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Chasing Unpaid Balances

In one line: When a member pays less than the full price, Kazafit writes down what they still owe. Every payment after that is logged, so you always know who owes what.

Why this matters

Part-payments are normal. A member wants to start today and pay the rest on payday, and you say yes because you want the member. The problem is what happens next: the number lives in your head, on a sticky note, or in a column of a spreadsheet nobody updates. A month later you are not sure whether Asha Mwakyusa still owes 40,000 TZS or paid it in cash to whoever was on the desk.

That uncertainty costs you twice. Money quietly leaks out, because a balance you cannot see is a balance you never ask for. And when you do ask, the conversation is awkward — you are half-guessing, the member says they already paid, and you have nothing to point at. So you drop it.

Kazafit takes the remembering off you. Sell a package for less than the full price and Kazafit writes down the rest on the spot. Nothing to tick, nothing to enter twice. When they pay, the balance drops by exactly what they paid. When it hits zero, it clears itself.

And Kazafit keeps every one of those moments — what happened, how much moved, what was left afterwards, and when. So "I already paid that" stops being an argument and becomes a five-second look at a screen.

What you can do

  • See how much money is sitting outside your till. The Debt Management screen shows three numbers: how much your whole gym is owed, how many members owe it, and the average each one owes. 800,000 TZS across two members is a different problem from 800,000 TZS across forty. The three numbers tell you which one you have.
  • See the same total the moment you sign in. The screen you land on when you sign in shows Total Debt near the top, with how many members owe you just underneath — for example, 320,000 TZS across 8 members.
  • Check any one member's balance while you scroll. Your member list has a Debt column. Anything above zero shows in red.
  • Take a part-payment and watch the debt drop by itself. Record the payment on the member's subscription. If they owed 40,000 TZS and hand over 25,000, the debt drops to 15,000 straight away. No second place to update.
  • Let members clear their own balance from their phone. A member using the member portal sees the balance on their plan and can pay it by mobile money without visiting the desk. The payment lands in the same history, drops the same debt figure, and reads exactly like one your staff recorded. See Member Self-Service Payments.
  • Attach a note to a payment so future-you knows what happened. Type something like "Second installment" and it stays with that line in the history forever.
  • Trace every change to every balance. Every line shows who it was, what happened, how much moved, what was left afterwards, your note, and the date and time. The "what happened" is one of three things — Debt started, Payment, or Fully paid — and the amount carries a plus or a minus. Newest first, fifteen to a page.
  • Trust what you are reading. Nobody can edit or delete a history line — not your staff, not even you. That is exactly what makes them worth showing a member.

How to get started

There is no setup. Tracking starts working the first time a member underpays.

  1. Set up your packages and prices first. Kazafit works out the debt by comparing the package price with what the member actually paid, so the price has to be there already.
  2. Sell a membership and take less than the full amount. On the Subscriptions screen, sign the member up and enter a paid amount below the package total. Kazafit records the rest as debt against that member automatically.
  3. Open Debt Management from the left-hand menu, under Owner Settings. You must be signed in as the account owner.
  4. Read the three figures across the top — Total Outstanding, Total Debtors, Average Balance. Below them is Debt History.
  5. When the member pays, go to Subscriptions and find their subscription. Use the money button on their row to open Add Payment. Enter the Amount Paid (TZS), add a Transaction Reference if you have one — for example the M-Pesa confirmation code or a bank slip number — and type a note in Memo / Notes, such as "Paid cash at the front desk". Submit Payment.
  6. Go back to Debt Management. The new Payment line appears in the history straight away, and once the balance reaches zero that line reads Fully paid. The three totals across the top may take up to a minute to catch up.

If you have just started and nobody owes you anything, the screen will tell you there is nothing to show yet. That is correct, not broken.

Good to know

It is owner-only. Only the account owner gets the Debt Management screen and the Total Debt tile on the dashboard. Managers and front-desk staff can still take payments on the Subscriptions screen — they just do not get the Debt Management screen or the Total Debt tile.

Members cannot put you into new debt from their phone unless you allow it. Underpaying at the desk is a staff judgement call, and that has not changed. In the member portal, a member buying or renewing must pay the full price — unless you switch on partial payments in Portal Settings, in which case the shortfall is recorded here exactly like a part-payment at the desk. The switch starts off.

Debt only comes from unpaid packages. There is no way to type in a one-off debt for anything else — a shop item, a locker fee, a personal loan. If it did not come from a membership package, Kazafit does not track it.

Insurance-paid memberships show as full debt. If you tick the insurance option when selling or renewing a membership, the whole package price is recorded as debt until you reconcile it by recording payments against that subscription. The insurer's share is not deducted for you.

You cannot cancel a debt, and you cannot undo a payment. There is no button to forgive a balance or adjust one by hand. If you record a payment for the wrong amount, you cannot edit or reverse it from the screen. Recording too little is easy to fix — add another payment for the difference, and both lines stay in the history. Recording too much cannot be reversed, so enter the amount carefully.

The history is a plain list, and that is all. No search box, no filter by member, no filter by what happened, no date range, no sorting, no export. Fifteen lines a page, newest first. Tracing one member's story means paging back through everyone's.

Notes only appear if someone typed one. If the Memo / Notes box was left empty, the line shows a standard description instead of your words. Get in the habit of typing one — it is the difference between a useful history and a list of numbers.

These are today's totals only. No trend line and no month-on-month comparison. You cannot see which debts are 30 days old versus 90. The figures cover the whole gym and cannot be filtered by package, branch or staff member.

Totals can be up to a minute behind. Kazafit holds the three top totals for up to a minute so the screen loads quickly. A new Payment line shows in the history straight away; the totals above it may take up to a minute to catch up. The refresh button in the top right updates the history immediately, but the totals still catch up on their own minute.

Nothing chases the member for you. No reminder is sent, no overdue flag appears, there is no due date, and no message goes out from this screen. Kazafit tells you who owes what and backs you up with a record. Picking up the phone is still your decision.

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