To move active memberships without losing members or charging anyone twice, record each member's plan, price, billing day, paid-until date and unused benefits, stop billing in the old system, have members re-save their card in the new one, and start new billing from their next due date. Tell members before anything changes. The easiest place to land them is one system: in Clinic App, memberships, billing, perks, points, consent and the rules on prescription treatments all sit on the same patient record.
Memberships are the part of a system switch that clinic owners worry about most, and rightly. A client list is just names and numbers. A membership is a live agreement that takes money from a patient every month, with benefits they have paid for and expect to use. Get it wrong and you either charge someone twice or quietly stop charging them at all.
This guide is the practical order of operations. It works whichever systems you are moving between. At the end, I explain why we think the best place to land your members is one system that holds the membership, the billing, the perks and the patient record together.
What do you need to record for each member before you switch?
You need one list with a row per active member, taken from the old system before you change anything. That list is your single source of truth for switch day. Do not rely on the new system's import alone, because not every booking system exports memberships in one tidy file.
Check what your current system can give you. Timely's help article on requesting a data export says the data it can export is clients (including reward points), appointments, services, client notes, products and product purchases. Memberships are not on that list, so take them from your reports and member screens. Fresha lets you export reports one at a time as PDF, CSV or Excel. Zenoti's guide to backing up your data names a Memberships Liability report you can export.
Fresha's own membership set-up is a useful checklist, because it shows the settings every membership carries: benefits, how many times each can be used per billing cycle, whether a benefit refreshes or is one-time, price, billing cycle, activation date, expiry and cancellation notice period. Capture all of them.
| Field | Why it matters on switch day |
|---|---|
| Plan name and price | The member keeps the deal they signed up to |
| Billing day and cycle | Their next charge lands on the day they expect |
| Last payment date and paid-until date | Tells you when the first charge in the new system is due |
| Start date, minimum term and notice period | Keeps the terms you agreed, including how they cancel |
| Unused benefits this cycle | Sessions or product credits they have paid for but not used |
| Banked credits, points, voucher and package balances | Money or value the clinic still owes the patient |
| Status: active, paused, failed payment, cancelling | Stops you restarting a membership the patient already ended |
Take this list on the evening before switch day, after the last charges of the day have run, so the paid-until dates are final.
Why don't saved cards move with the client list?
Saved cards almost never move between booking systems, and that is a security rule set by the vendors, not something your new system chooses. Card details sit with the payment processor, and the booking system only holds a reference to them.
- Fresha says in its help article on exporting your client list that client card details "cannot be exported or transferred", to protect payment information and meet PCI compliance.
- Timely's export list (above) does not include stored cards. Its guide to storing cards on TimelyPay says TimelyPay runs on Stripe.
- Zenoti says in its data backup guide that it does not store card numbers, only tokens held with the processor, and suggests requesting a stored card transfer to another processor. That depends on both processors, so treat it as a bonus, not the plan.
So plan for every member to re-save their card. Send each member a secure link to add their card in the new system, ideally a week or two before their next charge. Chase anyone who has not done it three or four days before their billing day. A member with no card on file on their billing day is the easiest way for a membership to quietly stop.
How do you avoid charging members twice?
A double charge happens when both systems think they own the next payment. The fix is a strict order: the old system stops, then the new system starts from the paid-until date.
- Pick a switch day and do not move it once members have been told.
- Stop recurring billing in the old system for every member, effective from switch day. Zenoti's own cutover instructions make the same point for clinics moving onto Zenoti: stop automated collections and automated emails and texts in the old system, so nobody is billed or messaged twice.
- Do not refund or cancel the payment a member has already made for the current cycle. They have paid until a date, and that date still stands.
- Set each member's first charge in the new system to the day after their paid-until date, not to switch day.
- The day before switch day, compare the upcoming charges in both systems against your member list. Any member who appears in both is a double charge waiting to happen.
For example (illustrative dates): a member billed on the 14th of each month, whose last payment in the old system was 14 October, is paid until 13 November. If you switch on 1 November, nothing is charged on switch day. Their first charge in the new system is 14 November, the same day they have always been charged.
A membership move goes wrong in one of two ways: a member is charged twice, or quietly stops being charged at all. Land members in one system where the billing, the perks and the patient record are the same thing, and there is only one place to check.
How do you tell members about the move?
Tell members two to three weeks before switch day, in plain words, and lead with what is not changing. Most members only want to know three things: is my price the same, is my billing day the same, and do I keep what I have built up.
A short message covers it:
- We are moving to a new system on [date].
- Your membership, price, billing day and benefits stay exactly the same.
- Your unused sessions, credits and points come with you.
- For security, saved cards cannot move between systems, so please re-save your card using this link before [your next billing date].
- Questions? Reply to this message or call the front desk.
If you are changing anything at the same time, such as the price, the inclusions or the cancellation terms, say so separately and clearly, and give members the choice to continue or cancel. A move is not a reason to rewrite the deal. Australian law protects consumers and small businesses from unfair terms in standard form contracts, which the ACCC explains here, and a term that lets a clinic change a membership on its own may be unfair.
Two advertising rules apply to this message too. If you offer members something to stay through the move, such as a bonus treatment or a discount, AHPRA's advertising guidelines explain that section 133 of the National Law requires any gift, discount or other inducement to state its terms and conditions. And keep prescription medicine names out of anything promotional: the TGA says prescription medicines cannot be advertised to the public, and its April 2024 webinar slides say private mailing lists are unlikely to be exempt and that nicknames and abbreviations count too.
Brief the front desk on the same day you message members. They will get the calls, and they should be able to send a re-save link on the spot. Our guide to training staff on new clinic software covers how to prepare the team.
What happens to perks, credits and balances?
Everything a member has paid for or earned should arrive in the new system with the same value. That includes:
- Unused benefits for the current cycle, such as a facial they have not booked yet. Honour it until the end of the cycle they paid for.
- Banked or rolled-over credits, if your membership lets unused value carry forward.
- Loyalty points. Carry the balance across, and keep the same expiry rules. Our guide to what happens to an old loyalty program when you switch goes into the detail.
- Gift voucher and package balances. These are money the clinic owes, so reconcile the totals against your old system's liability or balance reports.
A simple test after the import: add up every member's balances in the old system and in the new one. The two totals should match to the cent. If they do not, find the difference before members start booking.
A move is also a good moment to check how perks are set up. If a membership includes discounts or points, make sure none of them applies to Schedule 4 (prescription-only) treatments: as above, the TGA says prescription medicines cannot be advertised to the public.
Why move your members into Clinic App?
Because in Clinic App the membership, its billing, its perks and the patient's record are one thing in one system, built around the rules Australian cosmetic clinics advertise under. That makes the move simpler and the months after it safer.
- All in one system. Memberships bill monthly in the same system as the diary, front desk checkout, packages, gift vouchers, points, the prepaid wallet, consent forms and treatment records. When a member walks in, the desk sees their plan, their unused benefits and their balances on one screen, and nothing is copied between a membership tool and a booking system.
- Prescription treatments kept out of perks. Points, rewards, discounts and offers never apply to Schedule 4 (prescription-only) treatments.
- Member messages checked before they send. Marketing campaigns and automatic messages are checked for prescription medicine names, including disguised spellings, before they can be sent. Review requests never offer points or rewards for a review.
- Consent on the same record. Consent forms are signed digitally, and the exact wording the patient agreed to is stored with each signature and versioned.
- Flat fees. No setup fee, no per-seat fee and no lock-in, so adding the membership side does not add another bill.
None of this makes a clinic compliant on its own: the clinic and its practitioners stay responsible for their advertising. It means the system is built around the rules and helps you follow them.
On the move itself, we do it with you, and Zoe onboards in person. The importer takes the files you export from Fresha or Timely (CSV or Excel), including your client list, visit history, gift vouchers and package balances, plus active memberships from Fresha's membership report (Timely has no memberships export, so Timely members are set up from your own records). You see a preview before anything is saved, and a report of any rows that were skipped and why, so you can fix them rather than find out later. Because saved cards cannot come across, members get a link to re-save their card. Clinic App takes card payments through Stripe and never stores card numbers, and patient data is hosted in Sydney.
If you want to see the full move rather than just memberships, read how easy it is to switch clinic software and our guide to exporting clients from Fresha. If you are weighing up why one system beats a stack of tools, see our guide to all-in-one clinic software. If you are still deciding how your memberships should work, start with what a clinic membership program is.
Frequently asked questions
Can I export my members' saved cards from Fresha or Timely?
Not from Fresha: its help centre says client card details cannot be exported or transferred. Timely's data export covers clients, appointments, services, client notes, products and product purchases, which does not include stored cards. Plan for every member to re-save their card in the new system.
Do members have to sign up to their membership again?
No. If the price, billing day and inclusions stay the same, the membership carries over as it is. Members only need to re-save a card, because saved cards do not move between systems. If anything about the membership changes, tell members in writing first and give them the choice to continue or cancel.
How do I stop members being charged twice when I switch?
Stop recurring billing in the old system before the first charge in the new one, and set each member's first new charge to the day after their paid-until date, not to switch day. The day before you switch, check the upcoming charges in both systems against your member list.
What happens to unused member perks when I change systems?
They should carry over exactly. Record each member's unused sessions for the current cycle, banked credits, points and any voucher or package balances before switch day, then load them into the new system so nobody loses something they have already paid for.
Why move memberships into an all-in-one system?
Because the membership, its billing, its perks, points, packages and consent then sit on one patient record, so the front desk sees what a member is owed at checkout and nothing is copied between tools. In Clinic App, points, rewards, discounts and offers also never apply to Schedule 4 treatments, and the clinic pays flat fees with no setup fee, no per-seat fee and no lock-in.
