Payment Plan Application & Approval

Essential Reading

For this piece to make sense, you should already be familiar with how to configure Majestri's Payment Plan offering. The guide covers how to allow your members to apply directly, as well as create one for a member from the Outstanding Debts screen.

It may also be worth understanding how Payment Plans fit into Majestri's financial system, and this article will explain that clearly.

Payment Plan Application

If allowed at the event level, an option will appear in the checkout that allows a member to apply to the club for a portion of their total registration debt to be paid off via a direct-debited Payment Plan.

From this point it is a multi-step process to completing the application.

Step 1 - Application Form

The member confirms their personal details, and specifies the desired terms for their payment plan. The combination of instalment amount and frequency will be validated against the final end date set by the club for the event.

Step 2 - Pre-Authorisation - Bank Account Details

This screen is the first step to the member authorising the Payment Plan - entering the details of the bank account that is going to be debited.

There is a variant on this workflow that is discussed in the next section, whereby the application is approved by the club committee and then a notification is sent to the member to authorise the workflow, but this was found to be hugely inefficient. It was demonstrated that members did not show any urgency in authorising the debits to begin on an approved plan.

Step 3 - Confirmation of Application and Pre-Authorisation

This screen re-displays all of the details of the application and pre-authorisation. We attempt to make the member pay particular attention to the bank account details they entered in an effort to check them closely. Incorrectly-entered bank account details is painful for us and costs the member a rejection fee. It can be avoided with a little care.

The confirmation screen also binds the member to Majestri's Terms & Conditions around the management and processing Payment Plans. There are associated charges paid directly to Majestri by your member (not the club) to do with the extra processing and notifications that come with the service provided directly to them by us. To be clear, those charges are:

$0.77 per debit from their bank account.
$5.50 per rejection fee. Rejections normally happen due to funds not being available or the account details being wrong. With some banks, the account also needs to be explicitly set up for allowing direct debits. Our bank does not miss us with charges when a rejection occurs, so we have no choice but to pass it on to the member.

Step 4 - Submission and Return to Checkout

At this point, the Payment Plan application has been submitted through to the committee. The status of the Payment Plan is Pre-Authorised, and it is over to the committee for their decision.

There may also be a residual amount for the member to pay. This could include the amount specified by the club as being paid up-front, as well as the total of an order placed in the shop (which can't be put on a Payment Plan directly by the member). They can pay this amount by either making a payment on their credit card, or by using the invoice that has already been emailed to them by this point.

Committee Approval

By this point, the relevant people on the committee have already received notification that Payment Plan application has been submitted (check your notification settings to see who).

On the Financials tab in Majestri is a button that will take you to the central Payment Plans screen.

This is a complete list of "current" Payment Plans in their various stages. Some of them are at a stage where they require action by the committee.

For an explanation of each status, and how it arrived at that point:

Applied

A Payment Plan application has been made by the member (with no pre-authorisation - see section below). It is waiting on the committee to approve/decline the application.

Pre-Authorised

A Payment Plan application, complete with pre-authorisation, has been submitted by the member. It is waiting on the committee to activate the Payment Plan. Activation is an approval by the committee, and the debiting will start from the next Tuesday.

Approved

The Payment Plan application has been approved by the committee. A notification requesting plan authorisation may or may not have been sent to the member.

Active

These plans are currently in effect and debits are scheduled to occur.

Frozen

As per Majestri's Terms & Conditions, we may freeze a Payment Plan under the following circumstances:

A debit has failed due to incorrect bank details being provided.
2 consecutive debit attempts have been rejected - normally due to insufficient funds.

In addition to plans with these statuses, you can also view "old plans", which may have a status of:

Declined

The Payment Plan was declined at the approval stage by the committee.

Cancelled

A Payment Plan was cancelled after being activated. Debits may or may not have occurred on a plan with this status.

Amending an Application

There may be a reason to change the terms of a member's application for a Payment Plan before approving it. Some possibles reasons could be:

The member paid more money up-front than initially indicated by their application.
There is more member debt that should be added to the Plan.
They may have applied for and received a Get Started Voucher, which would decrease the money coming out of their own pocket.
They may have contacted the committee to have the terms altered.

Whatever the circumstances, the committee cannot activate a Payment Plan that is different from what was submitted in the original application. The member has not authorised the terms of the current plan, only the original one.

In this case, the Payment Plan can be approved, and then a notification sent to the member to authorise the plan with the modified terms. Debits will occur the first Tuesday after that authorisation has been granted.

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