Gym Assistant Version 2.0 User s Guide Addendum

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Gym Assistant Version 2.0

User’s Guide Addendum

April 2007

Complete List of New Features and Changes

Features Added:

• Punchcard Plans (visit-based memberships) • Day-Passes

• Family (dependent) memberships • Membership Add-Ons (punchcards)

• Member Notes (unlimited length, time/date stamped) • Reports:

o Visits Analysis Report

o Revenue Performance Report o Shift Journal reports

o Membership reports can be Memorized and Retrieved o Membership reports can now display all member fields

o Right-clicking on an entry in any membership report to display/edit member info o Birthday report

• Sales Tax

• Fully-integrated payment processing through PC-Charge or CheckAssist • Undo Group Payment

• Grace Period (allow delinquent members entry for a limited time) • Interface with Receipt Printers Cash Drawers

• Customizable Appearance (fonts and colors) • Automatic Member Freeze/Unfreeze

• Option to Enforce City/State/Zip Formatting • “Super” Edition to handle 32,000 member records • Online Connect Features:

o Automatic Software Updates o Online Backup and Restore

o Send Emails (to one member or to a group) • ProShop:

o Include ProShop totals in Revenue Summary report

Improvements/Changes:

• Improved password protection

• Initiation (contract) fees recorded separately in Journal • Fees can be pro-rated at the end of a membership

• Transaction window to collect more info about payment method • Aging information added to Member Summary report

• Allow select/unselect members for mailing letters, forms and letters • Delete All Member Data (training mode)

• Increase flexibility of membership plans • Networking more robust and faster

• Automatic entry of City and State from zip code

• Credit card and bank info encrypted in data file and backup files for added security • Integrated File compression to increase archive/backup speed

• Report text shrinks to fit on screen/page

• Activate/Inactivate Member changed to Set Billing Status • Fields Changed: Contract Begin, Contract End

• Number of visits and measurement dates displayed • PhotoCapture improvements

o Larger photos with higher resolution

o Photos are stored in jpeg format to reduce file sizes o Photos can be included in backup file

• GateKeeper/Access Control:

o Allow Entry with Membership Number

o “Find” button in Settings/Ports to locate barcode reader port o Improved Dual Monitor support

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o “Hours of Operation” changed to “Limit Hours of Entry” o Option to control multiple entrances

o Each entrance can be activated/deactivated at preset times o Screen Saver mode on second monitor (prevents screen burn-in) o

• EFT files now sent directly to processor

• Re-issuing of membership numbers is now restricted • Member Display:

o Members less than one month display as orange to indicate “New Member” o Display black stripe for inactive members

o Display orange stripe for “New” members (signed up less than one-month ago) o Show last/next Measurement dates

o All member info visible with Personal, Contract, Other tabs • Improved Revenue Projection calculations

• Backup/Restore:

o Backup/Restore redesigned to show all info on one screen

o Backup file extension changed from .zip to .gbu (Gym Assistant Back-Up) o Add “Append Date to File Name” option

• Add New Member: final operations in a single window instead of a series of yes/no questions • Increment Next Measurement date automatically when a measurement is taken

Features Removed:

• Auto Check-In

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Overview – What’s In There?

Many different areas of Gym Assistant have been added or improved. Below is a quick overview of each of the major improvements in Version 2.0.

The old concept of Membership Types has been split into three types of Plans: Membership Plans,

Punchcard Plans and Day-Pass Plans.

Membership Plans handle all time-based members.

The standard billing periods (1/3/6/12 month + EFT-Bank + EFT-CC) are still there, but we've added the ability to add a custom billing period time. For example, you might have a 2-week membership.

• Annual, Semi-Annual, Quarterly, Monthly and Custom time periods (formerly 12-month, 6-month, 3-month and 1-month Pre-Pay) are considered Manual Payment Options.

• A Custom manual payment option has been added so you can specify a payment period as any number

of days, weeks or months.

• Credit Card and Bank Debit (formerly EFT-CC and EFT-Bank) are considered Recurring/Automatic

Billing Options.

Punchcard Plans allow you to sell packages of entries into the club. For example, you might sell a package of

10 visits.

• One visit is automatically deducted each time the member checks in. • When the member’s visits have all been used, he will be denied entry.

Day-Pass Plans allow you to sell individual visits to the club.

• A Day-Pass is for a single-visit. It must be paid at the time of the visit.

• You can sell a day-pass to either a Day-Pass member or to a walk-up (not attached to any membership record). For example, a rock-climbing gym might need to make sure that every visitor has attended an orientation class and filled out a release form within the past 12 months.

Family (or Dependent) Memberships allow you to link payments for members. Each family member will have

his or her own membership record. One family member will be specified as the responsible member, and the other family members will be specified as dependents of that member.

When you record a payment for the responsible member, any payments due for the dependent members will be added to the payment. The dependent members will then be updated automatically to show the payments that were applied to each membership.

Membership Add-Ons allow you to sell packages of credits (training sessions, tanning, towels, etc.) in addition to

the member’s regular membership.

• Any type of event or item that will count down can be defined as an Activity.

Activity usage is recorded manually by front desk staff. Note that Add-Ons are different from Punchcard Plan visits, which are deducted automatically at check-in.

Member Notes have been added as an area to keep an unlimited amount of notes on each member. Notes are

time-and-date stamped so you can easily track information for the member. The old “Note” field has been renamed as “Comment”.

Contracts now have a specified begin- and end-time. Contracts can now be enforced, which means that a

member with an expired contract can not make payments until the contract is renewed. This feature is useful for facilities that must maintain up-to-date documents (such as liability release forms) for all members.

Password Protection has been significantly improved. You can now create unique passwords for individual

employees or for groups of employees. For each password you can control access on a feature-by-feature basis. For example, you might give front-desk employees access to adding new members but not to modifying existing members or any of the reporting features.

A Grace Period allows a member to visit for the specified number of days after her payment is due. After that time the member is denied entry until payment is received.

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Membership List Reports can now be memorized for easy retrieval. Create a custom report once and then

easily retrieve that same report any time you need it.

Membership Lists and Reports are now more interactive. Right-click on any entry in a list or report to bring up

a menu with appropriate options.

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Details – How Do I Use The New Stuff?

New Types of Member Plans

Information Common to All Plans

All plans (Membership, Punchcard and Day-Pass) contain some common fields which are grouped as Plan

Options in the Edit Membership Plan window.

• A Terminate Billing field has been added. This setting determines the default Terminate Billing

value for any new members that are created using this plan. Remember, though, that you can always change the Terminate Billing value for individual members.

• Allow Off-Peak Hours Entry Only has been renamed as Limit Hours of Entry.

Membership Plans

• Annual, Semi-Annual, Quarterly, Monthly billing periods (formerly called 12-month, 6-month, 3-month and 1-3-month PrePay Payment Options) are now grouped as Manual Payment Options. • A Custom manual payment option has been added. You can use this option to add a manual

payment option with a non-standard billing period (e.g. 7-days or 2-weeks or 15-months).

• Credit Card and Bank Debit billing options (formerly called EFT-CC and EFT-Bank) are grouped as

Recurring/Automatic Billing Options.

Punchcard Plans

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Day-Pass Plans

• A Day-Pass Plan has the common Plan Options and then a price per visit.

• If the Allow sale to Non-Members box is checked, then day-passes purchased under this plan will

be considered “walk-ins” and these sales will not be associated with any member.

• If the Allow sale to Non-Members box is not checked, then day-passes of this type can only be

purchased by active members.

Linked (“Family”) Memberships

Making an existing member dependent on another member

• Display the dependent member • Click the Edit Member Record button • Click Admin to enable the contract fields • Click the Set Responsible Member button

• Enter the membership number of the member who will be responsible for payment (called the “Responsible Member”) and click OK

• The Responsible Member should now be displayed. (see below)

Adding a new dependent member

• Display the member who will be responsible for payment • Select Add Dependent Member from the Member menu.

• The new member’s contact information (address, phone and emergency contact) are filled in

automatically, and the new member is automatically set as a dependent of the Responsible member.

Unlinking a Dependent Member

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• Click the Edit Member Record button • Click Admin to enable the contract fields

• Click the Clear button next to the Set Responsible Member button

Renewing a Family Membership

• Display the responsible member • Click the Record a Payment button

• Note that dependent member payments due will be added to the Total Amount Due.

• To change how payments are applied to dependent members, click the View Dependents button.

• You can change the number of payments applied to each dependent member.

• After you click the Record Payment button a Journal entry will be created for each of the members for which a payment was applied.

Viewing links for a member

While displaying a member record, select Linked Members from the Member menu.

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Viewing links for all members

• Select Linked Memberships from the Reports menu. • Choose to display All members or only Active members.

• Right-click on any entry in the list to View or Edit that member’s record.

Membership Add-Ons

The membership Add-On features are a way to sell packages of credits and then count down the number of credits left for that member as they are used. You can use Add-On credits for classes, personal training sessions, tanning, equipment rentals or almost anything that would be tracked with a count-down counter.

Note that Add-On credits are different than Punchcard Plan visits. With a Punchcard Plan one visit is deducted automatically every time the member enters the facility. Add-On credits are not deducted automatically, but must be registered individually at the front-desk.

Editing the Add-Ons List

You can define up to 64 different types of Add-Ons. To edit your Add-Ons price list, select Add-Ons from the Settings menu.

Click New to create a new Activity or Edit to modify the selected activity.

Each activity has the following parameters: • Activity Name

• credits per package • Package Cost

• Activity is inactive (check this box to prevent this activity from showing up in lists)

Purchasing credits

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Click Purchase New to purchase a new package of credits for this member.

Select the activity that this member will purchase and then click OK. A transaction window will appear for you to collect the money and finish the purchase.

To add more credits to a selected activity, click Purchase More. A transaction window will appear for you to collect the money and finish the purchase.

To adjust the number of credits for a selected activity, click Adjust and then enter the correct number of current credits for that activity.

To remove a selected activity from the list for this member, click Delete. Note that you can not delete an activity for a member if that member activity still has credits remaining.

Using credits

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Select the activity that the member will use, then click Use One. A confirmation window will appear.

Click Use Now. The new count for that activity will be displayed.

Member Notes

Member Notes provide an unlimited capacity to keep free-form notes for each member. Notes can be time/date-stamped automatically to provide an accurate chronological record.

To view or enter notes for a member, click the Notes button or select Notes from the Member menu.

• To add a new time/date stamped note, click Add New Note. Each new note will appear at the beginning of the text.

• You can also just edit the existing notes by clicking on the text.

Contracts

Contracts now have a specified begin- and end-time. Contracts can now be enforced, which means that a

member with an expired contract can not make payments until the contract is renewed. This feature is useful for facilities that must maintain up-to-date documents (such as liability release forms) for all members.

To turn on Contract Enforcement, select General Billing Options from the Settings menu.

When you make a payment for a member with an expired contract, you are given an option to Renew the

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Renewing the existing contract will extend the Contract End date by the contract length defined for the member’s currently selected Membership Plan. (see Settings/Membership Plans.) This option is only available if the member’s contract will be made current by a single renewal.

For an example, consider a member with a 12-month contract. If the member’s contract expired two months ago then he can simply renew the existing contract, which will then make his contract good for another 10 months from today. However, if the member’s contract expired 13 months ago then he will not have the option of renewing the contract because his contract would still be expired.

Creating a new contract will change the Contract Begin Date to today’s date and calculate the new Contract End Date from the contract length defined for the member’s currently selected Membership Plan.

Sales Tax

Gym Assistant can add sales tax to the price of all membership fees. Select General Billing Options from the Settings menu.

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Set the sales tax rate (as a percent) or set the sales tax rate to zero for no taxes. Check the Membership Fees box if you charge taxes on membership fees, and check the Contract Fees box if you charge taxes on contract (initiation) fees.

Password Protection

When a user attempts to access any of the program areas that are password protected, Gym Assistant will ask for a password for that feature. Access will only be allowed if the user enters a password that has been previously defined as having access to that feature.

To set and modify passwords, select Users and Passwords from the Settings menu.

To turn passwords on you must first check the Passwords Enabled box and Set a Master Password. With Passwords on, the Master Password is required to change most system settings. Please do not forget your Master Password! If you find yourself locked out of the software because of a lost or forgotten password please call Bio-Logic and we will help you regain access to your data.

Check the Require Password at startup box to require a password in order to view the Member Info screen when Gym Assistant first starts.

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You can create unique passwords for any employee or a group of employees. In the example above there are two password define. Employees have access only to basic functions, but the Night Manager has access to higher-level functions. You can create up to 32 different passwords.

Click the Add, Edit, Duplicate and Delete buttons to modify the password list.

The User Name is only used to identify a entry in the password list. It is never needed when entering a password for access into the program.

The Password is word or phrase that will be entered by the employee to gain access to program features. A password can be 1-32 characters in length and can include any combination of letters, numbers and punctuation. Passwords are not case sensitive.

Check the boxes next to all features that should be accessible for this password.

Grace Period for Delinquent Members

A Grace Period allows a member to visit for the specified number of days after her payment is due. After that time the member is denied entry until payment is received.

For an example, let’s assume that the club has defined a 5-day grace period. A member is allowed entry into the club for five days after her due date, but she will be denied entry on the sixth day.

Assigning Membership Numbers

You can now control how Gym Assistant handles membership numbers for new members. In the

Settings/Options window you can specify whether Gym Assistant will automatically assign membership

numbers.

• Automatically Assign New Membership Numbers lets you specify whether Gym Assistant will automatically assign new membership numbers. If this item is not checked then the user will be asked if the automatically assigned number is OK and he is given a chance to change the assigned number before the membership record is created.

• The Next Membership Number to Add field allows you to specify the number that is automatically

generated for the next added member.

Adding a New Member

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Select a Plan

• Select a Plan Type from the Plan Type list. • Select a Plan from the Plan Selected list.

• Click the Edit Plans button to add a new plan or modify an existing plan. This is most helpful when you need to add a new plan to your pricing structure while you are adding a new member.

Contract Term

• Contract Begin Date is set to today’s date by default.

• Contract End Date is set automatically from the Contract Begin Date and the contract length specified in the Plan Selected.

• Terminate Billing is set automatically from the Plan Selected. Billing/Payment Options

• Select a Billing Option from the list, which you have previously defined for the plan selected. • Recurring Billing Amount is set automatically from the Billing Option and Plan Selected.

• Next Payment Due Date is set automatically from the Contract Begin Date, Billing Option and Plan Selected.

Fees

• Membership Fee and Initiation Fee are set automatically from the Billing Option and Plan Selected.

Payment Transaction Window

A new window has been added to process payments received.

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Sending Emails

Setting Your Email Information

You must first setup Gym Assistant to access your internet email account. You will need the following information from your internet service provider:

Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server User Name and Password

If you are unsure of any of the settings, please contact your internet service provider.

Please note that not all internet service providers allow direct access to SMTP mail servers (America Online, for example, does not). If you internet service provider does not allow direct SMTP access then you will not be able to use the Email features in Gym Assistant.

Select Email from the Settings menu.

Reply To Email Address is the email address that will appear in the From: field of any emails that you send. Outgoing (SMTP) Mail Server is the address of the email host provided by your internet service provider. UserName is the user name required to log onto your email server.

Password is the password required to log onto your email server.

To test your email settings, click the Test button. Gym Assistant will attempt to send an email to the Reply To Email Address.

Create and Email a Message to a Member

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Enter the subject and message for the email and then click Send.

Email a Form or Letter to a Member

To work more efficiently you can create templates for often-used emails. These emails will automatically insert selected fields from the member’s record. See Edit Letter Template and Edit Form Template in the Documents

menu for instructions on how to create and edit document templates.

With a member displayed, select Email Form or Email Letter from the Member/Documents menu. • Select the form or letter you want to send and click Open.

• The contents of the form or letter will be displayed. Click Continue. • Enter a Subject for the email and click OK to send the email.

Email a Form or Letter to a Groups of Members

To work more efficiently you can create templates for often-used emails. Using a template, an email can be generated and sent to many members at once. Each email sent will automatically insert selected fields from the member’s record. See Edit Letter Template and Edit Form Template in the Documents menu for instructions

on how to create and edit document templates.

Select Email Forms for Members or Email Letters for Members from the Documents menu. • Select the form or letter you want to send and click Open.

• The contents of a sample email will be displayed. Click Continue.

• A Member List Selection window will appear. If you want to send only to certain types of members, set the appropriate filters to list only the members you want. Click Continue.

• A list of the members selected will appear. Select or unselect members in the list (the total number of members selected appears in the lower-left), then click Continue.

• Enter a Subject for the email and click OK to send the email.

• Gym Assistant will report on how many emails were sent successfully.

Online Updates

When you start Gym Assistant, the program will automatically prompt you to check for an update online if you have not recently done so.

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Click Check Now to check for an update online.

Click Check Later to be reminded to check for an update the next time you start up Gym Assistant. Click Settings to view/modify the Online Update settings.

Gym Assistant Version 2.0 User s Guide Addendum