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What Memberships is for

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Memberships handles money that arrives on a schedule — a subscription, a retainer, a franchise fee, a club membership, a vendor programme. It raises the charges, collects them from a saved card or bank account, keeps the ledger, chases the ones that fail, and reports on the recurring revenue that results.

Who uses it

  • Franchise networks billing tribes a royalty or marketing levy.
  • Membership organisations with annual or monthly subscribers.
  • Service businesses on retainers or care plans.
  • Vendor programmes — suppliers paying to be in your network. Their subscription is a membership record under the bonnet.

What it gives you

JobHow it happens
Raising the chargeA scheduled job creates the charge on the right date for every active membership.
Collecting itA second job charges the saved card or debits the bank account.
Keeping the ledgerEvery charge, payment, credit and refund sits on the member's Transactions tab.
Chasing failuresA retry ladder, an email to the member, and a link for them to fix the card.
ReportingRecurring revenue, gains and losses, cash position, accounts receivable.

What it is not

IT IS NOT A SELF-SERVE CHECKOUT
There is no public page where somebody signs themselves up for a membership. Somebody on your team creates the member and puts them on a package; the member then gets an email with a link to add their payment details. The one exception is a vendor completing their own registration.

It is also not an invoicing system in the usual sense. There are no invoice documents with due dates — there is a running ledger and a balance. That matters when you read the ageing reports, which measure how old the oldest unpaid charge is rather than how late it is.

Turning it on

Membership features appear once they are switched on in Membership Settings. You also need a payment gateway connected for the tribe that will collect the money — without one, the card box is replaced by a notice saying the gateway has not been configured.