Creating a membership fee plan

A membership fee plan determines what a group of members pays and how often. This article explains how to create a plan and which choices you make along the way.

How membership fees are structured

Membership fees in 4planning have three layers. Once you understand those, the rest follows:

1. A fee plan — what gets paid: a name, an amount and an interval.
2. A subscription — which member is linked to which plan, and with which payment method.
3. An instalment — the individual payment that is created automatically each period.

So you create a plan first, link members to it, and the system then creates the instalments by itself.

Step 1: Go to Membership fees

1. Open Finance in the menu.
2. Click Membership fees.

Step 2: Create a new plan

1. Click Create plan.
2. Give the plan a recognisable name, for example Seniors, Youth or Supporting member. Members see this name on their payment page and in the emails.
3. Enter the amount to be paid each period.
4. Choose the interval: monthly, quarterly, yearly or one-off.
5. Save the plan.

Step 3: Link members

A plan does nothing until members are attached to it. Link members through a subscription and choose the payment method there (SEPA direct debit, iDEAL or bank transfer). See Setting up a subscription.

Tips for effective use

• Prefer a few clear plans over many exceptions. One plan per member type works best in practice.
• Choose the interval deliberately: monthly collection lowers the threshold for members, yearly saves you work and service charges.
• If you change a plan's amount, check what that does to running subscriptions — instalments that are already queued do not change retroactively.

Frequently asked questions

• Can I let members pay in instalments? Yes, choose an interval such as monthly or quarterly. The system then creates a new instalment each period.
• Can a member have several plans? Yes, a member can be linked to more than one subscription, for example a basic fee plus a contribution for an extra activity.
• What happens to a plan I delete? Do not delete a plan while subscriptions are still running on it. Stop those subscriptions first.