Everything that has to exist before a member can pay you

There is a strange dead zone between the fit-out finishing and the doors opening, and gyms lose weeks in it because nobody wrote down what “ready to take a member” actually means. It means five systems working end to end, and the right people rostered to run them. Set this up before pre-sale, because a pre-sale without working billing is a list of people you cannot charge.

The five systems

• Billing and memberships. Direct debit that runs without you touching it, a membership agreement your lawyer has read against the Australian Consumer Law and your state's fitness-specific rules, and a cancellation process you would be comfortable defending to fair trading. The agreement is a stage 3 item; this stage is making the software enforce it.
• Access control. For a 24/7 model this is the business. Doors, fobs or app entry, CCTV coverage, and the duty-of-care procedures for unstaffed hours your insurer expects. Tell your insurer exactly how unstaffed access works, because cover that does not match reality is not cover.
• Bookings and class management. If classes are part of the model, capacity, waitlists and coach rosters need to work before the timetable is public, not after.
• A lead pipeline. Every enquiry from the pre-sale onwards lands somewhere, gets followed up on a schedule, and nothing depends on the owner's memory. This is the system the next stage runs on.
• Money visibility. A weekly view of joins, cancellations, failed payments and cash position. Failed direct debits quietly become your biggest leak if nobody owns chasing them.

Pick software before you hire, because the systems define the jobs. One honest note on our own position: gymfactories.com is published by the team behind Zalio, gym management software our own gym runs on. This page works no matter whose software you choose, and the checklist above is vendor neutral on purpose.

Staffing, without invented numbers

We publish no wage benchmarks here, because the real numbers are free and current from the primary source. Most gym employees in Australia sit under the Fitness Industry Award, and the Fair Work Ombudsman publishes the current pay rates, casual loadings, penalty rates and the pay calculator. Check the current award rates there before you model a roster, and put your first employment contracts past an HR adviser or employment lawyer, especially around casual versus part-time and what your coaches are actually engaged to do. If you engage contractors, ask your accountant where the contractor line genuinely sits for a coach who works only for you, because getting that wrong is expensive in arrears.

Roster from your floor plan and your timetable, not from optimism: who is in the building at peak, who covers unstaffed hours remotely for a 24/7 site, and what the wage bill does to the break-even number you carried from stage 4. Wages are usually the biggest operating line after rent; when the roster changes, the break-even changes, so re-run it.

Who verifies this stage

The Fair Work Ombudsman's published rates for the award floor, an employment adviser or lawyer for contracts, your accountant for the wage model and contractor questions, and your insurer for the unstaffed-hours procedures. Nothing on this page is employment or legal advice.