Members : Understanding Membership Billing

For club managers and billing administrators. This article explains how Club Caddie's billing system works so you can configure it correctly and troubleshoot when something looks off.

Membership billing in Club Caddie has two layers — a global schedule that controls when billing runs, and per-class settings that control what gets charged. Understanding how they work together makes the rest of the system much easier to manage.

1) Where Billing Settings Live

Billing settings are split between two areas in Settings. Knowing which setting lives where saves a lot of searching.

Settings → Membership Settings

Controls the club-wide billing schedule and invoice behavior:

• Billing Methodology: Sets whether billing runs on a club-wide date or per-member anniversary dates. Most clubs use Club Wide Billing Date.
• Monthly Billing Day: The day of the month billing runs. If set to 21, all recurring dues process on the 21st each cycle.
• Invoice Due After Days: How many days a member has to pay an invoice before it's overdue (used to trigger late fees).
• Bill Classes On Billed Till Date: Controls whether dues bill at the start or end of each period. See Section 2.
• Late Fee tab: Where late fees are created and managed.

Settings → Class Management

Controls the billing rules for each individual membership class:

• Due Type: How often the class bills — monthly, quarterly, or yearly.
• Due Amount: The amount charged each billing cycle.
• Prorate on Sale: Whether online mid-period sign-ups are automatically prorated.

2) Advance Billing vs. Accrual Billing — and What Bill Till Date Means

The most important billing decision your club makes is whether members pay before or after they use the facility. This is controlled by the Bill Classes On Billed Till Date toggle in Membership Settings.

• Toggle OFF — dues bill at the start of each new period (advance billing). Members pay before they play. This is how approximately 90% of clubs operate and is the recommended default.
• Toggle ON — dues bill at the end of each period (accrual billing). Members use the facility first and are charged afterward.

What Is Bill Till Date?

Bill Till Date is the date through which a member's dues have been charged — their "covered through" date. The system uses it to know when to trigger the next billing cycle.

Example: Billing runs on the 21st. A monthly member's charge processed April 21. Their Bill Till Date is May 20. Billing will run again on May 21.

Bill Till Date shows up in two contexts:

• Checking if a member is current: If their Bill Till Date is in the past and billing has already run, there may be a failed payment.
• Onboarding a mid-month member: Staff must manually set the Bill Till Date to the last day of the join month. See Section 3 for the full process.

3) How Proration Works

Proration accounts for the partial period when a member joins mid-cycle. How it works depends entirely on how the member was signed up.

Online Sign-Ups — Automatic

When a member signs up through the online portal and Prorate on Sale is enabled for the class, Club Caddie automatically calculates and charges the prorated first-period amount. No manual steps needed.

Manual Sign-Ups — Staff Must Calculate

When staff manually assign a membership, proration is not automatic. Staff need to set the Bill Till Date correctly, calculate the prorated amount, and enter it manually into the member's ledger.

The process:

• Set the Effective Date to the member's actual join date.
• Set Bill Till Date to the last day of the month they joined.
• Calculate the prorated amount: (monthly dues ÷ days in month) × days remaining in month.
• Manually enter that amount into the member's ledger. See Members: How to Perform a Ledger Adjustment for steps.

Example: $100/month dues. Member joins on the 15th. 30-day month, 16 days remaining.

$100 ÷ 30 = $3.33/day × 16 days = $53.33 prorated dues

4) Late Fees

Late fees fire automatically when a member hasn't paid their invoice within the grace period set by Invoice Due After Days in Membership Settings. Once that window closes, the fee processes on the next overnight billing run.

Example: Invoice Due After Days = 20. Invoice generates on the 1st. If unpaid by the 21st, the late fee fires overnight on day 21.

For full setup instructions, see Settings: Late Fees.

Late Fee Didn't Fire? Check These First

• Invoice Due After Days is blank or 0: No due date = no late fee. This is the most common reason.
• Invoice was marked paid: Even an incorrect payment clears the trigger. Check the ledger.
• Balance below threshold: The "Don't bill if" fields in the Late Fee setup may be suppressing the charge.
• Wrong class: Late fees are per class. Confirm the setting is on this class specifically.

5) Class Expiration and Tee Sheet Access

When a membership class expires, the Tee Sheet may still show the member as active until the overnight billing run processes the expiration. This is expected — not a bug. The change takes effect the following morning.

After the overnight run processes the expiration:

• The member's class shows as expired in their profile.
• They no longer appear as an active member on the Tee Sheet.
• Member-level pricing and access benefits tied to that class stop applying.
• If it was the only class on the profile: Club Caddie automatically converts the account from a Member to a regular Customer. History is preserved — they are not deleted.