Small Farm Central

We are working on a new feature for the Member Assembler which we think will radically change how you think about getting paid by your CSA members.

Automated Scheduled Billing will simplify the billing process for your CSA by allowing your customers to pay for shares by choosing one of several farmer-defined payment plans and authorizing future payments that will be taken automatically against the credit card on file for that member.

For example, say your CSA costs $500. On February 3rd a customer signs up and pays the required $100 down payment, which leaves a balance of $400. With Automated Scheduled Billing, the customer will authorize their card to be billed (for example) on a monthly basis for 4 months:
March 1st: $100
April 1st: $100
May 1st: $100
June 1st: $100

On those dates, our system will automatically attempt to bill the credit card on file for the amounts shown and, if all goes well, you will simply receive a receipt and the funds will trickle into your bank account. If there are problems with a declined or expired card, the customer will be asked to provide new credit card details without farmer intervention.

The payment plan shown above is just a sample use-case and these payment plans will be completely customizable to each farm's needs.

We think this will be a vast improvement over any other CSA payment mechanism and a really powerful addition to the Member Assembler service. Finally, this is a compelling reason to accept credit cards for your CSA.

Another positive benefit about using a system like this is that we can get you lower credit card rates. Your rates will likely be about 2.1% instead of the 3% that Google Checkout or Paypal charges and it can be tied to your swipe-based credit card system if you have one. However, there are monthly fees associated with running this type of 'payment gateway' that is a requirement for safely storing credit card information like this.

I'll be back in touch with more details when this feature is ready for your Member Assembler, but we'd love hear from you. Does this sound like something you would use for your CSA? Leave comments in the comments section.