Ask on day 3, ask again on day 10, and speak to them in person on day 14. Write the exact amount and the exact month every time. Never mention money on the gym floor with other members in earshot. That is the whole method, and it collects most of what you are owed.
The reason chasing feels awful is not the asking. It is the delay. On day 3 a missing payment is a forgotten transfer and you are doing your friend a favor by reminding them. On day 40 it is a debt, they know it, you know it, and one of you stops showing up. Ask early and the relationship never enters that zone.
First, get the list. It takes about a minute
You cannot chase what you cannot see. Before writing anything, pull the actual numbers so every message carries a figure and a date instead of a vague nudge.
- Open the dashboard and look for the alert that reads members with an unpaid balance. Tap it: the member list opens already filtered to the people who still owe money on a membership. That is your list.
- Then open Payments and switch the filter to Unpaid. This is a second, separate set: the payments a staff member recorded as overdue. A member whose membership balance was simply never settled does not appear here. The two lists add up, so work both.
- Open each member from that list. Their file shows the outstanding balance in red and what they have paid to date.
- Before you write, look at their last check-in.
That last step matters more than people expect. A member who is three weeks unpaid but still training four times a week forgot to pay. A member who is three weeks unpaid and has not walked in for three weeks has quit and has not told you. Those are two different conversations, and sending the second person a payment reminder is how you turn a quiet departure into a bad review. Seeing both facts on the same screen is the actual point of payment and billing software, not the invoicing.
The schedule
| When | What you do | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 to 2 | Nothing | Transfers land late, cash gets left at home. Chasing here makes you look anxious. |
| Day 3 | One written reminder with the amount and a link | Still a clerical matter. Most balances close here. |
| Day 10 | Second message, this time offering a way out | Silence after day 3 usually means the money is not there, not that the message was missed. |
| Day 14 | Speak to them in private, after a session | Two ignored messages means writing has stopped working. Change channel, not volume. |
| Day 30 | Decide: payment plan, freeze, or write it off | A balance you are still carrying at day 30 is a churn problem wearing a billing costume. |
What to actually write
Short, factual, no apology. Do not open with "just checking in", which signals that you are embarrassed and gives them permission to ignore it. Do not open with "sorry to bother you", for the same reason. State the amount, state the month, give one way to pay, stop.
Day 3:
Hi {name}, your membership renewed on the 1st and {amount} is still open. You can settle at the desk or from your member space: {link}
Day 10, and this is the one that does the work. You are not repeating yourself, you are removing the reason for the silence:
Hi {name}, following up on the {amount} from March. If this month is tight, tell me and we split it in two. Otherwise I will take it at the desk on Thursday.
Day 14, in person, standing beside them rather than across the counter, once the room is empty:
I need to close your account for March, the {amount} is still open. Do you want to pay it now, or shall we split your next membership into monthly card payments so it stops happening?
Three things make those work. A named figure, a named month, and a proposed next step so the member does not have to invent one. The offer to split is not weakness. A member who owes you two months and cannot see a way to clear it will stop coming rather than face you, and then you lose the money and the member.
Sending it in one gesture
From the member's payments tab, press Request payment. It sends the reminder with the correct balance already filled in, by email and by LINE if they have connected theirs, and the file then shows a "last requested" timestamp. That mark is kept by the gym, not by the device: a colleague on the front-desk tablet sees that you already asked this morning, so the member does not get asked twice.
If you have connected Stripe, the message links to the member space with a pay button and the money lands in your own Stripe account. MoveMembers takes no cut of what you collect. If you have not connected Stripe, the copy changes automatically to say the balance is payable in person and the link just shows the details. No dead links either way.
Paying in person is not a fallback everywhere, and in some markets it is the main road. A gym that collects most of its money at the counter needs the counter to be as quick as a card, which is what a QR carrying the amount is for. How a Thai gym gets paid sets out that side: the PromptPay code built at the desk, what no software can confirm for you, and the numbered receipt that carries your tax number.
The reminder goes out over email and LINE. That is deliberate, not a gap. LINE and email are two-way, so a member who replies "I paid yesterday" reaches you. WhatsApp and SMS in MoveMembers messaging are outbound only, because Meta closes the reply window 24 hours after a member's last message and we would rather not run a channel where a member's answer disappears. There are no push notifications either, and no App Store app. The member space is a web app they can install to their home screen.
When it is still open on day 30
Stop chasing and make a decision. Carrying an unpaid balance forward while the member keeps training is the worst outcome available: your revenue figure is fiction, and every session adds to a number that gets harder to raise.
Pick one, and tell them which:
- Payment plan. Split the balance across two or three dates, record each part as it lands. Works when they are still training.
- Freeze. Pause the membership so it stops accruing. They get an automatic notice that it is on hold, and the balance stops growing while you talk.
- Write it off. If they have not trained in a month, the membership is over. Close it, keep the record, and send them a friendly note. A member you released cleanly comes back in a year. A member dodging you does not.
MoveMembers will not do any of this for you. There is no dunning ladder, no collections handoff, no automatic door lock, no credit check. It shows you the number and gives you one button. The judgment stays yours, which for a gym where the members are your friends is the correct division of labor.
Then stop it happening again
Chasing is a symptom. Two changes remove most of it.
Sell the long memberships in monthly instalments. A product can carry a fixed number of monthly card payments through Stripe: the member picks it when buying from their member space, or opens the payment link you send from the desk, the money moves on schedule without anyone remembering anything, and the charges stop on their own after the last one. A failed payment lands as an overdue line on the member, so the failures become rare enough to handle one at a time. The card is always the member's to enter, never yours, and Stripe has to be connected first. Note what this is not: open-ended autopay that runs until someone cancels is not offered today, and there is no SEPA direct debit and no bank mandate. It is a card, so an expired card still produces a call.
Second, move the due date. If everyone renews on the 1st, you spend the first week of every month chasing. Set renewals on the anniversary of each member's join date and the work spreads across the month, three or four names at a time instead of fifteen at once.
On the Free plan, up to 20 active members, all of the above is manual: you see who is late and press the button yourself. Automation rules sit on Pro, 99 USD or 2490 THB a month. Be precise about what they cover: one message a chosen number of days before a membership ends, and one the day after it ends. Nothing fires because a balance is still open on day 10. That follow-up stays yours to send, on every plan. Do not upgrade for that on day one. Run the manual version for a month first: if you have fifteen members and two late payments, the button is faster than building a rule, and you will know exactly what you want automated when you do move up.