There are two separate ways to automate late fees for your membership products. The first is to add a pricing variation within the product itself. The second is to build a separate Late Fee product.
Option 1 - Product Specific Pricing Variation
Some clubs want to build the late payment fee into the specific product. To do so:
Navigate to the Membership Product > click Edit > scroll down to Flat Rate Pricing > Select Add a Variation.
Select Choose Variation Type and select Date Range. Enter the start date for the discount and the end date for the discount. Since this is a late fee or penalty, enter a positive amount. Add an optional description that will show on the payments page.
Note: You’ll need to update the date ranges each year to ensure that they’re set for the current year. Expired date ranges are invalid so the fee will not apply.
If you want to layer another discount on, select the appropriate Next Rule Relationship. If there is no other pricing variation, leave it as Select.
Save your changes by selecting Update at the top right.
When you member completes the payment during the dates, they will see a line item under the product indicating the Regular price and the Late Payment Penalty amount.
Option 2 - Late Fee product
Alternatively, some clubs choose to charge the late fee as a separate product to more easily track and report total Late Fee revenue collected over the year.
Navigate to the WordPress Menu > Products> Add New
Name your product Late Fee or something similar and add a description for your members.
In the box called Flat Rate Pricing, set the price to $0. Then click the blue Add a Variation button:
Next, click the blue Choose Variation Type button and select Date Range from the menu:
Select Choose Variation Type and select Date Range. Enter the start date for the discount and the end date for the discount. Since this is a late fee or penalty, enter a positive amount. Add an optional description that will show on the payments page.
Note: You’ll need to update the date ranges each year to ensure that they’re set for the current year. Expired date ranges are invalid so the fee will not apply.
We recommend setting Sept 30 (or whatever the last day of your season is) as the end date of your last variation.
Continue clicking the blue Add a Variation button and repeat the steps above to stack multiple date-based price variations to automatically increase the price over time. For example, if the late fee is $50 starting March 1, $100 starting April 1 and $150 starting May 1 then you would set up three variations:
$50 between 3/1-3/31
$100 between 4/1-4/31
$150 between 5/1-9/30
Navigate to Show / Hide / Require Rules and set the rule to Require. Add any preferred Rule Types.
Save your changes by selecting Update at the top right.
When you member completes the payment during the dates, they will see a line item under the product indicating the Regular price and the Late Payment Penalty amount.
