Generating and Emailing Membership Invoices
There is a choice as to how your organisation deals with Memberships, namely:
Option 1. All memberships end on the same date
Option 2. Memberships can end on any date (= rolling membership)
This choice is set in the Member Wizard admin portal under settings > organisation details.
Under the Members tab of organisation details scroll down to select these options.
Option 1: All memberships end on the same date
Note that in this selection, the Days before end of current membership year membership invoice is allowed is set as well as the Membership end date and the Membership end month.
It is important to set Days before end of current membership year membership invoice is allowed so that an invoice can be generated before the start of the next membership year.
Option 2: Memberships can end on any date
In this option it is necessary to set up the Automatic Membership Invoice Reminders for Rolling Memberships. Check the box that Enables automatic invoice reminders for rolling before membership expires. Then set the number of Days before membership expiry. The minimum setting is 1 day. Fill in the Reminder email subject and reminder email message.
Rolling memberships allow membership renewal notices to be generated at all times of the year automatically thereby reducing the administrative burden and making new or part year payment memberships obsolete.
Some important information regarding membership renewal invoices.
When its time to email membership renewal invoices to your members, Member Wizard will identify those members whose membership has or is due to expire and send them an invoice for them to renew for the upcoming new membership period.
When you generate these reminders, an invoice is automatically generated and shows against the member's record in the Amount Owing column. Note that invoices will not be created for members with a membership type that has a zero cost.
If members pay this invoice through direct deposit into your organisation's bank account or face to face in the office, when you receipt the payment, Member Wizard will automatically update their membership paid to date in their member record.
If you have Stripe connected and they pay using their credit or debit card either online or face to face using Stripe then Member Wizard will automatically create and send them a receipt and update their membership paid to date in their member record.
Membership invoices and their matching receipts can be viewed by right clicking on the member's record in the Member List and selecting Statement.
Step 1: Before you start!
Membership invoices will be sent out based on the current membership type of the member. It is therefore important to make sure that all membership types and membership rates are current and correct.
Please note for Option 1. All memberships end on the same date
Part year memberships
If you have members with part year memberships because they joined say half way through the current year so have a 6 month membership type, then that's what Member Wizard will be sending out a membership invoice for which is probably not what you want. To avoid this you need to do a bulk change of membership types to bring all your members into line with a 12 month membership period.
New and Renewing Members
Similarly, some organisations have New Member and a Renewing Member membership types. It is necessary to change the New Member to a Renewing Member membership.
You can quickly do this in Members/Change Membership Type. Simply select the membership type you want to change from and then the one you want to change to as shown below and click next.
The next screen will show all the members of that first membership type. Click the box beside Select All at the top of the list (if you wish to change all) then click the Change Selected Members button in the bottom right to change them all to the correct full year membership type.
Check the Members / Undeliverable Emails list
The other important step to take before emailing out Membership Reminders is check the Members / Undeliverable Emails list. Here is where the Bounced Email Address, Unsubscribed and Member Reported your Email as Spam lists are found.
Anyone on these lists will not receive a reminder - or any email. It is essential to resolve these bounced, unsubscribed and spam reported emails before sending out reminders or remove the email addresses for these members then use Communications /Print Reminders instead to print and post out reminders.
Step 2: Click on Members/Email Membership Invoices
Once you've ensured all your members have the right membership type click on Members/Create Membership Invoice.
The system will default in the one month ahead of the current date in the Expiring Before field. This can be edited if you require. The Subject and Message fields are mandatory. Enter something appropriate in each area.
Click Next, to select recipients and send
Step 3: Select the members you wish to send Reminders to.
Click Select All to select/deselect all the members listed. Note that if the member owes any money as shown in the Amount Owing column this this amount will also appear on the emailed membership reminder.
Click Send. The system will then show an amount owing against each of the member's records which will be removed once a receipt is generated. The column in the Member List called Membership Invoiced To will be populated with the date you sent out the Reminder.
