes it as it will work at launch.
"Can I freeze my membership?" A member is travelling for work for two months, another has a new baby, a third has torn a hamstring and cannot train. Most clubs say yes, on conditions. The trouble starts afterwards: the freeze was agreed at the desk, written on a sticky note, and three weeks later nobody remembers whether the member's next invoice should go out.
The Fitness pack in Achekam's Industry CRM add-on gives a freeze a proper home. This article explains how the pack records it, what it deliberately leaves to people, and how to keep billing straight while a member is on hold.
The records the Fitness pack keeps
The Fitness, wellness & spas pack calls customers Members and keeps three kinds of record for them:
- Memberships, with their freezes.
- Session packages, counted down session by session.
- Trials, for people trying the club before they join.
Like every industry pack, it sets the words the screens use, its record types, pipelines, workflows, reminders, starter catalogue, ledger accounts and home-page counts. For a club, that means the screens talk about members and memberships rather than generic "customers" and "deals".
A freeze lives with its membership
A freeze is kept with the membership it applies to, not in a separate spreadsheet or a sticky note at the desk. Anyone who opens the membership sees its freezes with it.
When you record one, make sure it answers three questions:
- When it starts and when it should end. Open-ended freezes are where clubs lose track.
- Why, in plain words. "Travelling for work" or "injury, not training" is enough.
- What was agreed about fees. A reduced holding fee, no fee, or the months added to the end of a contract.
Keep medical detail out of it. The pack keeps no medical records: its health questionnaire is the member's own declaration, kept only to decide whether to ask for a doctor's note. "Injury" is a reason; a diagnosis is not something a front desk should be writing down.
Billing still follows people
This is the part to understand before you rely on the pack. The Fitness pack runs no debit orders and memberships are invoiced. Achekam never charges a member automatically: there are no saved cards and no debit orders. And a business cannot set up a recurring invoice for a customer; repeating invoices exist only as retainers created from a signed engagement letter, which is an accounting-firm tool rather than a gym's.
Put together: each month's membership invoice is raised because someone at the club raised it. A freeze recorded on a membership changes what that person should do, but billing changes only when someone acts on it.
That is a feature as much as a limit. Nothing goes out to a frozen member without a person deciding it should.
What staff decide during a freeze
Agree the rules once, write them into your membership terms, and apply them every time.
Before the invoice goes out
If the member is frozen for the whole month and pays no holding fee, simply leave them out of that month's invoicing run. If they pay a reduced holding fee, invoice that amount on its own line, described clearly ("Membership hold, March").
When an invoice was already issued
- Not yet paid. An administrator can void an issued invoice that has no payments or credits, which reverses its journal. Then issue the holding-fee invoice if one applies.
- Already paid. Issue a credit note from the invoice, in full or for chosen lines. Leftover credit is held for the member and can go against the first month after the freeze.
When the freeze ends
Restart the member's monthly invoice from the agreed date, and check the membership record shows the freeze as finished. A freeze that quietly never ends is the most common source of members training free.
A worked example in words: a member freezes for two months with no holding fee. The first month's invoice had already gone out, so an administrator voids it. The second month, reception leaves the member out of the run. On the agreed date, the membership shows the freeze ended, and the next month's invoice goes out as normal.
Counts on the home page
The pack's home-page counts come from records, tasks or the ledger, and none is typed in by hand. Open records, records in a stage, overdue tasks and tasks due today all reflect what has actually been recorded.
That cuts both ways. If freezes are recorded faithfully, the home page gives an honest view of the club. If a freeze is agreed at the desk and never recorded, no count will reveal it. The discipline that matters is recording the freeze the moment it is agreed.
A freeze checklist for the desk
- Record the freeze on the membership, with start, end and reason.
- Note the fee arrangement agreed.
- Tell whoever runs the monthly invoices.
- Void or credit any invoice already issued for a frozen month.
- On the end date, confirm the freeze is finished and billing restarts.
Members who never come back after a freeze are a different problem; the pack's lapsed-member workflow is built for them. Because visits are recorded by staff rather than read from a turnstile, see recording member visits without a turnstile link too. If a frozen member pays anyway, overpayments and wrong months shows how to hold or return the money.
South African clubs should read their freeze terms beside the Consumer Protection Act's section 14 on fixed-term agreements, which covers contracts such as gym memberships: the maximum term, the consumer's right to cancel on notice, cancellation charges and renewal notices.
A freeze is a small promise to a member. Record it where everyone will see it, and let the person who runs the invoices act on it every month until it ends.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
