> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.1club.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Billing overview

> How plans, transactions, invoices, bill runs, and payments fit together in 1Club.

Billing in 1Club is built on three distinct concepts that are deliberately kept separate. Once you have the model in your head, every screen in the **Billing** menu lines up.

* A **transaction** is what someone owes you. One row per obligation (a booking fee, a membership charge, a signup fee). Has a `paymentStatus` of `pending`, `paid`, `overdue`, `void`, `partially_paid`, `refunded`, or `cancelled`.
* A **payment** is how money was collected. One row per settlement event, linked to one or more transactions via a join table.
* An **invoice** is a document that groups outstanding transactions for a contact, with a number and a due date. Invoices don't move money on their own.

This separation is why you can record a payment without ever issuing an invoice (e.g. taking cash at the front desk for a single booking), and why an invoice can contain transactions from several different bookings or memberships.

## The Billing menu

| Page                                  | What it lists                 | When to use it                                                      |
| ------------------------------------- | ----------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Plans](/billing/plans)               | Membership and pass templates | Set up pricing tiers and recurrence rules.                          |
| [Transactions](/billing/transactions) | Individual obligations        | Audit what's owed, void mistakes, charge or record payment in bulk. |
| [Invoices](/billing/invoices)         | Receivable documents          | Issue formal invoices, send payment links, download PDFs.           |
| [Bill runs](/billing/bill-runs)       | Batch invoice generations     | Roll up a month of pending transactions into invoices in one go.    |
| [Payments](/billing/payments)         | Settlement records            | See what's been collected, including who recorded it.               |

[Payment methods](/settings/payment-methods) is also part of billing, but lives under **Settings** because it's a one-time configuration: which methods (Stripe, cash, bank transfer, wallet) your organization accepts.

## How a charge usually flows

The typical flow for a paid activity is:

1. A booking, membership, or signup fee is created. 1Club writes a **transaction** with `paymentStatus = pending` (or `paid` if the amount is zero).
2. Either the system or an admin collects payment. That can happen up front (Stripe Payment Element in the member portal, or an admin recording a manual payment), at check-in if the booking policy says so, or later from an invoice.
3. When the payment succeeds, 1Club creates a **payment** row, links it to the transaction(s) via `payment_transactions`, and flips the transaction's status to `paid`. Pending bookings tied to that transaction are confirmed.

Invoices are optional. They get created when:

* You manually invoice a transaction from its details page.
* You run a [bill run](/billing/bill-runs), which sweeps every pending non-void transaction for a period and groups them into invoices.
* A scheduled bill run fires on a cron (configured under **Settings > Billing > Automated bill runs**).

## Recurring memberships

For recurring plans, an hourly job (`recurring-transactions`) does three things:

* Creates the next `membership_recurrence` transaction when a billing period rolls over.
* For memberships flagged **payment required up front**, it attempts to charge the contact's default Stripe payment method when the recurrence becomes due. If no default method is on file or the charge fails, the transaction stays `pending`.
* Marks any `pending` transaction whose due date is in the past as `overdue`.

It does not send invoices and it does not retry failed charges. Retries are manual: open the transaction or invoice and use **Charge** or **Add payment**.

## What lives where

* Transaction obligations: **Billing > Transactions**.
* Settlement events and the **Created by** column: **Billing > Payments**.
* Invoice documents, PDFs, and payment links: **Billing > Invoices**.
* Batch invoice generation: **Billing > Bill runs**.
* Plan templates: **Billing > Plans**.
* Stripe connection, manual payment methods, tax rates, revenue accounts: **Settings > Billing**.

## Related

* [Plans](/billing/plans)
* [Transactions](/billing/transactions)
* [Invoices](/billing/invoices)
* [Bill runs](/billing/bill-runs)
* [Payments](/billing/payments)
* [Payment methods](/settings/payment-methods)
* [Export](/settings/export) - CSV and QuickBooks bundle for accounting handoff.