About MMS

Merchant Membership’s Payment Service will provide your business with a convenient method for your customer’s to pay their membership fees. Whether weekly, fortnightly or monthly payments suit your clients; we will debit them on time and get the money to you within 3 business days.

By offering an alternative pricing structure and convenient Payment Service your organization will increase its customer base to include those customer’s that may not have otherwise purchased your products or service. Using a service such as this will have costs however those costs fade into insignificance if you have to turn away business just because you do not have a direct debit facility in place.

The costs associated with having this facility in place should be factored into your Membership price therefore ensuring that you have the costs covered. If you are being charged for more than a flat transaction fee (software fees, rejection fees, Monthly fees ect) then this must be factored into the overall costs for billing.

In addition to providing a convenient Payment Service we can also advise you on how to best deal with your in-house over due accounts, reduce your debt collection costs and remove the overall awkwardness that is associated with

Collecting overdue accounts. Our Arrears Pay out System turns debt into income and gets Members back at the Club.

In 2007, Merchant Membership Services underwent some dramatic changes with a New Owner and Management Team, relocation from Perth WA to Seaford Victoria, revamp of IT systems, New Customer Service approach and most importantly a dramatic drop in fees giving you the Business Owner a cost effective user friendly solution to your future billing needs.

With over 10 years of providing billing services, Merchant has never been better placed to take on your business and will work with you to take the high cost and drama out of billing.

History

Merchant Membership Services was formed in the late 1990’s by the previous owners Mark & Sarah Roberts.

Starting as a back room project, Mark and Sarah worked tirelessly to develop a billing system that would cater for any industry however due to high demand from Marketing Companies and Clubs decided to work solely in the fitness industry. 10 years on and the business has worked with over 300 individual fitness clubs from the tiniest small town club to the large chains.

In early 2007 the business underwent a dramatic change with Sue Quantrelle (Current Owner) purchasing the business and relocated it to Seaford Melbourne. A new management and customer service team were sourced and by November 2007 the business had been completely revamped.

The first 2 months of 2008 has netted 60% growth in our new business area as well as launching our New Arrears Debt recovery services which will have a huge impact on the industry as we head towards tougher times in the financial markets.

March 2008 will see the launch of our interactive website giving our clients a more convenient method of communication when dealing with member issues or queries.

June 2008 will see the launch of Merchant’s Call Centre Services giving a more fluent Customer Service process as well as Marketing support for the businesses that need a top up on Membership numbers.

Open Membership Agreements & Direct Debit Requests Forms

All Clubs need a Membership Agreement, at Merchant we can supply your business with our open membership agreements (Triplicate/Carbonated paper) including all the legal terms and conditions or you can choose to use your own. Either way it is important to ensure that your open membership agreement is legal. We can check this out for you at no cost.

If you choose to use our Open Membership Agreements we will supply the first 50 at no cost. The standard price for a pad of 25 agreements is $12.80 plus postage. Postage is through TNT or Australia Post depending on destination and is an average of $10 per order.

The Direct Debit Request form has 2 parts. The request form and the Service Agreement. We will supply you with the first 50 and then will re stock you when needed. The member receives a copy of the service agreement and the request form is faxed then mailed to Merchant.

Loading Process

- A copy of the open membership agreement and the direct debit request form are faxed to MMS at the completion of each membership sale.

- MMS will call you to confirm receipt of the fax however if we cannot contact you then it is your responsibility to contact MMS to check that the fax was received. Allow at least 2 hours for the fax receipt call to be made to your business.

- We will inform you within 24 hours if any of the details are found to be incorrect

- Contract and Direct Debit details are then entered immediately into our computer systems.

- On completion of the faxing process, a copy of the open membership agreement and Direct Debit Request are then mailed to MMS via the return mail envelopes supplied in our starter pack.

If this process is followed the first debit can take place the following business day ensuring the Member has the funds in their account. The reality is the quicker you get the first payment the quicker the Member accepts their financial commitment.

It is up to you to decide on when the first debit will take place, will always respect your position on these types of matters.

Debiting Day/Dates

Setting the right debit day/date is the key to getting regular payment from the client. We know that habit will dictate in most cases therefore if we set the debit in line with their habit of having money in their account at certain times of the month then we have the best chance of achieving a successful collection.

Most Consumers in Australia are paid on a Wednesday or Thursday and either fortnightly or monthly is becoming the trend. We can debit anytime however this only increases running costs and ignores our plight to reduce costs and turn that into a saving for you.

If you have a special circumstance situation we will always work to solution.

- Monthly debits are triggered on the 1st and 17th of each month

- Fortnightly and weekly debits are triggered on Fridays with the exception of a Public Holiday.

- If a Public Holiday falls on a Debit day or date, the debit will take place on the previous business day.

All rejections are followed up by MMS staff at no cost to the business owner.

Key to the Door

This is a convenient method of taking Credit Card payments if you do not have a Terminal. The manual transaction form is simple to complete and a secure payment method for business that deal in a small amount of Credit Card payments. Having this service available may open doors to an untapped income stream that your business could easily be a part of.

Overdue Accounts

Merchant Membership Services will collect form a high percentage of your clients without ever seeing a default. The smaller percentage will at some stage default for all sorts of reasons and will more than likely blame everyone but themselves for their debt.

At Merchant we do not like to see accounts in arrears, as we are sure you don’t therefore we are proactive in contacting the client to get their account back on track. Our no aggression policy ensures that the client is dealt with professionally no matter how difficult the client may be. Our arrears procedure consists of numerous contacted calls to the defaulting client and can also include a range of letters that can be forwarded to the defaulting client in order to maintain a constant communication and proactive ness in getting the clients account back on track. Remember we do not charge the business client one cent for this service.

Arrears Pay Out System

We have recently developed a process that turns Members arrears into a WIN WIN for the Club and the Member. By offering the Member a reduction in their arrears and a chance to have a second go at achieving their initial goals we are finding that the Member is appreciative of the clubs effort in getting them back on track and will usually stick it out for a few months giving lost income back to the club and a better quality of fitness for the member hence the WIN WIN. The important point here is that we are trying to turn the members mind set around and re sell the membership therefore we must charge a small fee for this unique service, a fact sheet is available explaining the process and applicable fees.

Debt Recovery

A small percentage of your clients will not pay their dues. We will do everything within in power to get the client to pay however some will ignore the debt. If this does occur we will contact you to ask what you would like to do with the account. You will have the power to instruct us and we will follow your instruction to the letter. We can send accounts to debt collectors however this will never happen without your consent.

Getting Paid

Once a debit run is complete, MMS will deduct its applicable fees from the gross collections and then transfer to your nominated business account the balance of the collections within 3 business days.

A Tax Invoice will be supplied at the completion of each triggered run.

Reporting

Reports will be forwarded to you at the completion of each triggered run detailing amounts collected, dishonours, billing fees etc. These reports are in a simple format to ensure that you understand them.

Reports can be sent via email or fax depending on your preference.

Cancelling Contracts

This comes down to the terms and conditions of the open membership agreement that the member signs. It is important to note that there are a couple of legal points that need to be addressed on an open membership agreement. The font size needs to be 12 point and a member can cancel if permanently relocating more than 20k from their initial place of residence. There are a few more however all this is covered in our open membership agreements.

If any business wishes to have their own cancellation clauses then we will follow the letter of those clauses, as we want you to be the decision maker in this relationship. We are merely a tool that you need in order to debit your members.

A document will be put in place to clearly denote our agreement in regards to the cancelling of contracts.

In House Debt Recovery

We can advise you on the best methods for collecting your in house membership debts. You can either do it yourself at no cost or we can do it for you either way if this is an issue in your business we CAN help.

Fee's

Fees are negotiated depending on the businesses requirements. We guarantee to beat any of our competitors price. Call 03 97764678 for your free quote.

Forms

Banking details - Business client

Debit & Credit Request

Billing Amendment

Billing Cancellation

Key To The Door

* All forms require login username and password.

Contact Details

Our normal office hours are:
Mon – Fri 9.00am – 5.30pm (AEST)
Sat 9.00am – 12.00 noon (AEST)

Phone 03 9776 4678 (Karli)
Fax 03 9776 4679 (Contracts to)

Merchant Membership Services Pty Ltd
Po Box 208 Mentone Victoria 3194

(ABN: 95 075 517 798)

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