Memberships have a diverse range of functionalities in BusyPaws, including providing credits, allowing online course access, giving access to members-only services, and charging automated recurring payments. Due to their variable nature, ensuring that the settings for your memberships are configured to best suit your needs is very important. In this guide we will take a look at the steps involved in creating and managing memberships on your BusyPaws account.
For more information on membership features and statuses, check out our Membership Basics help guide. To learn more about how clients sign up for memberships, see our guide on Membership Subscriptions.
Locating Existing Memberships
To locate a list of your existing memberships, start by clicking the gear icon menu at the bottom of the left-hand menu bar.
Then select "Memberships" near the bottom of the "Product Configuration" section.
The Membership Management page displays all of your available memberships as well as any that have been previously archived. There are two tabs on this page: "Memberships" and "Archived". The "Memberships" tab lists the Name, Price, billing Frequency, current count of Active subscriptions, Total subscription count (Active, Paused, and Inactive), the Direct Link, a Public setting toggle, and a trash can icon for each membership. Click on any membership's Name to open the Edit Membership page.
The "Public" toggle is used to control which of your memberships are publicly available through your main memberships link (found on the "Links/Integrations" page). When the toggle is ON (purple) the membership will be publicly listed, and when it is OFF (grey) it will only be available through its Direct Link.
Use the "Copy Link" button for any membership to get its Direct Link, allowing clients to purchase it regardless of its public-listing status.
Select the trash can icon for any membership to remove it from the list. Doing this for any membership with a client subscription history moves it to the Archived list. For any membership without a subscription history, selecting the trash can icon will instead delete the membership. Note that the action of archiving a membership can be undone however the action of deleting a membership cannot.
The "Archived" tab includes any membership with a client subscription history that has been deleted from the main Memberships list. Much like those on the Memberships tab, each archived membership is listed with its Name, Price, billing Frequency, current count of Active subscriptions, and Total subscription count (Active, Paused, and Inactive). Each archived membership also has a box icon to the right of its line entry. Selecting the box icon un-archives the membership, moving it back to the main memberships list.
Archived memberships cannot be purchased by clients or manually assigned to customer profiles by users.
Creating a Membership
To set up a new membership, start by navigating to the Membership Management page. From there, click the "Add Membership" button at the top-right corner of the page.
The New Membership form has a variety of fields that can be used to adjust the membership to best suit your needs. These fields are separated between the Membership Details card and the Included Benefits cards.
Membership Details
The Membership Details card allows you to set the main terms of the membership, including the name, price, and duration. The fields here will communicate important information about the membership to your clients and will set the payment program up for the subscription. Each available field in this section must be completed in order to create a new membership.
Name | A text field to set the membership's name. This name will be displayed to your clients when they are purchasing the membership as well as in any membership list. It's a good idea to keep it short and concise. |
Description | A text field to enter a brief description of the membership. This description will show beside the Membership Name in the Membership Portal. Use this section to help your customers understand what the membership gives them access to. |
Price | The price charged per payment. Enter a price directly into the field or use the up/down arrows to adjust by 0.01.
Edits to this value will not impact the membership's existing active subscriptions. |
Invoicing Frequency | A drop-down menu to set the frequency at which the price will be charged for the duration of the membership. Options include One-Time, Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, or Yearly.
Note: If One-Time is chosen the membership will remain Active until it is paused or cancelled.
Edits to this value will not impact the membership's existing active subscriptions. |
Does Not Expire | When this toggle is turned on (purple) subscriptions to the membership will have no expiry date, regardless of their payment frequency.
Edits to this value will not impact the membership's existing active subscriptions. |
Term (Weekly, Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-Annual, or Yearly Frequencies) | The number of charges that will be made at the chosen frequency. At the end of the chosen number of terms the membership will expire and the subscriber will lose access to any benefits of the membership such as course content or specific services. This field will not be available if the Frequency is set to One-Time or if the Does Not Expire toggle has been turned on.
The units for this field will vary depending on the frequency chosen. i.e. Yearly = Years, Monthly = Months, Weekly = Weeks, etc.
Edits to this value will not impact the membership's existing active subscriptions. |
Membership Image | Allows you to assign a photo to the membership, to be displayed with the membership's description in your Public Membership Portal.
Recommended ratio for photos is approximately 700px x 510px. |
Once a client's membership subscription has started it is not possible to change its price, frequency, or term/duration. Should you later make changes to any settings related to the cost or duration of the membership, those with existing subscriptions will not be impacted unless their subscription is cancelled and they resubscribe. This includes settings dictating applied taxes.
Included Benefits
The Included Benefits section allows you to set up the benefits of the membership. Adding entries to this section can give subscribers access to your online courses, the ability to book any assigned services or series, and/or provide credits to use towards bookings. Note that each component (courses, services, and credits) is optional, allowing you to mix and match as needed. Use the "Add Service", "Add Credit", and "Add Course" buttons to add any desired elements to the membership. Use the "Remove" button beside any component to delete it.
Services Available Through Client Portal | Adding services to a membership will allow any subscribed clients to book those services via the Client Portal, even if they're not publicly accessible. Both services and series can be included in memberships.
Note: Adding services in this section only provides clients with access to book them, it does not provide credits. This means clients will still need to pay for their booking registrations. |
Credits | Adding credits to a membership provides service, service collection, add-on, or cash credits to any subscribed clients. Each time the "Add Credit" button is used, four components will populate, allowing you to customize each section further. |
Credits: Type | A drop-down menu to choose the type of credit. This may be a specific service, service collection, or add-on credit or a cash credit. |
Credits: Frequency | A drop-down menu determining when the credits are issued. Options include One-time (when the membership is purchased), Weekly, Monthly, or Yearly. This frequency is independent of the billing frequency though credit allocation will cease when the membership expires. |
Credits: Quantity/Value | The dollar value of a cash credit or the number of service credits to be assigned at the chosen frequency. Enter values directly into the field or use the up/down arrows to adjust by 0.01 (if Value) or 1 (if Qty). |
Credits: Expire | A toggle determining whether or not credits given weekly, monthly or yearly will expire when new credits are issued. This option allows you to choose whether or not unused credits will roll over when the Credit Frequency term ends. |
Courses | Adding courses to a membership will give any subscribed clients access to them. Course content can only ever be accessed through a membership.
Note: This option is only available after you have created at least one online course on your account. |
Changes to this section will impact existing subscriptions to the membership.
Once you have set up your new membership, click the "Create Membership" button at the bottom of the form to add it to your list of available memberships.
Editing a Membership
To edit an existing membership, select its name from the list on your Membership Management page to open the Edit Membership form.
It's important to note that any adjustments made to a membership's payment settings (i.e. the Price, Frequency, and/or Term) will only come into effect for new subscriptions. Any Active subscriptions will maintain the payment settings that were in effect at the time the membership was activated.
In contrast, updates to the settings dictating available services, allocated credits, and course access will take effect for any and all membership subscriptions, whether Active or new.
Once all of the desired adjustments have been made, use the "Update Membership" button at the bottom of the form to save your changes and return to the membership Management page.
Note as well that the "Public" setting for any existing membership can be edited from the main Membership Management page. The "Public" toggle determines only who can see the membership to purchase it, so any existing membership holders will be unaffected by any changes to its status. If the toggle is switched ON (purple) the membership will be publicly available through your main memberships list. If the toggle is OFF (grey) only clients with the Direct Link will be able to purchase the membership.
To learn more about the various aspects of memberships, check out the following help guides:
Note that if you are looking to set up a membership for the express purpose of controlling access to one or more of your services/series, you may also find our Can I restrict access to a service? FAQ article useful.