Overview
Recurring revenue is the heartbeat of your business, and keeping it consistent shouldn’t require detective work. Boulevard’s Membership Billing Alerts take the guesswork out of identifying lapsed memberships. When a renewal fails, both you and your client are notified immediately so you can update billing details and keep their benefits (and your revenue) flowing without interruption.
NOTE: Apple Pay and Google Pay can’t be used for membership purchases. When a client is enrolling in a membership, encourage them to pay with a physical credit card, debit card, or their saved card on file.
You can locate clients with past-due memberships in three places on Boulevard:
Past due billing alerts (Appointment, Front Desk, Checkout views, and Client Profiles)
Past Due Billing Alerts
When a membership charge declines, Boulevard instantly flags the client’s profile and sends the client a one-time notification. You’ll also see this billing alert on the
Appointment preview (including front desk view):
And Checkout window:
Each alert includes a quick link to the past-due membership so you can retry payment or update the stored card with just a few clicks.
Boulevard will always auto-attempt renewal payments three times:
First attempt: actual renewal date
Second attempt: 72 hours after first attempt
Third attempt: 144 hours after first renewal attempt
Note: Clients only receive one notification per declined charge. Learn more about client notifications.
Sales tab from the Dashboard
Click Sales from your Dashboard and then click Memberships to view all orders associated with Memberships.
Here you can search or filter by status. When filtering by status, you can filter by Past due and then by decline reason to identify the failed renewal attempts you want to take action on first.
Past Due Memberships Report
Use the Past Due Memberships Report to quickly identify which clients have past-due balances, how long payments have been outstanding, and past-due amounts owed.
Updating Membership Payment Information
Client Profile
When viewing a membership on a client’s profile, you’ll see a full historical breakdown of the membership while the client has been enrolled.
When a membership is past due, it means that the renewal payment attempt failed. This status update will include a reason so your staff can take the most appropriate action to bring the account current.
Automatic Renewal Attempts
Our system will automatically retry the payment for soft declines 3 times before it will need to be done manually.
Note:You can manually retry the same payment method in between Boulevard's automatic renewal payment attempts. In some cases, a client’s card may be perfectly valid but could be declined for other reasons such as an overdraft, credit limit, or temporary freeze. Our “Retry” button allows your client to call their issuing bank, resolve the issue, and continue to use their desired card on their membership.
The first attempt appears in the history and triggers a yellow banner with a CTA to retry payment. Businesses can choose to retry the payment themselves instead of waiting for the next automatic attempt.
The second attempt appears in the payment history and triggers another yellow banner. Again, businesses can also choose to retry the payment manually instead of waiting for the next auto-retry.
The third and final auto-attempt appears in the history and triggers a red banner indicating that the membership is past-due and Boulevard will no longer retry payments. At this point, the payment must be retried manually or updated and retried manually.
If a hard decline occurs, the system will still attempt retries, but each attempt will fail. A different banner will appear to signal this. The business must contact the customer to update the payment method before retrying payment manually.
If you want to learn more about the reasons a membership renewal has declined, you can click ‘Reason’ from the history or check out this help center article for more information.
Update Card on File for Past Due Membership
Navigate to the client profile and click the Memberships tab.
Click Update card on file.
Enter the credit card details and save.
Select “Save and charge now” to update payment information and charge immediately, or click the arrow and select “Charge later” to store details and set a future billing date.
NOTE: A future billing date can be set up to 6 months after the first failed billing attempt.
Once billing details are updated and the membership is reactivated with a successful charge, Boulevard will then collect all past-due terms spread out over consecutive days.
The client is charged one term per day until the membership is up to date. For example, if a membership is 3 months past due, once the card on file is updated, Boulevard will charge one term per day for 3 consecutive days.
NOTE: This only applies if “Waive past due membership charges” is disabled in your manage business settings.
If “Waive past due membership charges” is enabled, the client will still be charged to reactivate their membership benefits. However, they will not be billed for previous terms over consecutive days.
Once membership details are updated, Boulevard collects all past-due charges by charging one term a day until the past-due charges are up to date. This only applies if 'waive past due membership charges are disabled in the manage business settings.
For example, if a membership is 3 months past due, once the card on file is updated, Boulevard will charge for 3 consecutive days for the term charge until billing is up to date.
Memberships in past due state can only be brought current by updating the card on file. If you wish to cancel a membership in a past due state, you must first reactivate by updating the form of payment first and then canceling.
NOTE: Past-due memberships cannot be set to update at a future date. If you wish to update and waive past-due charges, follow the steps below.
Waiving Past Due Membership Charges
Past-due membership charges can be waived in the Manage Business settings. By default, this setting is disabled. These settings are only available for customers participating in the Membership & Package builder beta test. To enable:
Navigate to Manage Business > Membership Plans.
Select settings.
Enable ‘Past due memberships’. Enabling this will waive consecutive past-due charges for all memberships.
NOTE: Even with this setting enabled, past-due memberships will still be charged once upon resolving payment information.
Client Access - Managing Memberships from the Client Portal
If a client’s membership does not have a payment method attached (ex: If the client paid in cash for the first month), clients can proactively add a credit card before their next payment is due.
For more on the client portal, check out this article.
Share Membership
Navigate to the client profile.
Click the Memberships tab.
Click Manage Clients.
Enter the client’s name the membership owner wishes to share their benefits with.
Click save.
NOTE: A membership must be configured as shareable from the Business Admin settings prior to adding or managing any shared members.
Editing a Client’s Membership
Changing an Active Membership Renewal Date
You can either set a new, future charge date for an active membership at any time or renew it early before the terms expire. To change a membership renewal date:
Navigate to the client’s profile and select the membership tab.
Select the Actions menu to “Change renewal.”
Select “Now” to renew the membership immediately and award the client their designated membership vouchers and benefits. Alternatively, select ‘On a later date’ to set the renewal to a future date. A renewal order will be generated and displayed in the Billing History.
NOTES:
By renewing now, the client’s next charge date will be updated to reflect their new renewal date.
If you’d like to maintain the same renewal date, simply change the renewal again through the Actions menu.
Renewing a Membership before Term Expiration
Memberships can be renewed before the terms of their subscription expire. To renew a subscription:
Navigate to the client’s profile and select the membership tab.
Select the Actions menu to “Change renewal.”
Select “Now” to renew the membership immediately and award the client their designated membership vouchers and benefits. A renewal order will be generated and displayed in the Billing History.
Memberships that fail to renew will not show as open orders within the Orders section of the Sales tab. Only successfully billed memberships will appear as closed orders. Whenever you update a client’s payment information and successfully re bill a failed attempt, the associated order will appear as closed.
NOTE: By changing the renewal to renew now, the client’s next charge date will be updated to reflect their new renewal date. If you’d like to maintain the same renewal date, simply change the renewal again through the Actions menu.
Pausing a Membership
In the client's profile, under the Memberships tab, click the membership you’d like to pause.
Click Actions and Pause.
Enter the date for membership billing to resume.
Enter a reason for pausing the membership. Select 'Other' to enter a custom reason, or select 'Client requested' if your client cannot provide one.
If you wish to send an email notification to the client, select the email notification box, which is selected by default.
Click Save.
NOTE: Memberships cannot be paused indefinitely.
Canceling a Membership
In the client's profile, under the Memberships tab, click the membership you wish to cancel.
Click Actions and select Cancel.
Click Now to cancel the membership immediately or at a later date.
Enter a reason for canceling the membership. Select 'Other' to enter a custom reason, or select 'Client requested' if your client cannot provide one.
Click Save.
Sample client notification for cancelled membership
The client will receive an email notification that includes the date in which the cancellation is effective.
NOTE: Canceling a membership cannot be reversed if canceled immediately or if the date of cancellation has passed. If you set the cancellation for a future date you can reverse the cancellation before the effective date of termination. The cancellation notification is sent immediately.