Fitness Studio Operations Metrics: What to Track and Why

Operations metrics can help build a pathway to success for your fitness studio. After all, running and operating a gym can be a lot of work, but the reward is worth it. To keep your fitness studio on track on the front end as well as the back, here are the basics:

Payroll 

Being able to easily and quickly access payroll information is crucial to a smooth operations department. Payroll should not be a lengthy and time-consuming process. Whether you have W2 or 1099 staff, hourly or salary employees, a strong system for tracking and reporting payroll can save you precious time. With clear and straightforward records, you should avoid the headache of ever having a discrepancy on pay. Furthermore, if your team members need to access their own records for proof of income purposes, they should have the ability to easily print them via this user-friendly format without having to go through you.

Session per Staff 

Knowing the number of sessions being set per staff member is a useful tool. From a group training aspect, this can also help you or your managers with scheduling details. It can serve as a check and balance for payroll numbers as well. Furthermore, it can help with how you manage your PT Manager. If you have a PT Manager role and you are wanting to ensure they have time to perform managerial duties, you may decide to limit the number of sessions they can take themselves. In this case, you can run this report to ensure they are not taking too many or too few sessions. To help this person hold themselves accountable, one approach would be to set up a process where they run the report and submit a copy to you weekly or bi-weekly along with a summary of what they worked on for the week. Finding the right balance between what the PT Manager does themselves and what they delegate and manage can be tricky, so having a process in play to keep this on track is crucial so it doesn’t sway too far in one direction or the other. This simple report can serve as a helpful way to set that up.

Staff Utilization 

Simply put, this means: “Utilization summary per session for staff.” This metric gives you an idea of how staff uses its time in order to increase profitability.

Client Login Count 

This report is centered around usage. You will be able to see how many clients logged in the last 30 days, which can help you determine the flow of how busy you will be in certain months and prepare for in future months or years. Additionally, you can see when clients have started to become inactive and reach out to them in some way to get them coming in again.

Late Cancels 

Most health clubs have some type of system in place for cancellation policies. Whether you require 24-hour advance notice to cancel, or just a few hours prior to their session, being able to tag when they are late can be useful. If you have a client with habitual lateness, you may ask your trainer to speak with them directly about it and offer some help finding a time slot that works better.

New Clients 

It can be helpful to have the ability to quickly pull a list of new clients. Your purpose may be to review the success of the month, or it may be to reach out to them to thank and welcome them. No matter what your reasoning, being able to easily access this information is a necessity.

Member Movement 

From time to time, you may want to access a list of all credit changes over a filtered date range. Use this type of report to review both billing information and billing amount changes. If you are experiencing a lot in either, this may be indicative of a bigger issue. Lowering your monthly dues is never a good idea. However, if you are seeing an increase due to members upgrading, this can provide playback of how many upgrades you got in a certain time frame. Tracking this can give you insight into what works best to encourage upgrades. As far as billing information changes, seeing a lot of changes can be positive or negative. The pro is that your members are changing their info and not defaulting on a payment. The con is that this might indicate that you should be getting more direct bank draft information, and less credit or debit cards since these are changed more often.

Daily Schedule 

You or a manager should prepare daily for what to expect that day. This summary of all sessions, classes, and workshops for a selected date can help you accomplish exactly that. You can also use this report to do confirmations of clients who have booked. If there are any important announcements you want to have your instructors or trainers share that day, you can also see at a glance who needs this information. Since you can select which day, you can also better prepare for your schedules in advance and ensure you will have the right coverage.

No Shows 

When clients do not show to a session that they RSVP’d to, this can create some operating challenges. Depending on your policies, you may get stuck paying a trainer or instructor even though they had people no show. Having this data can help. You can identify if you need to set more solid appointments, or if you need to have a system in place for confirmations and reminders. You can also see if there are any members not showing up regularly, and address this accordingly.

Recent Attendees 

If you are looking to review recent activity, this useful report counts the number of clients that have attended in the last 15 days. This is quick enough to identify a slope and determine why and how to correct it if there is an issue. However, a slow week may be simply due to a holiday or other popular event in the area. If you notice on a yearly basis, a lot of your members seem to skip out for a local event, you can plan ahead the following year to see how you can get involved and have your branding seen at that event. Since payroll is often done bi-monthly, use it to reconcile any discrepancies.

Attendance by Session Type 

A strong knowledge of your best-performing classes or sessions is crucial for member satisfaction. You want to be able to add more of the most popular ones as the demands increase, or remove under-performing ones when needed. This report can help you stay engaged in the ebb and flow of attendance, and be one step ahead to meet your members’ and clients’ needs.

Attendance Summary 

Reviewing an attendance summary allows you to identify what your prime hours and days are. This is exceptionally important data in order to best serve your members and provide top notch service. Having this knowledge provides insight into how to best prepare your schedules. A schedule where your best team members are there during your busiest times and they are not short-handed is ideal. Conversely, being unaware of this information can create customer service issues.

Location Summary with KPI 

Having a dashboard available containing a summary of your key performance indicators is a necessity. You can easily and quickly compare the following factors that are included in this all-in-one report:

• Active members
• New members
• Sessions
• Attendees/check-ins
• Utilization
• First visits
• Gross revenue
• Recurring revenue
• One-time payments
• Gross revenue (No POS)
• Total payments
• Gross ATV
• ReferralPCT
• Retention%

This gives you an overview of how your location is performing overall month by month, in each of the most important factors for a fitness business. For example, knowing your total active members versus your total members gives you insight into your club’s activity level. You can also view a quick comparison of your cash and draft amounts through reviewing gross and recurring revenue, which is vital information to have for cash flow purposes. Your gross ATV (average transaction value) and retention percentage are also important to know, as these metrics can help you identify room for improvement.

POS History 

Most businesses that have a point of sale have some sort of system in place to monitor them, often organized by employee “opening” and “closing” a cash drawer. Even if cash is not accepted inside the business, this is a way to hold each employee accountable that every item was applied correctly. Especially when it comes to gym memberships, it is crucial that payments are applied to the correct member’s account. Having a great, user-friendly system can help prevent a lot of issues. Having a process to ensure no issues occur is the next step. Train a manager to use this report the next day and evaluate the previous day's transactions for verification purposes. If errors arise during this reconciliation process, you can fix it quickly.

Amount Due 

Any EFT business needs to have a system set up to collect dues. Many fitness businesses will do a portion of this themselves, then outsource the rest. The first step is having a way to easily pull a report of what is owed. Then you can determine your method of reaching that person to collect payment.

Bank Transfers 

This report is always a positive one to see! Viewing the transfers going into your bank account is a great way to see your hard working paying off. You may also use it for accounting purposes, so this may be one to provide directly to your accountant on a predetermined timeline like every week or month. You can also compare it to a revenue report to ensure correct processing.

Billing History 

If you ever have a customer service issue overbilling, you will need this report to see a detailed history for a particular client or member. Sometimes a member may have a past due bill and get billed for two months. If you have late fees added onto to the charge too, this can catch a member off guard to see a larger than expected bill, and they can come into your club upset and confused. Train your managers to take the time to sit down and go over the details if this ever happens in your gym. A little bit of patience and understanding goes a long way with disgruntled members. Empower your managers with tools to overcome any situation. This can also turn an upset member back into a raving fan. For example, you can give them access to be able to waive late fees as a one-time courtesy or offer a coupon for a free smoothie. Outside of billing issues, this report can also be used to give members who get some sort of reimbursement for membership, whether through their insurance or employer.

Failed Payments 

Failed payments is another crucial thing to know for collection purposes. Collection rates for members that default on their monthly dues are higher if the member is notified immediately. Data gathered through failed payment reports help managers and other employees proactively connect with members whose payment is declined. They can then confirm the member's preferred method of billing and collect payment.

Failed Payment History 

In this report, you can easily see the history of failed payments next to the member’s current status. This can help you identify that there might be a pattern of default that is the result of invalid billing information, or the billing date consistently falls on a day that is a hardship for the member. By utilizing this report, employees are able to identify potential issues that may diminish member satisfaction, and increase the businesses’ bottom line.

Outstanding Payment Requests 

When a member has a balance on their account, you or someone assigned this task are likely already attempting to reach them for payment. This report helps create a list of all outstanding payment requests, which is helpful for collection purposes. You can also use it as another way to ensure checks and balances, making sure payments post correctly.

Suspended Memberships 

If a member fails to pay over a certain timeframe, they will lose access to their membership. You can have a predetermined time setup for when the membership goes into a suspended status. This may provide more urgency for the member to settle their account, especially if they are active. You can also place an alert upon check-in. Then, train your staff how to calmly pull the member aside and broach the subject. This can be a sensitive subject, especially if the person has gone into debt due to unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, proper training of your staff on handling collection accounts is crucial. You can also use this report as a list for collections outreach. We understand change can be difficult. Book a demo and see for yourself what we have to offer. We built OneFitStop with you in mind as a fitness studio owner and want to help you automate operations, increase revenue, and nurture client relationships.