Create a Membership Billing Run from Scratch – Rhythm

When creating a Billing Run in Rhythm, you have the option to select one of your preconfigured templates (you create these yourself based on common billing run actions you perform often) or you can make one from scratch. Making one from scratch is a great option when:

You want to drop members in bulk as a way to clean up old data from your legacy system
You noticed an automated billing run didn't pick up certain members and you want to include them before the next cycle
You noticed membership renewals are lower than you expected, so you want to send one more reminder
You prefer to manage this process manually
You thought of something we haven't 😉

Helpful Hint: When you create a Billing Run from scratch, you will have the option to use a pre-configured Notice. Please see Create a Membership Billing Run Template under the Create a Billing Run Notice section for assistance.

Creating a Billing Run from Scratch

Access the Membership & Committees application and navigate to the Billing tab.
Select the Create a Billing Run button.
Select Create Billing Run from Scratch option at the bottom of the list.

Select Actions

Select the Actions you want this billing run to take on your members.

Generate renewal notices: Rather than process an order or invoice, simply send an email to members who are approaching their expiration date
Generate renewal orders: Generates orders and invoices for members approaching their expiration date who have not opted to renew automatically
Send renewal reminders: Send out reminders to those who have already been billed, but have yet to renew their membership
Send expiring credit card reminders: Alert auto-renewal members when their card will be expired at the time of their renewal
Send reminders to auto-renewal members: Notify members who have opted into auto-renewal that their credit cards will soon be charged
Process credit cards for auto-renewal members: Charge credit cards and process renewals for members who have opted to renew automatically
Drop/terminate expired members: Set a termination date and drop members who have not renewed

Enter Billing Run Info

With every billing run, there is standard information you will need to provide:

A name for the billing run
An email address for completion notification
A date and time to process the billing run

Helpful Hint: No matter when you choose to process a billing run, Rhythm will ask you to preview the results before it is executed. So, when you schedule a run for a future date, you will also need to determine how many hours of notice you'll need on the processing day.

As for the rest of the information we need, that really depends on the actions you selected in the previous step. Let's take a look at what that looks like:

Generate Renewal Notices

Expiration dates: Search for members who have an expiration date within a specific date range. This is helpful when you're targeting a specific period of time.
Billing notice: Select one of the Billing Notice templates you created in Billing Setup to notify the member of their upcoming expiration. This allows you to have unique emails for different membership types in different phases of the membership journey. If you do not want to send a billing notice, simply leave the dropdown selection blank.
Membership types: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership types.
Membership packages: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership packages.
Sub-status reason: Segment the billing run by only including certain sub-status reasons

Generate Renewal Orders

Expiration dates: Search for members who have an expiration date within a specific date range. This is helpful when you're targeting a specific period of time.
Billing notice: Select one of the Billing Notice templates you created in Billing Setup to notify the member of their upcoming expiration. This allows you to have unique emails for different membership types in different phases of the membership journey. If you do not want to send a billing notice, simply leave the dropdown selection blank.
Pro forma orders and invoices: Select this checkbox so that the revenue is not recognized until the invoice is paid.
Membership types: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership types.
Membership packages: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership packages.
Sub-status reason: Segment the billing run by only including certain sub-status reasons

Reminders - Renewal / Auto-Renewal / Expiring Credit Cards

Notice: Click the "+ Add Reminder" to add one or several reminders to the process
Date range: Determine expiration date ranges using the date selection fields
Membership types: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership types.
Membership packages: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership packages.
Sub-status reason: Segment the billing run by only including certain sub-status reasons

Process Credit Cards for Auto-Renewal Members

Expiration dates: Search for members who have an expiration date within a specific date range. This is helpful when you're targeting a specific period of time.
Successful processing notice: Select one of the Billing Notice templates you created in Billing Setup to notify the member of their upcoming expiration. This allows you to have unique emails for different membership types in different phases of the membership journey. If you do not want to send a billing notice, simply leave the dropdown selection blank.
Payment failure processing notice: Same as above.
Membership types: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership types.
Membership packages: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership packages.
Sub-status reason: Segment the billing run by only including certain sub-status reasons

Drop/Terminate Expired Members

Expiration dates: Search for members who have an expiration date within a specific date range. This is helpful when you're targeting a specific period of time.
Drop notice: Select one of the Billing Notice templates you created in Billing Setup to notify the member of their upcoming expiration. This allows you to have unique emails for different membership types in different phases of the membership journey. If you do not want to send a billing notice, simply leave the dropdown selection blank.
Membership types: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership types.
Membership packages: Segment the billing run by only including certain membership packages.
Sub-status reason: Segment the billing run by only including certain sub-status reasons
Committee memberships: Expire any associated committee memberships automatically
Deactivate associated certifications: If any of your certifications require active membership for activation, select this option to automatically deactivate them.

Helpful hint: If you drop organizational memberships, Rhythm will also drop any individually inherited memberships associated with the organization.

Review Billing Run for Pre-Processing

Review the information and actions associated with your billing run.
Once you're sure everything looks correct, click the Schedule Billing Run button.
Once you have scheduled the billing run, Rhythm will take you to the Billing Run 360° page.

Helpful hint: If you navigate away from this page, you can always return to it by heading over to the Billing tab in the Membership + Billing app. Use the search functionality or Recently Viewed Billing Runs to find what you're looking for.

The Billing Run 360° Page

The Billing Run 360° page has all of the relevant information about the run. From here, you can clone, execute, or cancel a run.

At the top of the page, you can easily see the pre-processing date and the status of the run. In the tabs below, you can see the Details, Statistics, and Actions on the run.

Execute a Billing Run

Take a look at the information in the Statistics tab for a high-level look at your billing run. From here, you can see statistics for each action by status.
See which members will be included in the run under the Actions tab. You can choose to review the entire list or use the available filters to search by a specific member, action, or status.
- Error Status: If Rhythm identifies any error that would prevent a member from completing an action, the platform will notify you in the Status column. Hover over the error to determine the cause of the issue so that you can correct it before executing the run.
- Exclude / Include: If you want to exclude a specific member, you may do so by clicking the actionable text in the far-right column. If the exclusion was made in error, you can always choose to include them later.
  
  Helpful Hint: You will not be able to exclude a member once a billing run has been executed, so be sure to review the list carefully.
Once you have corrected any errors and made any necessary exclusions, refresh the billing run by clicking the green Refresh button at the top of the page.
Review the information under the Statistics tab one more time to make sure all of the information looks right.
Once it does, click the blue Run Now button.

Cancel

If for any reason you decide you don't want to execute a billing run, simply click the red Cancel Run button at the top of the page.

Helpful Hint: You will not be able to cancel a billing run once it has been executed.

Clone

If you want to make a similar run in the future, click the Clone button at the top of the page. This will bring you back to the billing run editor with all of the previous settings pre-selected. From there, you can make any necessary adjustments.