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direct debit charges for membership
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AnBeagalltach wrote: »If everybody decided to pay direct debit the Club would barely make it through January. In most services the direct debit option is more expensive to incentivise people to pay up front. If the direct debit is the same cost as the annual lump why would anyone forego the money from their pocket and pay the lump?
I think it’s completely fair enough to charge more for DD if only to reward the upfront payees as their cash is effectively keeping the Club afloat for the first few months of the year.
This doesn't make a lot of sense, the club should be able to manage their money over the year to be ok at any time of the year. By this logic, the club would be struggling big time in the last 3 months of the year, as all DD payments have finished.
You will always have people that want to pay it all up front anyway, and the DD ends in September, so you couldn't cancel for the winter months to avoid paying the full thing, you would have to miss out on half a year of golf if you wanted to do something like that.0 -
Bill Ponderosa wrote: »Yeah you get the quote, you can either pay monthly or all in once, works out the same amount. Very handy. Probably helps they're a bank.
Yeah cross selling is the main reason I can think why they would do this
Very odd0 -
This doesn't make a lot of sense, the club should be able to manage their money over the year to be ok at any time of the year. By this logic, the club would be struggling big time in the last 3 months of the year, as all DD payments have finished.
You will always have people that want to pay it all up front anyway, and the DD ends in September, so you couldn't cancel for the winter months to avoid paying the full thing, you would have to miss out on half a year of golf if you wanted to do something like that.
I don't think this comment makes sense.
If a club charged DD quarterly with 1st payment Jan 1st, then pay Jan 1st, April 1st, July 1st, play till September 30th (and however long they don't come after you), don't pay October 1st, save 25% and don't bother playing once winter begins.
That's presuming we start on Jan 1st of course. And that's why a lot of clubs would take the first payment around Sept/Oct/Nov, to avoid this.0 -
Our Club offers members the option of paying their annual sub through a single payment, or at least one that is fully paid by the end of January; those that do this receive 3 Green Fee vouchers.
They also allow for a Standing Order for an equal amount divided over the Jan-Sept (9 months) period without any admin charge.
it’s the same amount whether payment is once off or 9 amounts, the vouchers are an incentive for early payments but there isn’t a penalty for electing to spread the cost of your sub.
Payment by standing order is an additional cost to the Club but the emphasis is member-friendly solutions, much better to have (relatively) happy members than placing a barrier between their Club and their pocket.0 -
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Deporhostia wrote: »I don't think this comment makes sense.
If a club charged DD quarterly with 1st payment Jan 1st, then pay Jan 1st, April 1st, July 1st, play till September 30th (and however long they don't come after you), don't pay October 1st, save 25% and don't bother playing once winter begins.
That's presuming we start on Jan 1st of course. And that's why a lot of clubs would take the first payment around Sept/Oct/Nov, to avoid this.
I'm talking about my own club, the last payment is in September, so you're going to miss out on September and October golf(which are both completely grand months for golf), as well as the final 2 months of the year.
Also, more importantly, literally nobody is going to do this ridiculous suggestion, there are waiting lists and joining fees at half the clubs in the country these days, and it's being proposed that a 50 quid DD fee is going to stop someone from skiving off the last few payments? If someone is scabby enough to do this, I don't think the 50 quid fee is going to stop them from not paying the >50 remainder of a DD. This person that goes out of their way to go through the hassle of joining a golf club, only to leave after 8/9 months to save a bit of cash. This has to be an absolute fringe case at best.Our Club offers members the option of paying their annual sub through a single payment, or at least one that is fully paid by the end of January; those that do this receive 3 Green Fee vouchers.
They also allow for a Standing Order for an equal amount divided over the Jan-Sept (9 months) period without any admin charge.
it’s the same amount whether payment is once off or 9 amounts, the vouchers are an incentive for early payments but there isn’t a penalty for electing to spread the cost of your sub.
Payment by standing order is an additional cost to the Club but the emphasis is member-friendly solutions, much better to have (relatively) happy members than placing a barrier between their Club and their pocket.
This is an excellent setup, and the sort of attitude every club should have. I wouldn't mind at all if any actual cost incurred from having the DD setup was passed on to members using it, but in the case of my club anyway, it just seems like another racket.0 -
Our Club offers members the option of paying their annual sub through a single payment, or at least one that is fully paid by the end of January; those that do this receive 3 Green Fee vouchers.
They also allow for a Standing Order for an equal amount divided over the Jan-Sept (9 months) period without any admin charge.
it’s the same amount whether payment is once off or 9 amounts, the vouchers are an incentive for early payments but there isn’t a penalty for electing to spread the cost of your sub.
Payment by standing order is an additional cost to the Club but the emphasis is member-friendly solutions, much better to have (relatively) happy members than placing a barrier between their Club and their pocket.
This is a much better structure, an incentive to pay one way rather then a penalty to pay another way. It's nearly the same thing but perceived quite differently by the customer.
Golf clubs are pretty poor at pricing structures and don't seem to even use relatively basic ideas like the one above. A simple example could be a club that's needing €950 for a subscription, a way to do it is 9 monthly payments of 110 or 10 monthly payments of 1000, so then call the sub 990 or 1000, payable in monthly installments and 950 if it's paid up front.
Are golf clubs that devoid of expertise? It would seem that they are.0 -
ShivasIrons wrote: »This is a much better structure, an incentive to pay one way rather then a penalty to pay another way. It's nearly the same thing but perceived quite differently by the customer.
Golf clubs are pretty poor at pricing structures and don't seem to even use relatively basic ideas like the one above. A simple example could be a club that's needing €950 for a subscription, a way to do it is 9 monthly payments of 110 or 10 monthly payments of 1000, so then call the sub 990 or 1000, payable in monthly installments and 950 if it's paid up front.
Are golf clubs that devoid of expertise? It would seem that they are.
Most subs are set by membership type at a AGM, so having a different payment amount based on payment type would define these as different membership class/types. It would be very confusing at a AGM. That’s why the easy option is to charge a fee for members that want a installment plan.
Paying money over a installment plan as a cost to everyone involved. It’s not free money.
We already have to many different types of membership and this creates huge additional administration work. We moved systems this year to try and make savings by improving processing and communication. Allowing members to manage payment themselves.
I’m involved with the finances of my club and payment plans are very expensive to operate. It’s not only the bank fees, it’s reconciled the payments, updating systems and extra bad debt. It also creates a lot of work when members DD don’t come through for whatever reason. These are never easy phone calls.
It also makes business planning more difficult.
One of the positives is funds coming in every month and clubs not going into overdraft at the year end.
People need to realize most clubs are not run as professional business, they are ran by volunteers and part time staff that aren’t accountants. This helps in keeping the cost of golf down for clubs. To do what some people ask in this thread would require full time professional staff with investment in good systems.
We used the model of free green fees if paid in full but at this stage most members rather monthly installment plans and that’s what the market expects.
We still have some members insisting on paying in cash whenever they want!
I think the point I’m making is that customers don’t realize the work they create for clubs by not paying in a single payment or missing payments. This is money that can be used to improve the facilities or reduce subs.
To me personally, it’s not fair to member A who pays in full gets the same rate for member B who pays monthly and costs the club more. Why should members A cover this cost for members B?
I think a fee is the fairest way but we still don’t do it and discuss it every year. But most clubs I know do charge it.
From a marketing view, it is easy not to charge it and increase everyone’s subs to cover the cost but the fee charge for online payments is massive and I don’t think people realise this but also the fee for handling cash is high.0 -
Most subs are set by membership type at a AGM, so having a different payment amount based on payment type would define these as different membership class/types. It would be very confusing at a AGM. That’s why the easy option is to charge a fee for members that want a installment plan.
Paying money over a installment plan as a cost to everyone involved. It’s not free money.
We already have to many different types of membership and this creates huge additional administration work. We moved systems this year to try and make savings by improving processing and communication. Allowing members to manage payment themselves.
I’m involved with the finances of my club and payment plans are very expensive to operate. It’s not only the bank fees, it’s reconciled the payments, updating systems and extra bad debt. It also creates a lot of work when members DD don’t come through for whatever reason. These are never easy phone calls.
It also makes business planning more difficult.
One of the positives is funds coming in every month and clubs not going into overdraft at the year end.
People need to realize most clubs are not run as professional business, they are ran by volunteers and part time staff that aren’t accountants. This helps in keeping the cost of golf down for clubs. To do what some people ask in this thread would require full time professional staff with investment in good systems.
We used the model of free green fees if paid in full but at this stage most members rather monthly installment plans and that’s what the market expects.
We still have some members insisting on paying in cash whenever they want!
I think the point I’m making is that customers don’t realize the work they create for clubs by not paying in a single payment or missing payments. This is money that can be used to improve the facilities or reduce subs.
To me personally, it’s not fair to member A who pays in full gets the same rate for member B who pays monthly and costs the club more. Why should members A cover this cost for members B?
I think a fee is the fairest way but we still don’t do it and discuss it every year. But most clubs I know do charge it.
From a marketing view, it is easy not to charge it and increase everyone’s subs to cover the cost but the fee charge for online payments is massive and I don’t think people realise this but also the fee for handling cash is high.
I'm not sure you're getting my point, the fee is set higher to include the cost of the finance and an option of a discount is given when some wants to pay up front. It doesn't seem confusing.
As you're involved with the finances of a club, what is the cost of a payment plan? Saying it is expensive isn't putting a figure to it.
As for saying, member A shouldn't cover the costs of member's B finance, the whole idea of a membership price is it covers the costs of all members, what do you say to member C who plays 25 times in the year and thinks it's unfair that they have to pay the same as member D who plays 100 times in the year? Member D costs the club more, through extra wear and tear etc0 -
ShivasIrons wrote: »I'm not sure you're getting my point, the fee is set higher to include the cost of the finance and an option of a discount is given when some wants to pay up front. It doesn't seem confusing.
As you're involved with the finances of a club, what is the cost of a payment plan? Saying it is expensive isn't putting a figure to it.
As for saying, member A shouldn't cover the costs of member's B finance, the whole idea of a membership price is it covers the costs of all members, what do you say to member C who plays 25 times in the year and thinks it's unfair that they have to pay the same as member D who plays 100 times in the year? Member D costs the club more, through extra wear and tear etc
I can’t give you a exact figure but I reckon it’s easily 50 per plan.
The cost is massive, not only the bank fees which are higher on DD that get missed, you have all the staff time waste. They now have to process and reconcile something 12 times instead of once. It’s a huge waste of time and inefficient. Also bank statements don’t make the job easy and people don’t add proper references.
Every club would rather every member pay at the start of the year and not doing it creates massive amount of work that would create savings or free up resources to do other things.
Remember subs are made up of a combination of fees, GUI, insurance, bar etc, so the first two months of DD might only cover those costs and the club get nothing.
I’ve a staff member spending at least 2 full days a week doing this stuff and at the start of the year setting all these plans up takes two staff nearly two months to complete. It’s such a huge burden.
If you got paid for a job and one customer told you he would pay in full at the end and the other ask you to pop back 12 times over the next year, which would you want and why? Now multiple that question by 1000 and think of all the extra work involved.
Charging members different subs isn’t the way to do it. It’s a service a club offers to members, so a member should see the fee for it separately as a extra cost.
Most people understand this because you see this on other payment plans for insurance, gyms etc. I also think you are not allowed to lower fees because of how someone pays you.
On your last point, subs aren’t based on how often you play, that’s a personal issue and not the clubs fault if you don’t use it enough. Every member is given the same access. Subs are design to split the cost of running the business between all the members. If how a member pays adds cost to the club then that’s a cost a member should pay.
As I said, we offer this service free because we are a members club but I feel it’s wrong and the reason we don’t change it is because of comments in this thread. People just have a negative reaction to it but we do work with each member to try and make the process simple.if a member misses payments etc, they won’t get it the following year.0 -
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We pay by standing order however it starts 6 months in advance so by the time billing comes around anyone paying monthly has half the annual sub paid and will continue to pay monthly.
No extra charges.0 -
As pointed out already the increased charge is for paying by instalments. This is normal, yes it might be a new concept to your club, but it is business, and golf is big business.
DD is just a method of payment and is not the reason there is additional cost.
My club, instalment options are processed through a fee finance company which is quite common practice. If you want to pay upfront you can avoid the extra cost unless you pay by credit card, there is a small charge as it costs money to process cards.0 -
As pointed out already the increased charge is for paying by instalments. This is normal, yes it might be a new concept to your club, but it is business, and golf is big business.
DD is just a method of payment and is not the reason there is additional cost.
My club, instalment options are processed through a fee finance company which is quite common practice. If you want to pay upfront you can avoid the extra cost unless you pay by credit card, there is a small charge as it costs money to process cards.
Since January 2019 the charging of a fee, surcharge or levy based on the method of payment for a product or service is prohibited, you cannot charge extra for a credit or debit card. This does not apply to charge cards or fees associated with additional administrative work such as charging for DD processing.0
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