Migrating members from a payment plan program to a recurring billing program

If your organization has been using an Installment Payment Plan to collect ongoing monthly payments, you can move those members onto Recurring Billing instead. Recurring Billing is built for ongoing charges, so you no longer need to set an installment count in advance or rebuild the plan every season. 

This article walks through the full move: creating the new program, stopping the old plan from collecting anything further, and getting each member onto a billing plan. It is written for organization admins. 

Table of contents

• Why switch to recurring billing
• Why you need to create a new program
• Before you start
• Setting up the new recurring billing program
• Choosing how to move your members
• Option 1: Cancel installments and copy registrations
• Option 2: Send members a registration link
• Option 3: Register members manually
• What to check after each member is moved
• FAQ

Why switch to recurring billing

If you have been approximating ongoing monthly payments with an installment plan, Recurring Billing removes the workarounds you have had to build around it:

• No more building long plans by hand. Instead of a twelve-line installment schedule that has to be rebuilt every season, you set an amount and a schedule once and LeagueApps charges on it. Members who join partway through a month are handled for you.
• Programming can run indefinitely. There is no lifetime total to guess at and no end date to plan around, so tuition, dues, and memberships can continue for as long as the member is enrolled — and new members can join at any time.
• A clearer picture for your members. Instead of a large lifetime total or a long installment schedule, members see what they are paying today and what is coming next, and they can update their own card whenever it changes.

For a fuller introduction to the feature itself, see the article Recurring Billing: An Overview.

Why you need to create a new program

An existing program cannot be switched over to Recurring Billing. Once a program has registrations and payments against it, its payment options are locked, and the plans inside it can only be closed, cancelled, or deleted. There is no in-place conversion.

Every move therefore follows the same four steps:

1. Create a new program with Recurring Billing enabled and your billing plans turned on.
2. Stop the old program from collecting anything further.
3. Get each member onto a billing plan in the new program.
4. Close the old program once nobody is left on it.

The three options later in this article are all versions of step 3. Steps 1, 2, and 4 are the same no matter which one you pick.

Before you start

A few things about Recurring Billing are worth knowing up front, because they shape how you set the new program up:

• A recurring billing program is standalone. It cannot also offer Pay in Full or an Installment Payment Plan. Members in that program are all on billing plans.
• Autopay is required. A member cannot be enrolled on a billing plan without a saved payment method.
• Supported billing frequencies are monthly and twice monthly on the 1st and 15th. 
• Plan prices are fixed once a plan is live. To change an amount you close the plan and create a new one, and members already enrolled keep the price they signed up at.

Setting up the new recurring billing program

Build the new program before you touch anything on the old one.

1. Create the new program.
2. Enable Recurring Billing as the program's payment option, this is done under Settings > Registration Options.
3. Create your Billing plans — Settings > Billing Plans - the amount, the billing frequency, the billing day, when the first charge happens, and whether the plan has an end point. See: Setting Up a Recurring Billing Plan
4. Turn the plans on so they are available to select.
5. Create a private plan for any member who needs a different price.

Set the program start date to your first charge date

Most of your members have already paid for the period they are currently in. If the new program starts charging the moment you move them in, they pay twice for the same month — and because a mid-cycle first charge is prorated, the amount will be an odd partial figure that is hard to explain.

To avoid that, set the new program's start date to the date you want the first recurring charge to land, and set the plan's first charge to happen on or after that start date. The first installment will then be generated for your intended billing date rather than the day the member was moved in.

Add a payment authorization waiver

Waivers have to be re-accepted whenever a registration is copied into a new program, which makes a waiver the most reliable way to capture a member's agreement to the new charges.

Add a waiver to the new program that states the plan amount, how often it will be charged, and that autopay is required. For example:

"By registering, I authorize [Organization] to charge my saved payment method $[amount] on the [1st] of each month for the duration of my enrollment. I understand autopay is required and that I can contact [Organization] to make changes."

Choosing how to move your members

There are three ways to get members onto the new billing plans. Most organizations use one as their main approach and a second one to clean up whoever is left.

• Option 1, cancel and copy — you do the work in the management console, member by member. Best when you have a manageable number of members, or when your members are unlikely to re-register on their own.
• Option 2, cancel and invite — your members re-register themselves. Best when you have a large number of members and you can reliably reach them by email.
• Option 3, cancel and manually register— you register members one at a time. Best as cleanup for the few people the other two options miss.

The trade-off is straightforward. Option 2 asks your members to act, so some of them will not, and you will need to chase them. Option 1 does not ask them to act, which means the responsibility for telling them about the new charge sits entirely with you.

Option 1: Cancel installments and copy registrations

You will work through the old program one invoice at a time. There is no bulk version of this.

Tell your members first

Before you move anyone, send your members a message telling them the plan is changing, what the new amount is, and when the first charge will happen.

Stop the old program from taking new registrations

Close the old program to new registrations before you start working through the list, so you are not chasing people who register while the move is in progress.

Cancel the remaining installments, then copy the registration

For each member, in the old program:

1. Open the member's invoice and use Cancel remaining installments. This clears their future unpaid installments so the old plan will not collect anything more.
2. Copy the registration into the new program. Copy it — do not move it — so the original registration and its payment history stay intact in the old program.
3. Select the billing plan the member should be on.
4. Open the new invoice and confirm the first charge amount and date are what you expect.

Past-due amounts can stay where they are. They do not need to be resolved before you copy the registration, and they do not prevent you from closing the old program later.

Option 2: Invite members to the new program

With this option your members put themselves onto the new plan, and they authorize autopay as part of checkout.

1. Set up the new program as described above, including the program start date.
2. Close the old program to new registrations.
3. Use Cancel remaining installments on each member's old invoice so the old plan will not collect anything further.
4. Invite members to the new program. State the amount, how often they will be charged, and the date of the first charge. See: Program-to-Program Player Invites. For example:

"We're moving our monthly payments to a new system. Please re-register using the link below and save a payment method. Your remaining scheduled payments on the current plan have already been cancelled, so you won't be charged twice. Going forward you'll be charged $[amount] on the [1st] of each month, starting [date]."

5. Keep a list of who has not re-registered, follow up with them, and fall back to Option 3 for anyone who still does not.

Because the member saves their own payment method and accepts the waiver during checkout, this is the cleanest option from an authorization standpoint — they are agreeing to a specific amount and frequency at the moment it is set up.

Option 3: Register members manually

You can register a member into the new program yourself and select their billing plan. This is worth using for the handful of people the other options miss — a member with no working email address, or someone who asks you to handle it for them.

It does not scale well, and it means collecting payment details from the member directly, so treat it as cleanup rather than a plan for your whole roster.

What to check after each member is moved

For each member, confirm:

• They are on the correct billing plan in the new program.
• The first charge date and amount are what you intended. Check the installment itself rather than relying only on the next charge date shown on the invoice.
• A payment method is saved.
• The payment authorization waiver has been accepted, if you added one.
• Their old invoice shows no remaining future installments.

Once every member is on a plan in the new program, you can close the old program.

FAQ

Can I just switch my existing program over to recurring billing?

No. Once a program has registrations and payments against it, its payment options are locked. You will need to create a new program with Recurring Billing enabled and move your members into it.

Will my members be charged twice for the same month?

Not if you do two things: use Cancel remaining installments on the old invoice so the old plan stops collecting, and set the new program's start date to the date you actually want the next charge to happen. Skipping either one is what causes an overlapping charge.

Do my members have to enter their card again?

It depends on the option you use. With Option 2, the member saves a payment method during checkout. With Option 1 there is no separate step asking the member to re-authorize autopay, which is why telling them in advance and adding a payment authorization waiver both matter.

What happens to the money already collected on the old program?

It stays where it is. Cancel remaining installments does not refund anything — it only clears future unpaid installments. Paid installments and their payment history remain on the original registration in the old program.

What if a member has a past-due balance on the old plan?

Leave it. Past-due installments are not cleared by Cancel remaining installments, and they can remain outstanding in the old program while the member is billed normally in the new one. You can still collect on them, and they will not stop you from closing the old program.

Can a recurring billing program also offer pay in full or an installment plan?

No. A recurring billing program is standalone. If you want to offer those options as well, you will need a separate program for them.

How do I charge one member a different amount?

Create a private plan at that price and select it for that member. Discount codes are not supported on billing plans.

Can I change a plan's price after members are on it?

Not on a live plan. To change an amount, close the existing plan and create a new one at the new price. Members already enrolled keep the price they signed up at, so if you want the change to apply to them you will need to move them onto the new plan.

Should I delete the old program when I'm done?

Close registration and set it to completed, it rather than delete it. The old program holds the payment history for everything collected before the move, and you will need it for your financial reporting.