New gym software: what you need on day one

The five jobs on day one

Gym management software is the system that holds your members, plans, timetable, bookings and payments. In a new gym, five jobs have to be done by it before the first class. Each one prevents a specific problem in week one.

The first two matter more than they look. Capacity has to stop the booking at the moment it is made. And the right to book has to come from each person's plan, not from someone remembering who paid.

Why capacity and the right to book come first is covered in more depth in another article. What gym management software has to do

What can wait for the first few months

With ten or twenty members, some features only add setup. Leave them until there is a real problem they solve.

• Advanced reporting. In the first months, knowing who joined, who paid and which classes fill is enough.
• Marketing automations. With a small group, a message you write yourself works better than an automatic sequence.
• A native app with your logo. Members want to book quickly, and a web app on their phone does that.
• Turnstiles and card readers. They make sense for unstaffed open access. With a coach in the room, a check-in is enough.
• Retail and stock. If you sell little, record it separately until you know it is worth it.

The question for each one is the same: what problem do I have today that this solves? If the answer is “maybe in a year”, it can wait a year.

Choose before you open

There are four practical reasons to settle on software before opening day rather than after you have members:

• Members learn one way to book on day one. Switching later means asking them to learn another.
• Plans sold during pre-sale are recorded with the right dates from the start.
• Signed waivers and payments live in one place from the first member.
• There is no data to migrate, and no weeks of running two systems side by side.

A timeline that works: choose the system six to eight weeks before opening. Use the next two weeks to set it up. Open pre-sale sign-ups inside it.

If you are already open and want to switch, there is a thirty-day plan with dates and member messages. How to switch gym management software

How to set it up in two weeks

1. 1.Gym details: name, address, logo, colour and time zone.
2. 2.Plans: start with three or four. An unlimited membership, one with a weekly limit, a class pack and a drop-in.
3. 3.Timetable: draw one typical week and let the system generate the following ones.
4. 4.Booking rules: when booking opens, the cancellation window, and the waitlist size.
5. 5.Waiver: the text each person accepts before their first class.
6. 6.Payments: open your payout account and run a test charge on yourself.
7. 7.Team: invite your coaches, each with only the permissions they need.
8. 8.Final test: sign a friend up from start to finish, on their phone, without help.

The last step teaches the most. Wherever your friend gets stuck is where your first members will get stuck too.

To price those plans, the maths starts with the cost of one hour of your room. How much to charge for a membership

What changes from one discipline to another

The five jobs are the same everywhere. What changes is which detail weighs most, and that is worth testing before you sign.

What it costs, and how to compare

Gym software is priced in different ways. There are flat monthly fees, tiers by active members, prices per location, and a fee on every payment. For a new gym, the pricing model matters as much as the number.

• Tiers by active members grow with you. You pay little while you have few members.
• A fee on each payment grows with your revenue, even when the system does the same work.
• Setup fees and long contracts weigh more on a business that does not yet know how many members it will have.

Always ask what happens to the price when you go from twenty to a hundred members. Write the answer down as a monthly amount.

The thirty-minute test

A demo shows what the seller chooses to show. A test you run yourself shows what you will use every day. Do these steps during a free trial, alone:

1. 1.Create a monthly plan and a ten-class pack. Time it.
2. 2.Create the 07:00 class Monday to Friday, with twelve spots, in one go.
3. 3.On a phone, sign up as a member, accept the waiver and book.
4. 4.On a second phone, try to book the same last spot.
5. 5.Cancel a booking and check whether the first person on the waitlist moves in by themselves.
6. 6.Issue a charge and pay it. Then find it in the payments list.
7. 7.Export the member list to a spreadsheet.

If any step made you ask for help, picture it at 06:45 with a class about to start. And note the last one: your data has to leave the system whenever you want.

The most expensive mistakes

• Choosing by feature count. Sixty half-finished features are worth less than twelve complete ones.
• Configuring everything on day one. Start with few plans and few rules, and add when a real case asks for it.
• Opening with two systems, one for bookings and one for payments. The two lists stop matching in week one.
• Leaving invoicing for later without a plan. Decide before opening where your invoices will come from.
• Testing only on your own phone. You already know where the buttons are, and members do not.

Run pre-sale inside the system

Pre-sale is the software's first test with real people. If it runs inside the system, every sign-up has the right plan, start date and payment.

• Create a founding member plan that starts on opening day. People who buy early lose no days.
• Ask for the waiver and contact details at sign-up, not at the door. The opening-day queue gets shorter.
• Take payment through the system, even if it is only a deposit. Then the list of who paid is the system's list.
• Keep people who showed interest but have not bought. They are the first to invite to the opening class.

On opening day, the member list, plans and payments are already right. The first week is for training and getting to know people.

The launch plan, from eight weeks out to opening week, is in another article. Gym launch marketing plan

Personal data from the first member

The software will hold personal data and sometimes health information. Before opening, check three things. Who on the team sees what. Where the data is stored. And how you delete the record of someone who leaves and asks you to.

How this works in Rummo

Rummo covers the five day-one jobs: plans and packs, bookings with capacity and a waitlist, each member's record, and the list of who has not paid. The timetable is written as a typical week and generates the weeks that follow.

Members book in a web app on their phone, with nothing to install from an app store. There is no native app. Notifications arrive in the app and by email.

Card and SEPA Direct Debit payments go into your own payout account. Rummo does not issue invoices yet, so invoices come from your accounting or invoicing tool.

Tiers and the opening price are on the pricing page. See Rummo pricing

You set up the week once and it generates the rest, with capacity per class and a waitlist. Class booking software