Sending a payment reminder for outstanding fees

When an instalment is outstanding or a payment has failed, you can send the member in question a reminder. You can do this per member, or to a whole group at once.

First: the system already reminds them

4planning automatically sends a payment reminder for a late payment: every seven days, up to three times. Members cannot switch these off, precisely because outstanding money is involved.

A manual reminder is therefore meant for the cases after that, or when you want to add a personal message.

Step 1: Find the outstanding instalments

1. Go to Finance → Membership fees.
2. Filter on the status open or failed. These are the members who have not paid yet.

Step 2: Send the reminder

1. Select one member, or several at once.
2. Choose Send reminder.
3. The member receives a message with a payment link to the outstanding instalment.

What else you can do

• Retry a failed direct debit, once the cause has been resolved.
• Mark as paid manually when the money arrived outside the system, by bank transfer or in cash for example.
• Pause or stop the subscription when someone is temporarily or permanently no longer a member.

Tips for effective use

• First look at why an instalment is outstanding. With SEPA the cause is often a missing or withdrawn mandate — a payment reminder does not help there, but activating the mandate does.
• Go through arrears weekly rather than once a quarter: the fresher the instalment, the greater the chance it still gets paid.

Frequently asked questions

• The member says they are not receiving the reminder. Check the member's email address and whether the message is landing in spam. The reminder also goes out as a push notification if the member uses the app.
• Can I change the text of the automatic reminder? The automatic dunning messages are fixed. If you want your own wording, send a manual reminder or a message through the member list.