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Member Self-Service Payments

In one line: Members pay you by mobile money from their own phone — clear a balance, renew their plan, switch plans, or buy their first one — and the money lands in your records exactly as if your desk had recorded it.

Why this matters

Today every renewal is a phone call or a visit. The member knows their plan ends Friday, you know it ends Friday, and still nothing happens until one of you rings the other and someone stands at the desk while cash changes hands and gets written down. Renewals that should be routine leak away in the back-and-forth — and the money that does arrive has to be typed in by a person.

Self-service closes that loop. A member opens their portal, sees the balance or the plan, and pays it from their own mobile money line. The money goes to your account, not through Kazafit — you connect your own merchant line once, and every payment settles with your provider the way your other mobile money does. Kazafit's job is what it has always been: the moment the payment is confirmed, it writes the records your desk would have written — the subscription, the invoice, the balance — using the exact same rules.

You control the shelf. No package is buyable until you switch it on, nobody can underpay unless you allow it, and a gym that never opens any of this simply carries on as before.

What you can do

  • Let members clear their own balance. A member with money owing sees a pay button on their plan and pays the outstanding amount by mobile money. The balance drops the moment the payment confirms, same as a payment recorded at the desk.
  • Let members renew — even before the old plan ends. Renewing early does not cost paid days: the new period starts the day the current one ends, exactly as when your staff renew someone.
  • Let members switch plans. Renewing with a different package is the switch — the member picks from the packages you have made visible, and the new plan starts when the old one ends.
  • Let a brand-new member buy their first plan — someone you have approved into the portal but never sold to. They pick a package, pay, and the plan starts.
  • Choose exactly which packages members can buy. Every package has a visible to members switch, and every package starts hidden — including all your existing ones. Your full price list is never published by default; you put each package on the member-facing shelf deliberately.
  • Decide whether members may part-pay. Out of the box a member must pay the full price — no member can put your gym into debt from their sofa. If instalments are how your gym works, switch partial payments on in Portal Settings and the shortfall is recorded as debt, exactly like a part-payment at the desk.
  • Trust the price. The member never types an amount for a purchase — the portal quotes your package price from your records, and the confirmation screen states the package, the price, the period it covers and the date it starts before the member approves anything on their phone.
  • Find everything in the usual places. A self-service payment or purchase creates the same records a staff sale does: the subscription appears in Subscriptions, the invoice in Invoices, any debt in Debt Management, and the money in your revenue figures. There is no separate "online sales" pile to reconcile.

How to get started

You need the member portal running first — see The Member Portal.

  1. Connect your mobile money merchant line. In your owner settings, enter your own payment credentials. Kazafit tests them against the provider before saving — credentials that fail are refused on the spot, so a typo cannot silently break payments. Until valid credentials are saved, members see no pay button at all.
  2. Put your first package on the shelf. Edit a package and switch on visible to members. Start with one or two you actually want renewed online — you can add the rest any time.
  3. Decide on part-payment. Leave the Portal Settings switch off for full-price-only; turn it on if you take instalments.
  4. Do a test purchase yourself on a member account you control, for your cheapest package. Watch it arrive in Subscriptions and Invoices.
  5. Tell your members. The pay and renew buttons are already in their portal — a text to the Expired Subscriptions group pointing at the portal poster is the natural first campaign.

Good to know

  • Nothing is created until the money confirms. Pay first is the rule. A member who taps buy and never approves on their phone leaves no trace — no half-made subscription, no unpaid invoice, nothing to clean up. The plan, its invoice and any debt are only written when the payment provider confirms the money.
  • A slow confirmation still lands safely. Mobile money sometimes confirms late. If a member pays, rings you, and your staff renew them by hand before the confirmation arrives, Kazafit will not create a second subscription for the same payment. One payment, one plan.
  • The money never touches Kazafit. Payments go from the member's phone to your merchant account. Kazafit records; your provider settles.
  • There are no refunds through Kazafit. A member who buys the wrong package cannot undo it in the portal, and neither can you from the owner app. That is why the confirmation screen spells everything out before payment. If you owe a member money back, that is a mobile-money reversal or your provider's dashboard — then adjust records with your staff tools.
  • No text is sent when a member buys. Texts cost you money, and the sale is already where your staff look — the subscriptions list. If you want a heads-up ritual, make checking new subscriptions part of the morning routine.
  • The member path is deliberately plainer than the desk. No discounts, no insurance, no paying from the member's wallet — those are staff decisions, made at the desk. A member sends a package choice and, where you allow part-payment, an amount. Everything else your staff can do, they still do.
  • Hidden means hidden, not greyed out. A package that is not member-visible cannot be bought even by a member who knows it exists, and a gym that allows no partial payment refuses an underpayment outright with a clear message. The refusals are specific — "this package is not available to buy", "this gym requires full payment" — so a member on the phone to you can say what actually happened.
  • Prices are in Tanzanian shillings only on the member path — the dollar figure on your packages is never shown or charged.
  • One purchase at a time. While a member's payment is awaiting confirmation, a second purchase attempt is refused until the first resolves — the guard against paying twice in a confused minute.

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