Processing ACH Members

Process Summary

Here are the steps you will do to process your ACH member charges:

Select members to charge: Create a list of members due on or before the billing date.
Clean up invalid card info: Any members with invalid credit card info can be fixed.
Process the payments: Charge member credit cards.
Record payments: All payments are recorded in Gym Assistant.
Process Returns: Any rejected payments are reversed or voided once you are notified by the processor. (see Processing Returns section below)

There are very important differences between processing a credit card transactions and ACH transactions:

Credit card charges are processed in real-time -- once a charge is approved the funds are transferred automatically.
An ACH transaction; however, is a request to transfer funds -- exactly like depositing a check, you won't know for 3-4 business days if the transfer is successful or not.

Selecting Members to Charge

Select Process Credit Card Members from the Billing menu.

Billing Date determines what members will be billed. Only members due on or before the Billing Date will be billed.

Select a “Billing Date” from the drop down menu.
Type in a “Billing Date.”
Click the calendar button to specify a “Billing Date.”

Note: Only members who are due on or before the “Billing Date” will be included in the billing list.

Maximum Aging allows you to filter out members who are delinquent by more than a few months.

For example, you might not want to bill members who are more than 3 months past due.
If you specify a Maximum Aging of 90 days then members who are due more than 90 days before the Billing Date will not be included in the list.

Include all members with Account Balance Due allows you to include any member with a balance due even if that member does not have a membership payment due.

For example, a club might allow members to charge retail purchases to their member accounts for later payment. They could run the billing weekly to collect for the retail balances owed.

Click OK to continue.
The Credit Card Billing window shows a list of all members to-be-billed with all members selected.

Each responsible member is displayed with the following information:

The billing amount for responsible member
The balance owed for responsible member
Total amount due for all dependents

For example, if the amount shown is (2x28/43.00+28.00) then the responsible members owes membership fees of $28 each for 2 months, a previous $43 balance owed, and $28 for his dependents.

Hold down the CTRL key while clicking on a member in the list to select or unselect that member.

Note: The total number of members selected and the total amount billed for those selected members will appear at the bottom of the window.

Click OK to continue.

Cleaning Up Invalid Accounts

The ACH Cleanup window shows the number of members with invalid account information.

Click View Invalid Records to see the list of invalid records and make any corrections.

Right-Click on any member in the list and select Edit Member Info to view and change that member’s financial info.
After reviewing and correcting any invalid card info, click OK to return to the ACH Cleanup window.
Click Continue to proceed to the next step.

Note: Any members with invalid payment info will not be included in the next billing step.

Processing Payments

The Process ACH Debits window title shows the currently selected processing method (which is in this case “EFT-NACHA”).

View List – displays a list of the charges that will be processed. It is a good idea to print out the list of charges to reconcile with the report you will receive later from your processor.
Process Payments – will process the charges using the currently selected processing method.

Note: If you are using one of the integrated payment processing methods (Check Assist, JetPay), then the member payments will be recorded automatically as the charges are processed. (See details for each processing method below.)

Record Payments – will record all of the payments for this batch. If you are using one of the integrated payment processing methods then you will not need this step, as the payments will be recorded automatically as the charges are processed.
Settings – allows you to change the currently selected processing method and configuration.

NACHA Processing

Gym Assistant will generate a batch file that you can send to your processor (usually by uploading to a secure website).

Specify a File Submission Date.
This is usually the date the file is created.
You will be asked "Process as Debit File or Pre-Note file?"
Click Pre-Note File to send a test file (with all zero amounts).
Click Debit File to send a live file.
Enter a Batch Number.
Either accept the default, or enter another value if specified by your processor.
Click Open the folder containing this file if you want to view the file (for example, if you will be dragging the file to another application). Note that the NACHA format is very complex and not easy to read.
Click OK to finish.

You must click Record Payments to mark the members as paid in Gym Assistant.

Wait until you receive any returns before recording the payments (record payments only for payments that were cleared by your bank), or …
Record all payments now and then reverse any rejected payments later.

External Processing Method

The EFT-External method assumes that you are processing your ACH payments outside of Gym Assistant. For example you might setup recurring transactions with your bank to continue until the member cancels his membership. With this method Gym Assistant allows you to record all of the transactions at one time.

The Process Payments button will not do anything, but you will need to hit Record Payments to record that the payments have been made.
You must click Record Payments to mark the members as paid in Gym Assistant.

Wait until you receive any returns before recording the payments (record payments only for payments that were cleared by your bank), or …
Record all payments now and then reverse any rejected payments later.