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Member Wallets and Money Paid in Advance

In one line: Members pay you in advance, you spend that credit on their next plan, and Kazafit logs every deposit and withdrawal with a date and a receipt number — so nobody argues about who paid what.

Why this matters

Plenty of members do not pay the way a price list assumes. Someone gets paid at month end and wants to hand you 200,000 TZS to cover the next few months. Someone else pays a bit at a time. A regular drops cash at the desk on Tuesday and asks you to "keep it" until their plan runs out on Friday. On paper, that money lives in your head, on a sticky note, or in a notebook that only one person can read.

That is where money leaks. Not through theft — through forgetting. The same money gets taken twice, or never gets applied at all, or the staff member who took it is off sick when the member comes back to claim it.

It is also where the awkward conversations come from. "I gave you 50,000 last month." "No you didn't." Nobody wins that argument, and you usually lose either the money or the member.

The wallet turns that credit into something you can point at. Each member has a balance on file, Kazafit writes down every deposit and withdrawal with a reference and a reason, and when a member queries it you open their wallet and read them the dates. No arguing, no digging through a book.

What you can do

  • Take money in advance and see it right on the member's row. The member list has a Wallet column showing what each member has paid in, in TZS, so you can see who has money with you without opening anything.
  • Record a deposit with a reference. Enter the amount, the M-Pesa code or receipt number, and what it was for. The balance updates straight away and Kazafit adds a line to their history.
  • Pay money back out. The Withdraw tab does the same in reverse. If someone asks for a refund of money they have not used, Kazafit records it instead of the cash just leaving the drawer.
  • Show a member a dated history. The Activity Feed tab lists every entry newest first, five at a time, showing the amount, the description, the reference and the date and time.
  • Pay for a membership out of their wallet. Tick Charge Account Balance when selling or renewing. Kazafit takes the cost straight out of their wallet, notes which package it paid for, and marks the membership paid in full. No cash at the desk.
  • Spot the member who has money with you and still owes you. A Debt column sits next to the Wallet column and turns red as soon as it goes above zero. That mismatch — credit in one column, a debt in the other — jumps off the screen instead of hiding in a notebook.

How to get started

You need the member on file first. If they are not registered yet, add them in Members before you can hold money for them.

  1. Open Members from the side menu and find the member. Pick Name or Phone from the dropdown next to the search box, then type — the box searches only the field you picked.
  2. Press the orange wallet button at the right-hand end of their row.
  3. The panel opens showing Active Balance in TZS and the Account Holder name, with three tabs: Activity Feed, Deposit and Withdraw.
  4. Choose Deposit. Fill in Amount, then Receipt or reference number (for example, the M-Pesa code), then What is this for? (for example, "Paid cash at the front desk"). All three are required.
  5. Press Confirm Deposit. You will see a confirmation message and the panel jumps back to Activity Feed with the new line at the top. The Wallet column in the members list updates too. The Active Balance at the top of the panel keeps showing the figure from when you opened it — close and reopen the panel to see the new total.
  6. To spend it, go to Subscriptions and open the Create or Renew form for that member. Tick Charge Account Balance — the hint underneath reads "Deduct total amount from member's wallet" — then save as normal.

Paying money back out works the same way: pick the Withdraw tab, fill the same three fields, and press Confirm Withdrawal.

Good to know

  • Every deposit and withdrawal needs a reference and a reason. There is no quick top-up. That is deliberate — it is what makes the history worth having — but it does mean roughly fifteen extra seconds per entry at the desk.
  • Nothing can be edited or reversed. Once you save a deposit or a withdrawal it stands. If you type 500,000 instead of 50,000, you fix it with an opposite entry, not by deleting the original. Both lines will show in the history.
  • Charging a sale to the wallet is all-or-nothing. If the balance does not cover the full cost after any discount, Kazafit stops the sale and tells you the account balance is not enough, rather than taking part payment from the wallet and leaving the rest to collect. The form also does not show you the balance before you tick the box, so it is worth glancing at the Wallet column in Members first.
  • A discounted sale charged to the wallet is settled cleanly. Apply a discount and tick Charge Account Balance and Kazafit takes the discounted amount from the wallet, records that discounted figure as the membership's total, and marks it paid in full — nothing lands in the Debt column. (Earlier versions of Kazafit wrongly recorded the discount itself as a debt; that has been fixed. If you have old memberships showing a debt exactly equal to a discount you gave, that is the old fault, not money genuinely owed.)
  • The Active Balance at the top of the panel does not refresh on its own. After a deposit or withdrawal the Wallet column in the members list updates immediately, but the figure at the top of the wallet panel keeps showing what it was when you opened it. Close and reopen the panel to read the new balance — worth doing before you make a second deposit in a row.
  • Deductions from charging a sale show no reference number. A charge appears in the Activity Feed with the package name as its description, but the reference space is left blank. Only the deposits and withdrawals you record by hand carry a reference.
  • Wallet money is never spent on its own. It sits there until someone ticks Charge Account Balance on a sale or renewal. A membership will not quietly pay itself from a member's credit.
  • Withdrawals are capped at the balance. Try to take out more than is there and Kazafit stops you and says there is not enough, before anything changes.
  • The Debt column is not the wallet. It comes from what members owe on their memberships, not from money they have deposited. A member can show credit in one column and debt in the other at the same time.
  • Money going out shows a grey icon, not a red one. The amount is still right — it shows in red with a minus sign. Only the icon colour is off.
  • You cannot export the history from this window. You can read it and page through it on screen, but there is no download button in the wallet panel.

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