Collecting membership fees without debit orders
How a gym can collect monthly membership fees when Achekam runs no debit orders and stores no cards: invoices with pay links, reminders and a routine.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Fitness businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
The short answer: you invoice each member every month, make paying that invoice as easy as possible, and let a daily routine chase the ones who do not pay. That is a different rhythm from a gym that pulls fees by debit order, and it needs to be set up deliberately rather than discovered after the first month's shortfall.
This article is for gym, studio and club owners who use Achekam for their books and want to know exactly where the system stops and the front desk starts.
What Achekam does not do
Be clear about this first, because it shapes everything else.
- No debit orders. Achekam does not run debit orders against members' bank accounts.
- No stored cards. It does not save a member's card or charge it again later. The payment settings mention that Peach offers card tokenisation for retainers, but Achekam does not use it: no card is saved, and no card is charged again.
- No automatic charging of any kind. Every payment is one the member makes themselves, from an invoice, a pay link, a transfer or at the desk.
If your gym already collects through a debit-order provider, nothing here stops you continuing that outside Achekam; you then record what the provider paid you. For South African gyms in that position, the Payments Association of South Africa explains the three types of debit order, DebiCheck, Registered Mandate and EFT debit orders, how each is authorised and what to do about unauthorised debits. The rest of this article is for gyms collecting member by member.
The monthly invoice, with a pay link
Each membership fee becomes an invoice. It starts as a draft, which can be checked and changed, and issuing it gives it the next number and posts it to the books as an amount the member owes.
An issued invoice can be e-mailed straight to the member as a PDF on the gym's letterhead, and it can go with a pay link. The member opens the link and pays on a public page showing the gym's name and branding, through a payment gateway the gym has set up with its own account. The page can also show the gym's bank details and a payment reference, for members who prefer a transfer.
When a gateway payment is verified, it is recorded against the invoice automatically and the invoice shows as paid or part-paid. A bank transfer is different: a staff member marks it received once it shows on the bank statement.
Two details are worth knowing:
- A pay link lasts 14 days by default. After it runs out, a new link can be created for the same invoice.
- If the e-mail fails, the invoice says so instead of pretending it went. Check for failed sends after each monthly batch.
Reminders and statements do the chasing
Credit control is switched on for new workspaces. Once a day it e-mails overdue reminders to members with unpaid invoices, attaching the invoice, and once a month it sends a statement of account to every member with a balance. By default the reminders go at 7, 14 and 30 days overdue. It never charges anyone, and it records whether each e-mail went out.
For a gym, that covers most of the routine nagging that front-desk staff dislike and often skip.
Reminder e-mails carry no pay link
This one catches gyms out. Credit-control reminder e-mails do not include a pay link. A member who receives a reminder on their phone and wants to pay at once has to go back to the original invoice e-mail, or ask you.
So think of the reminder as a nudge and the invoice as the place the member pays from. That gives the first invoice e-mail more weight than it would carry in a debit-order gym.
Two habits fix most of the friction:
- Make sure the first invoice e-mail always goes with its pay link, so members have it to hand.
- When a member asks how to pay after a reminder, send them a fresh link for that invoice straight away, rather than reading out bank details at the desk.
A collections routine for the front desk
Without debit orders, collections need a weekly rhythm. Here is one that suits a small club:
| When | Who | What |
|---|---|---|
| First working day of the month | Office manager | Create and issue membership invoices, e-mailed with pay links |
| Same day | Office manager | Check for failed e-mails and correct addresses |
| Daily | Credit control | Overdue reminders go out on their own |
| Weekly | Front desk | Mark bank transfers received; ask members with overdue invoices to pay at the desk |
| Monthly | Owner | Read the receivables ageing and decide on long-overdue members |
The ageing groups amounts owed into 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, 91-120 and over 120 days. For a gym, anything past the first group usually means a member who has stopped coming or has a problem worth a conversation. A personal call at that point does more than another reminder.
Members who would rather pay in person can do so at the desk, where staff record the payment against their invoice; a part payment leaves the invoice part-paid. For counter sales such as day passes and drinks, see members paying by QR code at the front desk.
Living with the trade-off
Collecting without debit orders takes more attention than a debit-order run, and the first months will show which members pay promptly and which need a nudge. In exchange, every payment is one the member chose to make, and there are no failed debit orders to unwind. Set up the monthly invoicing day, watch the ageing, and the routine settles quickly. If you also sell treatments or day passes as gifts, the same front desk can handle gift vouchers without extra tools.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
