Most things you sell are bought again and again. A joining fee, a registration fee or a one-off kit charge is different: you want it once from each customer account, whoever in that account is booking, and never a second time. Bizzly calls these account fees, and once one exists in your catalogue it attaches itself to whatever a new customer buys first — you don't have to ask them to find its card.
Where to Find This
An account fee is an ordinary plan with one setting changed. Open What you sell in your console and choose Plans and packs. Press the fee's plan, then Who can buy, press Edit, and choose The whole family (your site's own wording: The whole household for pet care, The whole account for vehicle services). A business without customer profiles (a cleaning firm, a salon) sees Ordinary product and Joining fee, charged once per customer instead: choose the joining fee. Only administrators can change it. See The What You Sell Screen.
Account fees are included on every plan. On the Bizzly features and pricing pages the feature is listed as Account Fees.
Everything on this page follows from that one setting. There's no separate "fees" screen: a plan for the whole account is the account fee, and the rest of Bizzly recognises it as one. In the Plans and packs list it reads A fee, added at checkout where no class is included.
Setting One Up
- 1
Add the plan and give it a one-off price
Add it like any other plan (see Adding a Plan or Pack): "Joining fee", "Registration", "Kit fee". Choose One payment, not Repeats, and include no class.
- 2
Set who the purchase is for
In the plan's Who can buy sheet, press Edit and choose The whole family / household / account. Buyers are then never asked "who is this for?" for it, and it's recorded against the account rather than against one child, pet or vehicle.
An account purchase is once per account by definition, so it always has a limit, and Once is the least. See Purchase Rules: Who Can Buy a Plan.
- 3
Decide which of your other plans count as joining
Once your catalogue has an account fee in it, every other plan's Who can buy sheet grows a tick under More options: Do not add the joining fee when someone buys this. It starts unticked, so every plan carries the fee. Tick it on anything that shouldn't make someone a joiner. See Keeping the Fee Off a Taster below.
Give the fee One payment. A plan for the whole account that Repeats (monthly or yearly) is an ongoing membership rather than a fee. Bizzly will sell it, but it is never added to anyone's purchase automatically, because quietly signing a customer up to a recurring charge isn't something an automatic add-on should ever do.
Where the Fee Adds Itself
A customer who hasn't paid it yet picks it up on their first purchase, whichever route they take:
That last-but-one row is the important one: a customer who joins by taking out a monthly membership never touches the basket, and used never to be asked for the fee at all. Now every route carries it.
The customer must be signed in (or, on an assisted checkout, be a customer you've picked) — the fee is recorded against an account, so Bizzly has to know whose. A guest buying only from your shop is never charged one.
What Doesn't Trigger It
- Shop items on their own. A basket holding nothing but merchandise isn't someone joining, so no fee is added.
- Plans you've ticked "Do not add the joining fee when someone buys this". See below.
- The fee itself. Buying the fee from its own card doesn't bundle a second copy of it.
- Anyone who has already paid it. They're never offered it again, and the fee's own card on your site reads Already paid.
- A customer who removed it from their basket — it isn't added to their basket again for the rest of that visit, and comes back on a later visit if it's still unpaid. That applies to the basket only: if they then buy straight from a card, subscribe or enrol without using the basket, the fee is still on that payment.
Keeping the Fee Off a Taster
You rarely want to charge someone to join before they've decided to. That's what the tick Do not add the joining fee when someone buys this is for. It's under More options in the Who can buy sheet of every plan, once you sell an account fee, and never on the fee itself:
- Unticked, the default: buying this counts as joining, so the fee comes with it.
- Ticked: buying this doesn't make them a joiner. The fee stays off, and arrives with their first ordinary purchase instead.
The line under the tick says it plainly: "A new customer pays the joining fee alongside their first purchase. Tick this to keep it off this plan, as a trial usually should. It still arrives with their first ordinary purchase."
"Taster" here means whatever you mark that way: there's no magic plan name. A one-hour trial class, an open day ticket, a single come-and-try session: tick the box on that plan and it stops counting as joining. Tick it on nothing and every first purchase carries the fee, exactly as before.
It works everywhere the fee does — the website basket, an assisted checkout you compose, and a direct Buy Now or enrolment. A customer whose basket holds only exempt items pays no fee; add a season pack, a camp or a membership to that same basket and the fee appears.
This setting is made when you press Save in the Who can buy sheet, with Undo for a few seconds. It applies to the plan everywhere it's sold, and is available on every Bizzly plan. Only an administrator can change it.
You can also set it in plain English through Ask or tell Bizzly: "the taster shouldn't charge the joining fee". It appears in the proposed changes as "never bundle the joining fee with this purchase" before you press Do it. See Ask or Tell Bizzly and Setting Up Bookings with the AI Assistant.
It Can Never Be Charged Twice
Whichever route a customer takes, Bizzly checks what that account has already paid before it adds anything, and records the fee against the account the moment the payment lands. So the account that paid it on a membership in September isn't charged again when they add another profile's camp in October, and the two routes can't both bill it.
If a purchase does reach the checkout with a fee that's already been paid, it's refused with a plain sentence, "You've already paid this. There's nothing more to pay.", and nothing is charged, whether it came from the basket or straight from a card.
The fee grants no sessions and no credits. It's a charge, not an entitlement — what a customer can book comes from the pack, plan or membership they bought alongside it.
Customers Who Paid Before They Joined Bizzly
Moved an existing customer base over? They've already paid your joining fee, and they shouldn't pay it again. Open the person's screen and, under Allowances, press Record a past purchase on the fee. Bizzly then treats the fee as settled for that account and stops offering it. Nothing is charged or refunded by doing this. See A Person's Screen.
See also Purchase Eligibility on a Customer's Record.
Tips
- One fee, one price. Several account-level fees in your catalogue is fine, but only a single-payment one is ever added automatically — keep the joining fee simple and sell anything else from its own card.
- Tick your tasters before you advertise them. A trial that charges a joining fee converts far worse than one that doesn't.
- Check your own storefront after setting the fee up: add a class to the basket while signed in as a test customer and confirm the fee appears, labelled and removable.
- Don't chase the fee manually. If a customer somehow slipped past it, their next ordinary purchase picks it up on its own.
Related Articles
- Purchase Rules: Who Can Buy a Plan - The "who is this for?" and "how many times" controls the fee is built on
- How the Basket and Checkout Work - The basket the fee adds itself to, and the receipt that names it
- Purchase Eligibility on a Customer's Record - Recording a fee someone paid before Bizzly
- Assisted Checkouts (Phone & Counter Bookings) - Composing a basket, fee included, for a phone booking
- Adding a Plan or Pack - Creating the plan itself