Payment Plan Configuration

If you are intrigued by Majestri's Payment Plan offering, but have some lingering concerns that money is going to come in much later from your members, then you're in the right place. It doesn't have to be that way at all. In fact, our feeling is that Payment Plans will have the effect of collecting money earlier. You are always going to have those members that want to pay by instalment, and the delays occur when it's left up to them to manage the instalments. Conversely, if it's up to the club Treasurer, then it's just pushing the angst onto a volunteer.

This piece dissects the control that you as a club have over your Payment Plan offering, to ensure that club revenues come in as early as you like, without the effort of chasing and collecting it manually.

Switching on Payment Plans

If, after reading all of our literature, you've decided that your club would like to offer Payment Plans to your members as a method of paying fees, then please send us an email at support@majestri.com.au to notify us of your intent, and we'll make them available to you.

As with credit card processing, we need to hold the keys to their availability. For Payment Plans our software is dependant on being in control of the setting. To mitigate that perceived loss of control, we've made is possible to control the availability of Payment Plans to your members at the individual event level, or to even hide the application process from them altogether, instead making them contact the club directly to state their case.

You can read about these controls below.

Allowing Payment Plans for an Event

There is an assumption that you already understand how to configure an event within Majestri. For further reading on how to do that, please see our guide on the subject.

In the 'Event Settings', you'll see that there is a brand new section all about controlling the Payment Plan offering. These settings deal directly with what your members see at the checkout. See the screenshot below and the explanations underneath of what each setting does.

Allow registration fees to be paid via Payment Plan

Fairly self-explanatory. If this option is switched on, then your member will have the option at the Checkout to apply for a Payment Plan online.

Minimum Percentage

Most clubs would not want the entire registration debt to be put on a Payment Plan - they want some sort of up-front financial commitment. That's fair enough too. This setting represents a percentage value that cannot be put on a Payment Plan.

eg. If this value is set to 20% and a member's registration debt is $500, then the maximum Payment Plan amount they can apply for is $400. That $100 up-front can be chased and paid for via the suite of tools in the system.

Final Payment Date

To stop the club smarty-pants from signing up for a Plan where he's paying a dollar a month for the next century, you have the option to peg a future date in the ground where all projected instalment schedules would be fully paid off. If a member attempts an application where a projected payment schedule would extend beyond this date, the system will not allow the application to proceed until they alter their instalment amount/frequency combination accordingly.

Adhoc Payment Plans

This section makes the assumption that you are already comfortable with Majestri's central function for managing and chasing outstanding debts. If you're unfamiliar with this screen, or would simply like a refresher, please see here for our comprehensive guide.

If you'd like to have more control over who can apply for Payment Plans, then you may elect to disable the checkout option allowing members to apply online. This doesn't mean that Payment Plans can't be used though. It just becomes the job of the administrator to create a Payment Plan and then get the member to agree to terms.

Even if Payment Plans are allowed at the event level, this is still a great option for members who are struggling to pay their debts. The main point of difference with this back-end tool is that you can build a Payment Plan for somebody with debt comprised of anything you like. This includes online shop debt, as well as other events where Payment Plans are not enabled. It's completely under your control.

If Payment Plans are turned on for your organisation, then you will see a link against each debtor that allows you to start a Payment Plan (see below). If somebody is already on a Payment Plan, then the link will instead take you directly to that plan.

Once you've taken the action of starting a Payment Plan, you have the option of specifying amounts against each component of that member's debt. These amounts represent what is going on the Plan. Again, the flexibility is in your hands - you control things down to the dollar.

After you have confirmed the amounts, the Plan will enter a default "Approved" state, and you will be able to solicit authorisation from your member at that point to activate the plan and kick off the debits.

Further Reading

Now that you understand how to control the Payment Plan offering, the next step is to understand the impact of Payment Plans on financials and also the various stages of progression that they go through. The system we've built has been given a lot of flexibility in order to cater for those real-world scenarios that will crop up repeatedly.

If you are the Treasurer and would like to understand the impact that Payment Plans has on your financials, particularly in terms of outstanding debt, then please read our overview of Payment Plan Financials.

To understand Payment Plans before they are activated, please see our guidance on Payment Plan Application & Approval.

To get to grips with Payment Plans after they have been activated, please refer to our guidance on Payment Plan Activity.