Selling booking credits
Charge for bookings per unit rather than per year: your users buy credits online, in packs with volume discounts, and spend them on each time slot they book.
Knowing where sales are configured
As with subscriptions, credit sales are not configured 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 enable Activate the credit system.
- In the Payments & Billing section, enable online sales.
- Build your Credit books.
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 credit 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, as 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 duration. Simple 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 duration booked.
The third option is the fairest when your time slots have unequal durations, or when you let users choose their times freely. The first two are easier for the player to follow, who can count their remaining bookings without any calculation.
Building your packs
Under Credit books, each line pairs a quantity with a price. The Add a notebook 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 volume discount is not calculated for you: you decide the gap between tiers. A discount that is too small will not trigger bulk purchases, while one that is too large subsidises heavy users at the expense of occasional ones.
Selling with a prepaid account
Prepaid account mode (1 credit = €1.00) changes the very nature of the credit: it stops being a booking token and becomes a unit of currency. The user's account becomes a wallet.
This is the mode to enable as soon as the price of a booking has to vary depending on the calendar, the day or the 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 displayed 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 buying a pack. 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 it out.
Gifting credits
Selling is not the only use. Several settings credit 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 credit the account as soon as the request is approved.
- The automatic birthday message can accompany its wishes with a gift in credits.
- From a user's record, you can adjust a balance by hand, with a note that will remain 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.
Disabling sales on a subscription simply detaches it from the product; the product remains available as long as another subscription is using 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.
