Gym Best Practices - Part 1

GymMaster is packed with some great features to help cut administration time and let you spend more time doing what you enjoy. Here are some simple suggestions to help make sure your system works for you.

Keep information accurate

• It may seem simple, but your system needs accurate and up-to-date information to be able to function correctly.

• Most errors are due to typos; a seemingly small mix-up in number entry can cause you trouble later on. It’s good to encourage your staff to check the accuracy of the information they are entering.

• Membership data entered incorrectly may wrongly put members in credit or debt.

• The Debtors Report in GymMaster will help you pick up small errors from data-entry.

•  

  Keep on top of debtors

   

• Spend half an hour weekly checking the Debtors Report:

• Reports -> Configurable Reports -> Financial -> Debtors

• As with any business, there will be a number of ‘current’ debtors, but follow up promptly on any who stray into the 2 or 3 month categories.

• Send friendly reminders to those who are overdue. Generally, there are easy fixes for most things, like incorrect bank account numbers, or the member who forgot to give you their credit card details for billing.

• If you resolve these things quickly and promptly, these things never get out of hand. If you let them sit around, the molehills will rapidly become mountains, and the cost in time and energy to fix the problems will escalate quickly!

•  

  Check Direct Debit Exceptions Report

   

• Spend half an hour weekly checking the Direct Debit Exceptions Report:

• Reports -> Configurable Reports -> Financial -> Direct Debit Exceptions

• This report is particularly useful for detecting any issue which is preventing the system from direct debiting members. It will detail any discovered issue, which member is involved, and how to correct it.

• Typical examples of errors are abnormal start dates of memberships, a member’s record missing their credit card details, or perhaps a closed bank account.

• Contact our support team for further assistance with this.

•  

  Address ‘denied entry’ events in the Last Visitors screen on a daily basis

• Members are usually only denied entry for a small number of reasons.

• In conjunction with the calendar-selectable Visitor Log Report, the Last Visitors screen can give you valuable information.

• Reports -> Configurable Reports -> Retention -> Visitor Log

• Those members who have defaulted on payments should be contacted promptly. Have a conversation with those who can’t pay their membership fees, and those who owe you money. This will help to limit your exposure to debt.

• Expired memberships will also trigger a denied entry event. Even though there are other ways to track memberships which are about to expire, some may still fall through the cracks. This report will show opportunities to re-sign up members, and to impress them with personal contact.

• In the case where some other issues have denied the member entry, the faster that these are resolved, the happier your members will be!

• Mistakes can, and will, happen, but it’s the putting right that counts. Handled properly, this will do much to grow your business reputation and increase member loyalty.

•  

  Send SMS alerts for failed payments automatically.

   

• Reduce the amount of work you have to do by automatically sending an SMS to defaulters, reminding them to make their payments.

• Settings -> Task Type Setup

• You can contact our support team for help on how to set this up to work for you.

•  

  Print the Till Take Report daily.

   

• Point of Sale -> Print Till Take

• Selectable by calendar date, this report details what sales, payments, refunds, discounts, etc were made that day.

• This includes credit card amounts taken, eftpos, cash in the till and exactly what was sold that day.

• Making sure this report matches up to what you actually banked is key to detecting any errors

• Check this report daily to ensure your accounts balance.

•  

  Check your stock levels regularly

   

• Running a stocktake will let you know which products are best sellers, and will also tell you if any inventory has gone missing or not sold.

• Point of Sale -> Do a Stock Take -> ‘Add’ a new stocktake -> Edit the ‘Counted’ column to input stockcounts

• If a stock item has been under-counted in the first stocktake, and it shows as an apparent shortage, you might suspect theft. But don’t panic, check the accuracy of counting. The next stocktake will almost certainly show an apparent excess of the stock, and a third stocktake is where the numbers ‘come right’ again.