Process Auto-Renewal Memberships

By giving your members the option to auto-renew, you're making life easier for your members and your staff while creating a predictable source of revenue for your organization. Let's dive into the mechanics.

Helpful hint: To offer your members the option to auto-renew, add the "Renew Automatically" component to your membership application forms.

Process Steps

1. Create a Billing Run Template
2. Create a Recurring Billing Run
3. Authorize the Auto-Renewals

Step One: Create a Billing Run Template

CREATING A BILLING RUN TEMPLATE

1. Access the Membership & Committees application and navigate to the Setup tab. 
2. Navigate to the Billing dropdown and select Templates.
3. Select Create a Billing Template.

ENTER BILLING TEMPLATE BASIC INFORMATION

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

• A name for the billing run
• ID will autofill based on template name, but can be adjusted as necessary and must be unique
• An email address for completion notification
• Optionally, enter a description of what this billing template is intending to do

Select Actions

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

• 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

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

 
Auto-Renewal Reminders

• 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 that their auto-renewal was processed successfully. If you do not want to send a notice, simply leave the dropdown selection blank.
• Payment failure processing notice: Select one of the Billing Notice templates you created in Billing Setup to notify the member that there was an issue processing their auto-renewal. If you do not want to send a 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

Save the template

1. Review the information and actions associated with your billing template.
2. Once you're sure everything looks correct, click the blue Save button at the bottom. 
3. Now you can use your billing template in recurring billing runs or when creating a billing run manually!

Helpful hint: If you ever need to make changes to your template in the future, navigate to Billing Templates in Membership Setup and click the green pencil icon next to the appropriate billing template.

Step Two: Create a Recurring Billing Run

Creating a Recurring Billing Run

1. Access the Membership & Committees application and navigate to the Setup tab
2. Navigate to the Billing dropdown and select Recurring Runs
3. Select Create Recurring Billing Run

Enter Recurring Run Basic Information

• A name for the recurring billing run
• ID will autofill based on name, but can be adjusted as necessary and must be unique
• Select the billing template you created to process auto-renewals

Enter Pre-Processing Lead Time

In the next step, we ask you to set a pre-processing lead time. That's the number of days before the billing run is pre-processed so that your staff has the chance to preview the results and adjust anything as necessary before executing the run.

Helpful Hint: If you're like many other association staffers, you're probably busy wearing multiple hats. Best to give yourself a few days to review and approve the billing run to ensure it's executed on time!

Configure Your Billing Run Schedule

From here, you can determine the timing and frequency of your recurring billing run. How you fill this out is entirely dependent on how often your organization processes renewals. You can choose:

• Frequency: yearly, monthly, weekly, or daily
• Day or date: day of the week or specific date within a month
• Time: the specific time you'd like the billing run to execute

If you need to process billing runs on a more complex schedule, you can choose to go the advanced logic route. Reach out to our support team for any help.

Step Three: Authorize the Auto-Renewals

The Billing Run 360° Page

Once a billing run has been pre-processed, you can see all of the relevant information about the run on the Billing Run 360° page. 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.

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.

Execute a Billing Run

1. 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. 
2. 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.

3. 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.
4. Review the information under the Statistics tab one more time to make sure all of the information looks right.
5. 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.