Manage payments for recurring memberships – Help Center

ROLLER automatically handles the periodical payments for recurring memberships. This includes dunning, which is the process of recovering failed subscription payments to maximize revenue and prevent involuntary membership churn.

This article shows you how to manage payments for recurring memberships.

For ROLLER Payments customers, ROLLER also offers Smart Dunning - an intelligent, data-driven solution for reattempting failed credit cards. Refer to the guide Maximize recurring membership revenue with Smart Dunning to find out more.

How it works

ROLLER's membership functionality allows you to sell recurring memberships in ROLLER POS or add the product to online checkouts for guests to purchase on their own.

Staff role permission

In order to manage recurring memberships, including application of credits and cancelling memberships, a staff member requires the Can manage memberships role permission. This permission is by default for administrator and manager roles. Find more information on staff roles and permissions

Membership payment

When a guest purchases a membership, two things happen:

A guest is sent two emails: Order confirmation and Membership details email.
Their guest Membership status is set to Current.

The payment schedule (weekly, monthly, yearly) for recurring memberships is defined in the membership product and payments are automatically charged. Guests can select the start date for their recurring membership when completing their purchase online or at POS.

Renewal process

Recurring memberships can run indefinitely or for a fixed period of time. After a guest's recurring membership has expired or been terminated, the guest can purchase a new recurring membership. This creates a new recurring membership payment schedule.

To learn how guests can self-manage membership upgrades and renewals from online accounts, see the guide Encourage guests to self-manage membership upgrades and renewals.

Update membership payment details in Venue Manager

To update the payment details for a membership, follow the steps below.

From Venue Manager, find and open the booking with the recurring payment membership.
Select the Payments tab and select Update payment details.
Update the card details and then click Update payment method once complete.

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For more information on updating payment details, including updating in POS, see Updating recurring membership credit cards.

Apply and manage credit for recurring memberships

You can add credit to a recurring membership to reward or retain valuable guests. Credit is applied as a discount and the future recurring payment is adjusted accordingly. You can also adjust or void credit up until the date the credit is applied.

Learn more about issuing credit for recurring memberships

View membership credit

You can view any credit issued to a guest from the booking details page, membership credit report or using our API's.

View credit in booking

From Venue Manager, find and open the booking with the recurring membership that has credit applied.

The Activity stream will display credit created, edited or voided.
Select the Payments tab and details of the credit applied to memberships in the booking will be displayed here.

View credit in Membership Credits Report

Refer to the How to use Guest reports article to learn more about the Membership Credits Report.

Data API

For information on accessing membership data via our API, refer to API Overview and Data API.

Update recurring membership credit card details

You can easily update recurring membership credit card details at POS and from Venue Manager. Refer to the guide Update recurring membership credit cards

Manage failed membership payments

If a member's recurring payment fails, ROLLER will attempt to collect the payment from the member by following an automatic 5-step dunning process described below and will send the member emails with notifications of failed payment.

In place of reattempting failed payments at scheduled intervals through regular dunning, ROLLER also offers Smart Dunning. Smart Dunning leverages machine learning to assess factors like decline codes, card scheme and cardholder information and to determine optimal times to reattempt declined transactions, thus minimizing involuntary membership churn. Learn more about setting up Smart Dunning for your recurring memberships.

ROLLER 5-step dunning process

Step 1	Recurring payment fails - 1st attempt Timeframe: Step 1 occurs immediately after the failed automatic recurring payment. Guest email: If the recurring payment fails, guest is emailed the Membership 1st failed payment notice to notify of failed payment and scheduled retry attempt. Membership status: There is no change in the membership's status, it remains set at Current.
Step 2	First retry - 2nd attempt Timeframe: Membership system waits 2 days between failed payment and first retry attempt. Guest email: If first retry payment fails, guest is emailed Membership suspension email notice. Membership status: Membership's status changes from Current to Suspended (Declined payment)
Step 3	Second retry - 3rd attempt Timeframe: Membership system waits another 2 days between first retry (step 2) and second retry attempt. Guest email: If second retry payment fails, guest is emailed Membership 3rd failed payment notice. Membership status: Membership's status remains set at Suspended (Declined payment)
Step 4	Third retry - 4th attempt Timeframe: Membership system waits until the next occurrence of one of the following days to trigger the third retry payment attempt: 2nd of the month 16th of the month Guest email: If third retry payment fails, Guest is emailed the Membership 3rd failed payment notice. Membership status: Membership's status remains set at Suspended (Declined payment).
Step 5	Fourth and final retry - 5th attempt Timeframe: Membership system waits until the next occurrence of one of the following days to trigger the fourth and final retry payment attempt: 2nd of the month 16th of the month Guest email: If fourth retry payment fails, Guest is emailed the Membership 3rd failed payment notice. Membership status: Membership's status remains set at Suspended (Declined payment)

To learn more about the membership lifecycle read the article on Membership status.

Reactivate suspended memberships

If the member visits your venue after the 2nd payment collection attempt has failed and their membership is suspended, staff can collect payment on the spot to end the dunning process and restore the recurring payment membership to an active state.

From ROLLER POS:

Find and open the booking with the recurring payment membership.
Select Update payment details on the bottom right corner of the screen.
Once updated, select Authorize.

From Venue Manager:

Find and open the booking with the recurring payment membership.
Select the Payments tab and then select Update payment details.
Update the card details then select Update payment method once complete.

Track failed payment attempts

Recurring payment memberships display retry information in Venue Manager.

Failed recurring payment notice in activity stream

If a recurring payment membership is currently in the retry process, the membership will be marked as Payment Pending or Part Paid in the booking details screen and on the activity stream.

Membership status log

An overview of all membership status changes is available in the Membership Status Log report. The report lists the member status changes which can be filtered by previous and new membership status.

Recurring payment log

The Recurring Payment Log provides information on recurring payments processed, status and values. This allows you to see successful and failed recurring payment attempts across a given time period.

Recurring memberships FAQ

How is the next recurring payment date calculated after a successful payment retry?

When a failed payment retry is successful, the next payment date is calculated from the original scheduled payment.

For example, consider a monthly subscription membership purchased on the 1st of January:

If the automatic recurring payment fails on the 1st of February but is not successfully processed by the automatic retry system until the 3rd of February, the next payment date is calculated as the 1st of March, not the 3rd March.
This ensures the membership schedule is preserved even when payment is late.

Can guests update the payment details themselves?

Guests need to contact the venue to update their payment details. The emails sent to the guest notifying them of failed payments and scheduled retries also include a call to action to call the venue. These email templates can be modified.