When you limit how often something can be bought, such as a joining fee once per account or a paid taster once per child, Bizzly keeps count. This article explains what is counted and where the limits come from. The count is on each customer's own screen, so you can answer "why can't they buy this?" in seconds. It is also where you record a purchase someone made before they were on Bizzly. That way a customer you have just brought across is not asked to pay their joining fee twice.
Where to Find This
There are two places, one for each half of the job:
- Setting the limits is on the plan. Open What you sell in your console, choose Plans and packs, press the plan, then Who can buy. See Purchase Rules: Who Can Buy a Plan.
- Seeing the count, and recording a past purchase, is on the customer's screen. Open the Customers screen, press the person, and look at Allowances. See A Person's Screen.
Allowances is shown to an administrator on a Bizzly plan that includes purchase limits, even when nothing you sell is limited. It then says "No limits are linked to a product yet." If your Bizzly plan does not include purchase limits, an administrator sees a card headed Not in your plan yet in its place, and other roles see nothing. Only administrators see Allowances.
What Is Counted
- Purchases made through Bizzly count towards a limit, per member when the plan is for each member, and across the whole account when it is for the account.
- A full refund frees the allowance again. Partial refunds and expired credits still count as bought.
- A purchase you record counts too. See below.
- A limit can be for good, or for a recent period only, such as the last 12 months. Older purchases then stop standing in the way.
What a Customer Sees
When a customer has used up an allowance, a per-member limit marks that member already used and a limit for the whole account reads Already paid on the plan's card. Anything that breaks a limit at checkout is refused with a plain sentence, and nothing is charged. See How the Basket and Checkout Work.
Recording a Purchase Made Before Bizzly
On the customer's screen, under Allowances, press Record a past purchase on the limit or fee. You choose who it was for where that matters, set the date they really paid, and add a note if you like. It never takes a payment, never issues a refund and never creates a payment in Stripe. It only tells Bizzly the purchase happened, so the joining fee stops being added to their basket and a limited offer counts it against their allowance.
Each purchase you recorded shows as a row under its limit, and Remove this record takes it back if it was a mistake. Records Bizzly made itself from real purchases cannot be removed. The steps are in A Person's Screen.
Moved an existing customer base over? Check Importing Customers From a Spreadsheet first. The import can record the fee each customer already paid as they arrive, so you need not work through the records one by one.
Fees You Set Up Before Purchase Rules Existed
If your joining fee has been in your catalogue for a long time, it still works, and customers are still charged it once. It is listed under Allowances like any other once-only fee, with Not yet paid or Already paid under it, and Record a past purchase works the same way.
Tips
- Check the screen before you argue with a customer. "Already paid" on your website and a recorded purchase here are the same fact seen from two ends.
- Record the date they really paid, not today's. You will want it when someone queries it a year later.
- Recording is per member for per-member offers. Recording a paid taster as used for one child leaves another profile free to take theirs.
Related Articles
- A Person's Screen - Where the count is, and how to record a past purchase
- Account Fees: Joining and Registration Charges - The once-per-account fee this is most often used for
- Purchase Rules: Who Can Buy a Plan - Setting the limits this counts against
- Your Customers - The customer list
- How the Basket and Checkout Work - What a customer sees when an allowance is used up