Gravity Forms has features that allow you to bill your members for a plethora of charges. However before you embark on building a gravity form to pass a charges to your member there are some things to consider. Below is a brief comparison of using a Member Splash Product versus a Gravity Form, lets look at them.
Member Splash Products v Gravity Forms
Member Splash Products are for all plan levels, it is part of the core functionality.
Gravity Forms are only available to Essentials and Premium plan levels.
Member Splash Products can be used independent of additional work, while forms are typically used in conjunction with a ‘page’ that you need to set up.
Typical Gravity forms are Waitlist or Board Elections - (contain feeds for adding members & billing)
The Details - The pluses and minuses
Member Splash Products
Member Splash Products are simpler & easier to set up,
They appear on the members account ready to purchase or be required.
They appear on the members account history.
They appear on Member Splash reporting for accounting.
These can be built, tested and put on a members invoice in about 20 minutes.
Gravity Forms
Much more powerful BUT much more complex to set up and manage. A good estimate is to give yourself 3 hours to start a form and more to finish it.
They do not appear on the members accounts. The member has to ‘find the form' in order to make a purchase.
They typically need to be placed on a page (more work for the pool admin).
They do not appear on Member Splash reporting for accounting.
Forms are typically used when the charge is outside the standard Pool/Club functions (i.e. a simple survey, a complex summer camps form or in our example a ‘dock key’)
They are also used when there is additional information that you need to collect associated with the charge. (in our example we need to collect license plate info of the car what will be parked at the dock. )
Setting up a pricing on a form.
If you want to total up the products a member will purchase on a form, you need to use product fields. The product field is very versatile so you can use:
single product
dropdown
radio buttons
user defined price
hidden
calculation
In this example we will be placing a charge on the Waitlist.
1. Go to your form select Gravity Form, Pricing Fields Dropdown. Select the 'product' field and drop it on your form in the locations you want it to appear.
2. Once you have placed it on your form open up the details of the product field.
3. Give the product field a proper name and put in the amount in the form. You will also want to disable the quantity field (as the new member only has to pay one waitlist fee) and make the field required.
4. Add a total to your form.
5. Add the credit card fields to you form and make it required as well.
6. MANDITORY FOR BILLING - Add the Authorize.net feed to your form. The full article on this is at Adding an Authorize.net Feed on your Form. Your form will not bill your members if this fee is not setup.
7. Add a service fee if needed. Adding a Service Fee to Forms
8. Save your work and view the form.
9. It is vitally important to test your form. We recommend that you use your test member account and you clubs credit card to process a change. Review the form, layout, pricing, and entries. You will also want you treasurer to look at the authize.net feed to be sure the charges are passing as you want. The second test should to be completed by a trusted board member.
Both tests should be completed in full and reviewed before launching the form to your membership.
Below are other Gravity Forms Product fields you can use for pricing
Radio Buttons:
Single Product with Quantity:
Take a moment to review all the options on the Gravity Form pricing field to gain more knowledge of how you can use Gravity forms to their fullest extent.