All You Need to Know About Membership Billing Software
There’s more to membership management than just the collection of dues. Organizations need to ensure that their members get the smoothest payment experiences. After all, members have to be billed on a recurring basis. That is enough reason to make their payment journey hassle-free, so that they look forward to each renewal period, not shirk away from it!
Fortunately, you can give your members just what they need with membership billing software. This software not only ensures that your members are billed timely, but also automates the key payment processes, adding convenience for both you and your members.
In this blog, we’ll explore the features of membership billing software in detail. We’ll also suggest a software that offers all those features, and covers all your membership management needs.
What is Membership Billing Software?
Membership billing software is specially designed to handle the recurring billing needs of your organization. Whether you are a gym, nonprofit, e-learning community, book club, or any other type of membership, you need a robust billing system to power your members’ payments.
This system is especially important if you offer memberships as subscriptions. The subscription nature of membership requires recurring collection of member payments following a set schedule.
A membership billing tool automates key payment tasks such as invoicing, payment processing and collection, payment tracking and reconciliation, and so on. It minimizes your administrative overhead because you don’t have to carry out all these tasks manually. Manual payment handling is inefficient and error-prone, whereas AI-powered billing is quick and precise.
Without further ado, let us discuss the key features of membership billing software. You can utilize this feature list to ensure that your billing software offers all these solutions.
What are the Key Features of Membership Billing Software?
A membership billing system facilitates the payments of both your new and renewing members. It offers a comprehensive suite of solutions that make the billing journey of your subscribers frictionless.
- Automated Billing for New Members
When users sign up for membership, they are asked to provide their payment information. They are also offered a variety of payment methods to choose from. It is the job of your billing system to collect the new member payments seamlessly.
The smoother this process is, the better the impression it will leave on your new members. And as the saying goes, first impressions matter. The software also auto-saves the payment details of all your new members for future billing.
You have done your part.
Let SubscriptionFlow take it from here!
subscription management software.
- Automated Recurring Billing for Renewing Members
It is equally important to keep your existing members satisfied for maximum retention. One major way to achieve member satisfaction is to make their renewals trouble-free. Membership billing software generates member invoices automatically. It creates invoices following each member’s unique billing schedule.
Billing software facilitates payment collection in different ways. Organizations can choose the option that suits their members the most. The software can automate recurring billing. This means that member dues can be deducted from their accounts automatically.
Automation makes the renewal procedure highly convenient for members. They do not even have to remember their billing dates, or worry about filling out long payment forms.
Another billing method is sending members their invoices. The system generates invoices with payment links embedded into them. These invoices can be sent to the members via their preferred communication channels, such as member portals, emails, etc.
This method is suitable for members who do not consent to automated billing, and want more control over their payments.
- Variety of Payment Methods
Advanced billing software support a number of payment methods to cater to a wide member base. Everyone has their own payment preferences. Make sure you don’t lose potential members due to the lack of popular payment options.
Your billing software can allow payments via credit/debit cards, ACH, direct debit, digital wallets, and other alternative payment methods.
- Multiple Membership Plans
Offering multiple membership plans is a great way to build a diverse member base. You empower users to join your membership without constraining their budget. Billing software allows you to set up a number of membership plans with varying charges.
Each plan can offer its own set of perks for members. The higher the plan level, the more exclusive the services it provides. Each plan’s price reflects the value of the services included in it. These plans can follow special pricing structures. Your billing software ensures that members are charged according to the right prices.
- Automatic Payment Reminders & One-Click Renewals
With membership billing software, you don’t have to track each member’s billing dates manually. Whenever the renewal period arrives, the billing platform sends out payment reminders on its own via the communication channels of your choice.
These notifications can include member invoices with payment links. Members can easily renew their membership by simply clicking on the link. They do not have to provide their payment details again. The billing system requires just a single click to auto-fetch payment.
- Flexible Billing Adjustments
Membership billing software empowers your members to make modifications to their plans as they see fit. They can opt for upgrading or downgrading their plans. When these changes occur in the middle of a subscription cycle, admins need to prorate charges to adjust the original membership amount paid by the member accordingly.
Your billing software can be an immense help in this scenario, as it prorates charges precisely. This ensures that your members are not over-charged or under-charged. In case of mid-cycle membership cancellations, billing software efficiently calculates refunds to be given.
- Multiple Billing Models
Memberships are encouraged to implement the billing model that suits their needs the most. They don’t need to limit themselves to flat recurring charges. Rather, their billing software allows them to bill flexibly.
It supports payment models such as tiered, usage-based and hybrid billing etc. and executes error-free revenue management. It saves them from performing complicated calculations manually, while keeping their members satisfied.
What Makes SubscriptionFlow the First Class Membership Billing Software?
SubscriptionFlow is an all-in-one membership management and billing solution. It not only handles your members’ accounts effectively, but also executes flawless billing. SubscriptionFlow equips you with all the features discussed above, and many more.
Let’s take a look at some of the outstanding billing features that we offer to make your payment operations elegant:
- Flexible Membership Plans & Billing Models
When it comes to flexible membership plans and customizations, SubscriptionFlow is unrivalled. You can create unique membership tiers that fit your audience. Create customized bundles with attractive add-on perks to encourage more users to sign up.
Offer gift, trial and group memberships to expand your outreach. We let you adopt the billing model of your choice: one-time, recurring, usage-based, hybrid, and more. Experiment and come up with creative strategies with our tech-savvy solutions at your disposal.
- End-to-End Automation
You can run everything on autopilot: billing, payment collection, renewals, refunds, payment recovery, accounts management and expansion. Keep your manual interference minimal, and stay on top of your finances.
Enable our automated billing adjustment feature to manage subscription prorations and correct billing errors. The system also automates member sign-up and onboarding procedures. It saves user data as soon as they sign up, and stores it in a secure database.
Memberships can access this database easily, customize it, and segment customers however they like. Member data is crucial for developing impactful marketing campaigns, and personalizing members’ payment experience.
- Revenue & Dunning Management
With SubscriptionFlow, you can track and monitor your membership performance effortlessly. Keep an eye on your MRR (monthly recurring revenue) and ARR (annual recurring revenue) figures for accurate revenue forecasting. We update your key metrics in real-time.
We also let you track your paid, unpaid and overdue invoices. In case of payment failures, we equip you with intelligent dunning and payment recovery tools to keep your revenue flow going strong. If payments fail due to card expiry, or insufficient funds, the system keeps members in the loop.
Members are sent automatic notifications to update their payment details. Our system also attempts payment retries at optimal times to minimize revenue leakage.
- Global Payment Gateway & Multi-Currency Support
You can grow your membership beyond boundaries. SubscriptionFlow connects with multiple international payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe to cater to an international member base.
You can also leverage our country-specific gateway integrations to acquire members who prefer their local payment methods. SubscriptionFlow enables member billing in multiple currencies, while ensuring that you stay tax-compliant.
- Member Portal
SubscriptionFlow elevates your member engagement by allowing them access to their own service portals which can be fully personalised. Let users manage their own memberships, and reduce your workload.
Members can use their portals to upgrade and downgrade their plans, change payment details, view their current and past invoices, update personal information, and more.
- Discounts & Coupons
Offering discounted plans is a great way to attract new members. Discounts and coupons can also be offered to the existing members as loyalty rewards. Our software executes accurate discount billing and ensures fair pricing.
- Highly Customizable Invoicing
SubscriptionFlow lets you configure your invoices deeply. You can create invoices tailored to the image of your membership. We offer a variety of templates and themes to choose from. You can create custom templates as well.
Additionally, you can modify the layout and details of your invoice. You can add custom data fields to it to make the member payment experience personalized.
- Batch Renewals
Our membership billing software offers member renewal in batches too. It tracks all the member accounts that need to be renewed and renews them in one go. This process is quick and saves you a lot of time.
After changing members’ statuses, the system generates their invoices. It applies accurate charges for members benefitting from a discount or other special pricing.
- Financial Documentation
SubscriptionFlow allows memberships to keep all the records of their transactions in a secure vault. They can use this financial data to generate comprehensive audit trails for compliance purposes.
- Integrations
Memberships can integrate with accounting platforms such as QuickBooks, Xero and Sage Intacct for managing their general ledger. SubscriptionFlow enables two-way data synchronization which means that you can transfer your payment data from SubscriptionFlow to the accounting software automatically.
Do you also want to simplify your membership’s billing processes? Give SubscriptionFlow a try today. Our advanced billing solutions cater to memberships of all sizes.
