I need help Andy ASAP

[Nichole74]

This is going to be a long one:)

Okay...We have a six month membership. It has a $30 (non-refundable set up fee) The code we key in to the computer for it is (Set Up Gold) This code puts in the membership field the word GOLD with the pop up box of when we want the membership to expire. We type in the date of 6 months from the day they join. So in the membership field on the client profile it read GOLD 01/01/02 07/01/02. Next we prorate the 1st month at $1.03 plus tax per day until the last day of the month that they are joining in. We have the billing day on the last day of the month for everyone! You know this already a headache for me We are still planning on going with your program. Anyway...So next we type Prorate Gold with the variable $ amount that we calculate ourself. We add the new member to a list that we have and then they come in each month and pay $33 cash/check/creditcard on or before the last day of the month for the following months tanning. The code we use is Gold and it does not ring up anymore membership but just a code to charge them for their payment. By the way the last month is prorated also. Now to ask my long winded question....Is there some way in Helios to set up the EFT or someway to have helios alert us when we bring up a client to tan that they owe us money? I see some kind of credit section under the prepaid $ section but have no idea how to use it or can you give me ann easier idea as how to keep track of this big mess that I have created? I would like to the Helios program to automatically charge the $1.00 late fee that we charge after the billing day or crap, I don't know I JUST NEED HELP! I am ready to pull my hair out! I am spending more time running after payments and reminding my employees to look at all account to make sure that they paid. Hope you have a great idea

[Andy]

My first observation is that you have deautomated this greatly.

Helios can really help you do alot of the steps automatically that you are introducing "Variable" actions into.

I will give you my first take on this, if you like what I say I will then clarify how to do it if you wish or we can adjust that first take as you state we need to.

First lets separate the Instore Memberships from EFT, lets worry about EFT after we get the Instore Membership clarified and simplified.

On the Instore GOLD membership, is there some reason why you want them all renewing on the end of the month. This introduces the need to do two prorates that seem to me to have little purpose.

If someone signs up on the 10th let them renew on the 10th, this would also spread your cashflow over the month.

By establishing the initial GOLD membership with an expiry 6 months out (which could be programmed - it does not have to be variable, requiring you to do that manual input of the expiry date) you have remove the ability of Helios to control the expiry of non paying member.

The idea of a committed term of 6 months with monthly instore payments is like an EFT but with EFT you control the processing of the payment, here you are relying on the Client to make a timely payment - headache city, right.

On a committed term membership (normally EFT) if possible the end or first of the month is least desirable in my opinion (for those starting it to consider). Since months have a varible number of days the end/start of the month is a pain since the gap between the Cut-Off date and the Billing Date will fluctuate. Secondly since many people have many common payments (Mortgage, Rent etc) on the 1st of the month that may be the least desirable time to be trying to draft additional monies out of their Bank Accounts. By using the 10th or 15th with a 3 to 4 day gap between the Cut-off Date and Billing Date things become a little simplier. Again this refers mainly to EFT type memberships.


An option would be to establish the initial setup with the $30 (Initiation Fee) as one code, do they pay that fee every 6 months or just once? I would call this VIP GOLD to separate this Initiation Fee Membership from the Monthly GOLD membership,

How, if you have other types of membership, we should discuss this further because we could get into trouble if clients switch from one type of memberships to another.


OK now, the code for the Monthly fee of $33.

With 2 codes here you could have one that just charges the $33 BUT requires the GOLD membership to be in force to honor that "preferred" price. So this would be used if they are "renewing" before the current monthly membership expires.

The second code with the higher price (including the $1.00 late fee - I personally would make it higher $5. seems like more of a penalty) would require only the VIP GOLD to be in place. You would also be able to "F9-Discount" the price by the late fee surcharge if you wished to waive it (and you would use this 2nd code discounted in the first month).

OK, lets clear up some of these initital issues and/or questions and them move on.

THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THIS TUNNEL, Nichole ... more possible approaches, but lets clarify some of the above first.

Call me tomorrow or post your choice ...


_________________

Andy Thompson
ACT Business Solutions
Toll-Free 877-777-6717
andy@atso.ca
ACT Help Center [ This Message was edited by: Andy @ ATSO.ca on 2002-09-05 08:28 ]

[Nichole74]

I could kiss you! As you can see I have a hige mess! In the begining I thought one billing day would make less work but I was sooo wrong. I would love to have the money spread out over the month like you said to create more cash flow. I would love to not prorate the membership at all. This has been the biggest headache of all! Helios told me in order to prorate I had to make the expirey variable. No one is paying on time like you stated and we also do a call to ALL members to remind them that there payment is due. YUK! I think I was drunk when I thought of this stupid package! I would like help on setting up the payment due date as to the date that they started theor term. That way everyday is cash flow day Also would there be an option say if some could join EFT or some could do credit card monthly or if I made an exception for a member who does not have a checking account or credit card would I be able to set it up with cash? I completely agree that the late fee needs to be higher. I should stop for now...I am more than happy to pay you for your time when I call just let me know how much you are well worth it!!! Thank you so much for your speedy answers. I will call you tomorrow morning I get in at 8:15am my time I think I should start over with a brand new membership to make this simple. THANK YOU AGAIN! Talk to you soon.

[Andy]

OK, lets clarify the following, and outline the topics for discussion when you call:

1. Is your "GOLD" Membership the only membership you sell? If NO, this could impact everything I am suggesting below, I am going to carry on assuming YES.

2. Do your clients pay the $30 initiation fee again in 6 months or only once. I am assuming they pay it every 6 months, slight modifications well be required below if that is not the case.

3. What I am going to recommend below may be impacted by whatever terms and conditions you stated (verbal or written) to your clients when they purchased this membership, but the approach of "F9-Discounting" the late fee surcharge should get you around any issue and allow you to provide good Customer Service as you define it.

4. You have the "GOLD" membership on each applicable client now with the expiry date 6 months out, right? Lets let that be related to the Initiation Fee only and thereby we do not have to change anything. If we are starting from scratch I would make this membership VIP GOLD or just VIP - but it is only a word. On that existing code which charges the $30 init fee, set the Membership Variable - Days Valid to 183, thus getting rid of one of the Variable dates.

5. OK now we have to pick a name of the Monthly Membership, I am going to use "GOLD MTH" in this outline. If this whole approach is desirable for you you can pick the real membership name you wish to use and substitute it for "GOLD MTH" (max 10 chars)

So we need 2 codes here to handle this, first GOLDM - GOLD Monthly Dues, $33.00 - this code will add (Brought) 30 days to the existing GOLD MTH expiry date and REQUIRES the GOLD MTH membership currently be in FORCE (Used) to allow it to be sold. In this situation the additional 30 days will keep adding onto the existing expiry date which will stay close to the existing expiry day of the month.

The second, GOLDML - GOLD Monthly Dues, LATE, $38.00 (or $34. or whatever) this code will reestablish (brought) the 30 days GOLD MTH membership and will require (used) that the "GOLD" (the iniation fee) membership is still in force. This will have the affect of allowing at a slight premium the reestablishing of the GOLD MTH membership as long as it is within the 6 month timeframe. The expiry date will move away from the end of the month but does that really matter, if YES see next paragraph.

In any situation that you wish you could process either of the above code onto the clients account and record the method of payment as "In-House Charge", thus recording the sale and "flagging" the client as owing a balance, thus ensuring you get the whole 6 months of payments. In this situation set the Due Date to yesterday and it will immediately be Past Due and PREVENT the client from Tanning (ANY TANNING) until amount due is paid. If you do this be sure you have a "POA" Paid on Account sales code in the system to allow you to record the payment on the account later when the client does pay.

Initially I was going to suggest using the "GOLDML" late code above for the first month and just discount the price back to $33. BUT I think the following may be simplier and easier to follow on a clients account history. Set up another code "GOLDMF" GOLD Monthly Dues - FIRST. It will be exactly the same as GOLDM except the Used membership will be GOLD not GOLD MTH.

Do you know how to COPY a Sales Code in Helios. Bring up the like sales code that you wish to copy, in this case GOLDM - change the Sales Code field ONLY from GOLDM to GOLDMF - DO NOT LEAVE THE SALES CODE FIELD, if you did everything will have gone blank - start over. OK so you changed the Sales Code, without leaving the sales code field - Press F10-Save on the keyboard (DO NOT use the Mouse). Helios will Save your new sales code - change the description and anything else that needs to change, in this case on the Pkg/Mem Tab the Used Membership changes from GOLD MTH to GOLD - F10-Save again.

To handle those little wierd challenges that will occur and/or customer service issues, I would also create a Sales Code to allow for the adjustment of the Expiry Date for whatever reason. GOLDMA - Gold Month Mbrshp Adjust. You could copy this from GOLDM, then remove the price (you could actually set the Price Type here to Variable, thus allowing you to also charge a calculated and entered amount for this Adjustment - would handle your end of 6 month Prorates that you will have to clean up) and also remove the Used Membership Name (if you wish to allow this Adjust Code to also establish a GOLD MTH membership - if not leave GOLD MTH as the Used membership as well) and change the Membership Variable from Constant 30 to Variable. This will allow the entry of a new expiry date for whatever reason. Put a password on this Sales Code if you do not want to allow staff members to use this code and/or Flag the transaction under Operations Options to highlight that it was used on the Daily Sales Detail report.

WARNING: you will get an Helios error message using the Variable Membership Expiry Date option IF you have your Date structure set in Windows-Regional Settings to MM/DD/YYYY. Helios creates a Description for a Variable Membership transaction of "Expiration Date MM/DD/YYYY" - count the characters "26" hard to fit into a 25 character field - thus the 3163 error - DOES NOT FIT. I have repeated suggested to Helios they change that message to "Expiry Date MM/DD/YYYY" eliminating the problem but I guess that is too difficult to do!! Setting your date format to MM/DD/YY eliminates the problem and also has the added advantage of being able to see the whole date string on a number of Reporting definition screen, but I digress - back to it.

You can also use this GOLDMA to establish the GOLD MTH membership on each of your existing members with the approriate expiry date. In this case the Used would have to be GOLD or blank to allow the GOLD MTH to be established.

One last function to consider here. Do you allow members to "FREEZE" this type of membership (this need could also apply to the base 6 month GOLD initation fee membership). If YES, here you go --- copy GOLDM to GOLDMFZ - Gold Month Mbrshp FREEZE. Change the description and price (you could charge a onetime fee for this freeze service) Membership Brought and Used both stay as GOLD MTH, change Days Valid from 30 to "-1" AND set the Membership Flexible Start to YES and you must enter a Max Flex Days 7 if you will allow up to a 7 day freeze, 14 if you will allow up to a 14 day freeze, 30 if you will allow up to a 30 day freeze (this must be a value and CAN NOT be variable - most common is a 14 day freeze). Now this is not REALLY a FREEZE inside Helios, it is putting the Membership BACK on Flex Start - you do not need a code to UNFREEZE (like you would on a EFT Membership). When the client next Tans the membership will automatically reactivate. CAUTION, do not sell a client on this type of FREEZE an additional month until after the "freeze" is removed. Can provide more details on this is you wish BUT this post is already getting long enough.

You will also have to adjust the Tanning Sales Code to Use GOLD MTH rather than GOLD.


Summary of Sales Codes outlined above (all may not be required or desirable):

GOLD - GOLD Initiation Fee
GOLDA - GOLD Init Fee Adjust
GOLDFZ - GOLD Init Fee FREEZE

GOLDM - GOLD Monthly Dues
GOLDMA - GOLD Month Mbrshp ADJUST
GOLDMF - GOLD Monthly Dues - FIRST
GOLDMFZ - GOLD Month Mbrship FREEZE
GOLDML - GOLD Monthly Dues - LATE

Nicole, with this approach the following happens:

1. The responsibility for renewing at the preferred price rests with the Client.

2. They pay a higher price if they do not renew on time.

3. You can enforce the full 6 payments by putting arrears on "InHouse Charge" with a Past Due Date thus ensuring they do not tan until the balance is paid.

4. You will have some work to do to establish the GOLD MTH membership on each applicable client, with the appropriate expiry date, but once done this should be much easier to maintain and for the employees to handle.

We should talk about your desired approach to handle the transition between tanning on GOLD to tanning on GOLD MTH.


Now, not that you would EVER want to do this but how would you handle a situtation where a GOOD client (if they can be called that) has a past due balance (and therefore Helios is prohibiting them from tanning) and they promise to bring in the money next time - how do you let them tan AND reflect that transaction on THEIR Client Profile - no, not tanning them as yourself.

Hope this helps ... looking forward to your call

_________________

Andy Thompson
ACT Business Solutions
Toll-Free 877-777-6717
andy@atso.ca
ACT Help Center [ This Message was edited by: Andy @ ATSO.ca on 2002-09-05 09:08 ]

[Andy]

[ This Message was edited by: Andy @ ATSO.ca on 2002-09-05 10:51 ]

[Nichole74]

Andy,
That is alot to take in. WOW! I will be honest much of it is confusing for me. It explained most of my questions but I do have a ton more and will call you tomorrow from home. Thank you again for all the time you spend on this site helping people just like me:) Talk to you tomorrow.