Selling booking credits
Charge for bookings one at a time rather than once a year: your users buy credits online, in packs with sliding-scale pricing, and spend them on each time slot they book.
Knowing where sales are set up
As with subscriptions, credit sales are not set up from the product catalogue, but from the subscription record.
- Go to Administration›Users›Access Rights›Subscriptions and open the subscription concerned.
- Open the Credits tab and switch on Activate the credit system.
- In the Payments & Billing section, switch on online sales.
- Build your Products & Services.
The matching product is created automatically and then appears in Administration›Settings›Billing›Products & Services. Without this step, the credit system remains usable: you then top up accounts by hand from each user's record, after a payment made on site.
Deciding what a credit represents
This is the question to settle before setting any price, because it completely changes the value of a credit. The Duration of a Booking Credit setting offers three approaches:
- 1 credit = 1 booking: one credit is debited per booking, whatever its length. Easy to understand, but one hour and three hours cost the same.
- 1 credit = 1 time slot: one credit per time slot occupied. A booking of three consecutive time slots costs three.
- One credit is worth a set number of minutes: credits are debited in proportion to the length booked.
The third option is the fairest when your time slots have unequal lengths, or when you let users choose their own times freely. The first two are easier for the player to follow, as they can count their remaining bookings without any calculation.
Building your packs
Under Products & Services, each line pairs a quantity with a price. The New button adds as many as you need, and the user chooses at purchase.
| Quantity | Price | Price per credit |
|---|---|---|
| 1 credit | €10 | €10.00 |
| 5 credits | €45 | €9.00 |
| 10 credits | €90 | €9.00 |
| 20 credits | €160 | €8.00 |
The sliding scale is not calculated for you: you decide the gap between tiers. A discount that is too small will not trigger a bulk purchase, while one that is too large subsidises heavy users at the expense of occasional ones.
Selling on a prepaid account
Prepaid account mode (1 credit = €1.00) changes the nature of the credit: it stops being a booking token and becomes a unit of currency. The user's account becomes a kitty.
This is the mode to switch on as soon as the price of a booking has to vary by calendar, day or time — cheaper off-peak hours, more expensive indoor courts, weekend rates. Without it, every booking costs the same number of credits.
The Display credits in currency setting is a natural complement to this mode: the counter is then shown in the organization's currency rather than as a number of credits, which matches what the user actually has in mind.
Prices per time slot are then set under Booking Rates, in the same tab.
Offering payment in instalments
The Payment in instalments field sets the maximum number of instalments offered when a pack is bought. The total is divided into equal parts, the first instalment is paid immediately, and the credits are delivered as soon as this first payment is made.
Keep this option for large packs: it only makes sense if the amount justifies spreading the cost.
Giving credits away
Selling is not the only use. Several settings top up an account free of charge:
- Add credits when creating the subscriber's account: every new subscriber starts with a balance, enough to try before buying.
- Online registration can top up the account as soon as the request is approved.
- The automatic birthday message can pair its good wishes with a gift in credits.
- From a user's record, you can adjust a balance by hand, with a note that will stay in their history.
Sharing the same price list between several subscriptions
If several subscriptions sell credits on strictly identical terms — same unit price, same packs, same instalments — a single product is created and shared. Your catalogue stays readable instead of filling up with duplicates.
Sharing exposes you to no side effects: changing the price list of a subscription that shares its product automatically creates a copy attached to that subscription alone. The other subscriptions keep their prices.
Switching off sales on a subscription simply detaches it from the product; the product remains available as long as another subscription uses it.
Tracking sales and balances
Credit purchases appear in invoices and transactions like any other order. On the user's side, every movement — purchase, booking, cancellation, manual adjustment — is traced in the history on their record.
