Billing

This is the page where your church pays GCM. It is not the giving module — donations from your members live under Giving. This page is about your church's monthly subscription to the platform itself.

What lives here

Three things, top to bottom:

1. Current plan — the plan you're on, your status (trial / active / past due / canceled), your card on file, and the date of your next charge or trial end.
2. Choose a plan — every plan we offer with a one-click switcher. The plan you're on is marked Current. Growth is marked Most Popular.
3. Billing history — every charge, refund, and invoice we've ever generated for your church.

If you're a platform-admin staff impersonating an org, the Subscription Controls card at the bottom gives you the dangerous buttons (cancel, resume, force renew).

The lifecycle in plain English

A new church signs up and lands on a 14-day trial of the Starter plan. The trial gives full access — no card required to start. Sometime before day 14 you pick a plan and enter a card.

When you subscribe, we hand you off to a hosted payment page (PowerTranz or Genius Checkout — see Adding a payment method). You type your card details there, not on GCM. We get back a token, store the token + your card brand + last 4, and use the token to charge you the same date every month.

If a renewal fails, the system enters dunning — we retry 3 days later, then 4 days after that. Two failed retries in a row and we mark the subscription canceled. You can rescue it by updating the card and clicking Pay now. See Invoices & failed payments.

You can cancel at period end any time. We don't refund unused days — your access runs until the date you've already paid for, then stops.

Key terms

• Plan — the tier you're subscribed to. Determines your member cap and which features are unlocked. See Understanding plans.
• Trial — 14 days of full access before you enter a card. Configurable per plan in the plans.trial_days column.
• Card on file — a tokenized reference to your card stored at the payment gateway. GCM never sees the full PAN.
• Next billing date — the date we'll attempt the next charge. Shown on the current-plan card with a days away badge.
• Past due — a charge failed. We'll retry; you have ~7 days to update the card before the subscription is canceled.
• Cancel at period end — auto-renew is off, but you keep access until the date you've already paid for.
• Dunning — the retry + email sequence after a failed payment.

What you can do from this page

Action	Where on the page
See how many days are left on your trial	Trial banner near top of Current plan card
Subscribe (convert trial → paid)	Click any plan tile, or Subscribe now button
Switch plans	Click a different plan tile, or Pay early
Update card on file	Update card button next to the card display
Pay an overdue invoice	Pay now button when status is past due
Cancel auto-renew	Cancel at period end in the red Subscription Controls card
Resume auto-renew	Resume auto-renew (same place, only shown if cancellation is pending)
Download an invoice	Hover the row in billing history, click the download icon
Refund a charge	Hover the row in billing history, click the refund icon (admin only)

What this page does NOT do

• Manage donations from members. That's Giving. Different gateway flow, different reports, different concept.
• Configure payment gateway credentials. That's done at the platform level by GCM staff — not by churches.
• Issue refunds for donations. Refunds here only apply to subscription charges your church paid to GCM. Member-donation refunds happen in the giving module.

Permissions

Action	Admin	Treasurer	Shepherd	Member
View current plan + card	yes	yes	no	no
Switch plan / pay	yes	no	no	no
Update card on file	yes	no	no	no
View billing history	yes	yes	no	no
Download invoices	yes	yes	no	no
Refund a charge	yes	no	no	no
Cancel subscription	yes	no	no	no

Only org admins can change the plan, card, or cancellation state. Treasurers can read everything for bookkeeping but can't make changes.

Next steps

1. Understanding plans — what each tier includes and the member caps.
2. Adding a payment method — your first card on file.
3. Upgrading your plan — moving from trial → paid, or up a tier.
4. Downgrading — moving down a tier.
5. Invoices & failed payments — billing history, downloads, refunds, dunning.
6. Cancellation & offboarding — turning auto-renew off and what happens to your data.