In order to set up a new Penalty System, please go to Pro-Tools ➔ Penalty Systems ➔ Create Penalty.
Once there, the following information will need to be entered in order to set up your Penalty.
Penalties are currently only able to be applied for Recurring Memberships, and are not able to be applied to Prepaid Plans or Pack memberships.
1) Name your Penalty
You will first need to name your new Penalty, but this is only for your own reference and so you are able to tell each Penalty apart. It will at no point be visible to your customers.
2) Select Actions to Penalize
In the Penalty Settings section, you can select the action you're setting up this Penalty for (Late Cancel or No-Show).
You can set up separate Penalties for each infraction, or you can select both to set these up together.
3) Set the Penalty Outcome
Now that you have selected the action you're setting up the Penalty for, you can select the number of infractions allowed within a specified window before the customer will be charged with the Penalty fee.
You will be required to provide:
1) The number of infractions a customer would need to reach.
2) A window where the number of infractions reached would trigger the Penalty.
3) The Penalty amount to be applied.
In the example above, customers who Late Cancel twice within a 13-day window will be charged $8, and customers who No-Show three times within a 12-day period will be charged $10.
4) Select which Memberships this Penalty applies to
Customers are penalized based on the Membership they used to register for a class, so you can set up a different Penalty per Membership, or you can select All Memberships in order to create a single Penalty that will apply to all infractions.
Because Penalties are applied based on the Membership the customer used in order to register for an event, when selecting the Membership this Penalty will apply to, bear in mind that each Membership can only be associated with one Penalty, and once it has been ticked in one Penalty it can not be selected in another Penalty.
The reason for this is to make sure that customers won't have multiple Penalties triggered for a set number of infractions.
For example, if you ticked your Gold Membership in three different Penalties, each set to charge a customer $5 after two No-Shows, then as soon as the customer No-Shows the second time, all three Penalties would be triggered, and instead of $5, they would be charged $15.
This is why once a Penalty has been set up for a membership, it will appear greyed out as an option next time you set up a new penalty, as displayed in the screenshot above.
5) Advanced Settings
Here you can select how many days you'd like to pass until the customer is charged for their infractions, and you're also able to "Reset" the Penalty Count in order to zero out all infractions.
Customers are not notified about new Penalties you create, however, the Penalty terms will be added to the terms & conditions of each membership it applies to, along with an explanation of the infractions and Penalty charges.
For more information about how you can keep track of Penalties, and how to set up Notifications, please check the guides below: