Setting up Organization Joins

You can set up easy-to-use memberships for organizations. The Join Now membership makes it easy to create and purchase a company membership for a variety of organizations, such as trade associations. The following will walk you through the process of setting up a company join for your website.

  1. In the Advanced Accounting Console go to Settings > Billing > Billing products.
  2. Create a new Dues product. Dues products should be used for all normal organization dues items. The DUES code is used for standard, non-optional dues line items that are cross-referenced on the Set up customer types window.
    1. Select New, and choose a Product Type of DUES.
    2. Enter a Code. Choose a code that is unique and descriptive of your dues product. For example, for our Organization membership, enter the code ORG.

      3. Note: The code entered should not contain any spaces or special characters other than an underscore ( _ ), and should contain no more than 15 alphanumeric characters.

    3. Provide a Title and Description, as desired.
    4. Enter a Standard Price for Regular and Non-Member pricing.

      5. Note: This price must be written in standard currency format.

    5. Select a G/L account for the income generated from the dues item.
    6. Enter a Pay Priority of 1. This priority determines the order in which the billing products are displayed and paid for. The higher the priority number, the lower the priority. A product with a Pay Priority of 1 will always come first.

    7. Click Save.

Customer types define the categories to which you assign each customer record. These types designate the broad classification of customer categories.

  1. In the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Settings > Membership > Customer Types, and click New.
  2. Enter a Type that is unique and meaningful. For our Organization example, enter a type of ORG, to correspond with the organization billing product we created previously.
  3. In the Description field, enter the descriptive, full name of the organization that corresponds to the code you assigned in the Type field.
  4. Select the Is a Company checkbox to indicate an organization customer type.
  5. Enter a Dues Billing Code that corresponds to the dues item created previously. These entries dictate the dues products that will be automatically billed for each customer type. Do not enter add-on products that are optional or that vary from customer to customer. For our example, enter ORG.

  6. Click Save.

The billing cycle is used to define the product the General Product Display content item displays on the web. The billing cycle determines which items are included in the Join Now product, as well as the customer Type to which the person will be set when they submit the cart to purchase the Join Now item:

  1. In the Advanced Accounting Console, go to Settings > Billing > Billing Cycles, and click New.
  2. Enter a descriptive Cycle Name. The Cycle Name will appear as the title of the product in the content. We will enter Organization since we are creating an organization Join Now membership.

    3. Note: The billing cycle name should not have underscores in it, only spaces.

  3. From the Forms drop-down, select Dues Renewal Notice.
  4. Select the Member Type to bill. Be sure to select only one Member Type. For our organization example, select the ORG Member Type.
  5. Choose which categories to include. Select *ALL*.
  6. Select the Add Member Type Items checkbox to designate the billing cycle as a Dues billing.
  7. Enable the Use for web joins and Use to display itemized web renewals checkboxes.

    • Use for web joins – This option determines whether the billing cycle can be used to allow new members to join on the Web. If this option is selected, the billing cycle is available to be used to join online.
    • Use to display itemized web renewals – If selected, each individual item in the renewal product is displayed. If not selected, you will see one product that contains the individual items.
      • To avoid errors in displaying renewal invoices, do not select Add Member Type Items when Use to display itemized web renewals is selected. Also, do not select *ALL* in the Member Types list. Select each member type individually to view itemized dues renewal options.
      • If the Use to display itemized web renewals option is selected, users will in some cases be redirected to a Renewal Detail screen when they add a renewal product to the shopping cart. The user will see all the billing products that are selected in the billing cycle as well as any other products that might be present in the invoice, and can add/remove products that are optional. Products of type DUES, CHAPT and MISC are mandatory. The renewal detail page appears only if the following are all true:
        • The user was billed using only cash dues. If any dues were billed on a real/accrual invoice, then there will not be a link in the cart entry for the renewal fees, and any adjustments must be performed by Staff users in the Advanced Accounting Console.
        • The billed amount and the current balance are the same. If they are not, then the user can pay the full amount due through the web-based sites, but cannot make adjustments. This can happen if the dues item is partially paid, has been manually adjusted by staff, or has a balance forward from a prior billing period.
        • The Use to display itemized web renewals option is selected.

      For accrual dues, all outstanding renewal invoices are represented in the Renew Now process. When a member clicks Renew Now, all outstanding invoices are placed in the cart. They can remove any invoice that they do not want to pay at that time. They can always pay outstanding renewal invoices from the Open Invoices list on their account page. For cash dues, if the Maintain Prev. Balance option has been enabled (go to Settings > Billing), and if a member has carried forward a balance, then the full amount due will be charged.

      Note: Make sure that there are no dues products with a code that ends with _CREDIT selected in the Products area of the billing cycle when selecting the Use to display itemized web renewals option.

  8. Select Billing Types from the drop-downs:
    1. Annual/Anniv. – Anniversary or Annual

      2. Note: To prorate the membership fee based on the date the member joins or to apply special user-defined prorating rules, you must bill on an annual basis. For more information, see Configuring billing options and Defining prorating rules.

    2. Cash/Accrual – Cash

      3. Note: Join Now functionality supports only cash-based accounting. Using Join Now with an accrual dues system will still work, but iMIS will treat the dues as cash. Future renewal billings will be treated as accrual dues.

  9. Click Save.
  1. From the Staff site, locate a sample Join Now page and make a copy. For example, go to RiSE > Page Builder > Manage content and select the Join Now content record located under @/iCore/Membership.
  2. Open the content record.
  3. Configure the General Product Display content item.
    1. In Default product to display, enter the name of the billing cycle (Cycle Name) created previously, replacing spaces with underscores. This is the product code for the billing cycle. For our organization example, enter ORGANIZATION .

      2. Note: You can leave the Default product to display blank and use the same content record for multiple products. The product code (billing Cycle Name) should then be included as a URL parameter for iProductCode.

    2. Click Save & Publish.
  4. Create a shortcut from RiSE > Site Builder > Manage shortcuts.
  5. Select Add new and provide the required information.
  6. Select the URL or Content Record to the copied Join Now page.
  7. For the URL Parameters, the iProductCode should equal the billing Cycle name . For our organization example, enter iProductCode=ORGANIZATION.

A wizard has been provided to create an easier workflow for organization joins through the use of the Content Collection Organizer.

  1. From the Staff site, go to RiSE > Page Builder > Manage content.
  2. Navigate to @/iCore/Contacts and copy the Create Organization with Administrator content record.
    1. Paste the content record in a content folder of your choosing.
    2. Open the content record.
    3. Configure the Contact Account Creator.
    4. For the Type of account to create, select Organization only.

      5. Warning!  

      Do not enable the Hide for authenticated users configuration option when configured for the account type of Organization. The Contact Account Creator will not display to unauthenticated users when configured for organizations.

    5. Enable the option Assign selected user as administrator for new organizations to automatically assign the logged in user as the Company Administrator for newly created organizations. If a Staff user creates the organization, they will have the ability to choose the Company Administrator.
    6. In the Redirects section, select Redirect to - Do not redirect.

  3. Navigate to @/iCore/Membership and copy the Organization Join and Organization Demographics content records.
    1. Paste the content records in a content folder of your choosing.
    2. Open the Organization Join content record.
    3. Configure the Content Collection Organizer.
    4. Verify that Include ID as a URL parameter is selected.

      5. Note: This passes the ID of the newly created organization contact to subsequent tabs. It allows you to include a join product or demographics panel in subsequent tabs that will apply to the organization join contact.

    5. Edit the Content to display paths for the Create Organization and Demographics tab to point to the location of the copied content records.
    6. Edit the Content to display path for the Fees tab to point to the location of the previously created shortcut.
  4. Click OK.
  5. Click Save & Publish.

Process automation provides an alert set out-of-the box to display a Join Now button when the company administrator views the organization’s profile page and the organization is not yet a member. A Join button will remain visible to Staff users regardless of the membership status of the organization.

For more information, see Displaying automated alerts.