Payment Processing Best Practices for Gyms and Fitness Centers

12 Tips for Gym Payment Processing

Keeping your gym payments secure is vital to your health club. Most gym owners are unaware of what exactly they should be doing to ensure secure and accurate payment processing on member dues and point of sale (POS) transactions.

In order to educate gym owners on gym payment processing, Motionsoft has compiled a list of 12 payment processing best practices that your fitness or wellness center facility should be implementing to protect your business while ensure the accuracy and security of member credit card and ACH transactions.

1. Ensure your vendor provides fully automated payment processing services and Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) on all batch and POS transactions including automated reporting that is integrated throughout your gym management software platform.
2. Make sure your payment processor is PCI Certified.
3. Obtain consent from the cardholder and document the following information:
   • Cardholder name and billing address
   • Card type/account number
   • Card expiration date
   • Transaction amount or minimum or maximum transaction amounts if the transactions may vary
   • Frequency of recurring charges
   • Duration of time that cardholder permission is granted for recurring charges
4. Retain a copy of the cardholder’s consent for the duration of the recurring membership
   • Obtain an authorization and a valid approval
   • Include the expiration date in the authorization request
5. Use fraud detection tools to verify the legitimacy and accuracy of the cardholder i.e. AVS, CVV2/CVC2 and for e-commerce transactions Verified by Visa or MasterCard Secure Code
6. While a point of sale (POS) transaction is being processed check the card’s features and security elements. Do they appear legitimate?
   • Are all characters the same size, height and style and within alignment
   • Is the hologram damaged?
   • Does it have a magnetic stripe on the back of the card?
   • If so, has it been altered?
   • Has the signature panel been altered?
7. Always swipe the card when possible. When unable to swipe the card always obtain an imprint of the card
8. Only process the transaction when a valid approval code has been obtained for POS transactions
9. If a decline is received ask for another form of payment
10. Get the signature on the receipt when required.  Compare the name, number and signature on the card to those on the transaction receipt.
11. For unsigned credit cards
    • Check the cardholder’s ID
    • Ask the customer to sign the card in your presence
12. Look out for suspicious behavior
    • Always be on the lookout for customer behavior that appears suspicious or out of the ordinary
    • Purchasing high value or large amounts with seemingly no concern for size, style, color or prize
    • Trying to distract or rush sales associate during a transaction
    • Making purchases, leaving the store, and then returning to make more purchases

We take pride in our payment processing expertise, so if you have any questions about payment processing please visit our detailed gym payment processing page or email our sales team and we will answer any questions you have.