How PayTo works for (and benefits) health & fitness businesses

As a business owner in the health and fitness industry, you're always looking for ways to make it easier for members to join and pay for your services. 

Introducing PayTo, a new innovative technology developed by the Australian Payments Plus (AP+) that allows you to collect payments in real-time from your members’ bank accounts.

PayTo offers the same set-and-forget benefits of direct debit—but with more speed, simplicity and security. With pre-authorised agreements with your members, payment disputes become a thing of the past, and there’s less risk of missed payments and fraud.  

Here are some benefits of using PayTo for your health and fitness business:

• Simplify your joining process

  People can now sign up to your business, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. There’s no need to go physically into the gym and speak to someone in person, or fill in lengthy paperwork. Adding QR codes to the reception area linking to the Sign Up page on the website makes it even easier for walk-ins and visitors.

• Added convenience 

  By using PayTo, you can provide your members with a better payment experience. With fast and secure payments, members can pay directly from their bank accounts, reducing the need for cash handling or other payment methods. 

•  Easy record-keeping & reconciliation

  PayTo payment agreements are digitally stored centrally, so you no longer need to keep records of payment agreements for seven years for compliance, as you would with direct debit.

•  Fast and more efficient payments

  With PayTo, you can improve your cash flow — receiving cleared funds the same day as the transaction, rather than waiting several days for traditional direct debit or bank transfers to clear.

• Improved communication and reduced failed payments

  You can opt-in to send an automated SMS to members via your fitness management software whose payments fail due to insufficient funds. You can advise the payment will be retried, giving them time to transfer money to ensure the next payment attempt is successful. 
  You can automatically retry a payment multiple times. This also saves you time in manually chasing members for failed payments.

•  Reduced payment dishonours and disputes

  With real-time verification of the member's bank account details, you can ensure the correct account is set up from the outset. This reduces the chance of dishonours and disputes due to fraud or administrative errors. 

How PayTo works 

Check out the video below to see how quickly a PayTo agreement can be created and authorised. 

Let's take a look at each of the steps. 

Bob's Gym, a fictional local fitness centre offers personal training, bootcamps and group fitness classes. They offer PayTo as another payment method, for convenience and choice for their members.

Step 1: Bob's Gym has PayTo added as another payment option to their website. When someone clicks the ‘Join Now’ button, they are directed to a page where they can enter their personal and payment details. 

Step 2: They click to see available plans and pricing. At this point, they are given the option to choose between a month-to-month membership or an annual membership. 

Step 3: They select PayTo as their payment method and enter their bank details.  

 Step 4: They review the information and agree to set up a PayTo agreement with Bob’s Gym. Then, are given the prompts to authorise the agreement via a notification from their bank.

Step 5: They are prompted to review and authorise the pending agreement in their mobile banking app labelled ‘Global Payments on behalf of Bob's Gym’.

Once authorised, the PayTo agreement is live, and their membership is activated. Happy days!

Get your business PayTo ready

PayTo is definitely worth considering with fast and secure payments, real-time verification, and a better member experience. PayTo has everything your fitness business needs to streamline your payment processes and lets you focus on providing more value to your members. 

If you’d like your business to be one of the first to trial PayTo, you can sign up for our pilot program. From there, the pilot team will reach out to you to provide the integration specifications and set up a meeting to discuss the next steps.