“If only we knew then what we know now”…wait, scratch that. We knew processing fee’s for ACH (Automatic Clearing House) payments were much less then those of Credit Cards, but while running Shockoe Bottom CrossFit, Ryan and I failed in the beginning to truly recognize what was being offered to our business because it was time consuming. 

Granted all of this talk about how time consuming the actual process was, is now a moot point. Triib has since invested back into their customers by integrating Plaid into the platform to make verification instant. Not to mention, ACH is also the safer form of payment for your customers and you don’t have to worry about credit card expiration dates either. Double Win. 

ACH payments prior to Triib’s integration with Plaid required a two step process including micro deposits. This took time, time we never thought we had so we just processed everything via credit card. Truthfully, we never even asked if there was a preference and none of our members seemed to care either despite the security benefit of ACH. Looking back now, I can’t help but to hear myself talking to our members about the varying of results based on the time invested in the gym. I know, insert foot into mouth at this very moment. It’s totally relatable though. 

Ryan and Mandi, owners of Shockoe Bottom CrossFit

If any of you have booked your own Account Management call with me, you know I have a passion for helping through education. So for Ryan’s and my own personal education, I went back and looked at our first year financial report. This truly puts it all in perspective. Let’s put it this way, it’s a large Rogue barbell and weight order, it’s multiple bikes or rowers, or that really awesome 100 foot strip of turf we want…ugh yep, we could have saved that much money in one year by processing primarily ACH invoices vs credit card. When I looked at our total income and subtracted the cash payments and compared the percentages we would have saved almost $2,200. IN ONE YEAR. That’s more than one members monthly membership for an entire year in my gym. Maybe I am partial, but I think our coaching staffing is amazing and Ryan’s competitive knowledge that so gracefully transitions to our newest members, I think a year of our guidance is worth a lot, but this savings is even more than what we have valued that at. Mind blown. 

Obviously, lesson learned. We have since switched our memberships to primarily bill ACH and although this in itself seems time consuming, it truly isn’t. I drafted an email explaining our desire to invest that money back into the gym in various ways, attached the directions on how to switch billing type from profile dashboard, and set a deadline for it to be done completed by, selected all active members on the email and boom…. it was done! Of course we offered our assistance to any who needed it as well as offered to walk them through it in the gym if they needed it, but everyone was able to accomplish it with no issues. So, I highly recommend investing the time now and you will reap the rewards long term. Promise! 

Have you saved money by switching to ACH? Share your story below!