Issuing renewal notifications

Renewal notices are communications that are sent to members, reminding them that their fees are due soon. These reminders are sent after billing renewals are generated. The only members that are eligible to receive renewal notices are those who are not enrolled in automatic payments, and those who have a membership-fee balance greater than zero. If the member’s customer type is configured to bill the organization, then their organization will receive the member’s membership-renewal fee reminder. See List Billing for more information.

The following process should be followed before generating your first renewal notices:

  1. Design the communication template for email reminders
  2. Design the invoice report for printed reminders

    3. Note: See Configuring templates for payment reminders (email and print) for steps 1 and 2.

  3. Attach the invoice report (used for printed notifications) to a communication template
  4. Add the email and print communication templates to the associated billing cycles
  5. Generate renewals
  6. Issue notifications

Configuring templates for payment reminders (email and print)

Each option (email and print) is linked to a communication template. Out-of-the-box, there are communication templates that are available for you to use as a guide when creating your own reminder templates:

  • Sample renewal notice (membership renewals) - This is the sample communication template for the initial payment reminder notice for membership renewals.
  • Sample renewal notice - Org admin - This template will send the Renewal notice email to the company administrator when the organization is billed.

    • Note: The communication log entry associated with the renewal notice is attributed to the organization.

  • Sample renewal notice - Org admin with attached Report Writer report - This template will send the Renewal notice email and attached Report Writer report to the company administrator when the organization is billed.

    • Note: The communication log entry associated with the renewal notice is attributed to the organization.

  • Sample renewal reminder (membership renewals) - This is the sample communication template for the first and second payment reminder notices (membership renewals).
  • Sample renewal notice with attached report (membership renewals) - This is the sample communication template for the print-based notifications for membership renewals. By default, the Renewal Notice (Reports > Membership reports) report is attached to this communication.
  • Subscriptions renewal notice (non-dues subscriptions) - This is the sample communication template for the initial payment reminder notice for non-dues subscription renewals.
  • Subscriptions renewal notice with attached report (non-dues subscriptions) - This is the sample communication template for the print-based notifications for non-dues subscriptions renewals.

  • Sample renewal notice with attached Report Writer report (membership renewals) - This is the sample communication template for print-based notifications for membership renewals using a Report Writer report instead of an SSRS report.

Email templates

The above communication templates can be found at Marketing > Communication templates > Templates > Samples > Billing notifications. You should make a copy of the templates, then make edits to the copied templates, so that the email branding matches your organization's branding. For more information about creating a communication template, see Creating a new communication template.

Important! The recipient query for billing emails is the Billing notifications query ($/Common/Communications/Queries/Billing notifications). The Billing notifications query is required as the recipient query for billing notifications and cannot be modified. If you need to add additional data to the renewal notices, add queries as additional data sources.

Print templates

To issue print notifications, the communication template must have an attached SSRS report (RDL) or Report Writer report. The following out-of-the-box reports are available and already attached to a communication template:

  • Renewal Notice (SSRS) - Found in Reports > Membership and attached to the Sample renewal notice with attached report communication template ($/Common/Communications/Templates/Samples/Billing notifications).
  • Renewal Notice Attachment (Report Writer) - Found in Reports > Report Writer > Membership folder > Attachments folder and attached to the Sample renewal notice with attached Report Writer report communication template ($/Common/Communications/Templates/Samples/Billing notifications).

If you need to customize one of the renewal notification report attachments, it is best practice to follow these steps:

  1. Copy one of the out-of-the-box reports:
    • (SSRS) Renewal Notice
    • (Report Writer) Renewal Notice Attachment
  2. Customize the copied report.

    3. Note: The Report Writer renewal notice must have Prompt for value enabled for the following filters: BillingLog Key, BillingCycle, and ID. See Attaching a Report Writer report to a communication template for more information.

  3. Attach the custom report to the desired communication template. See Creating a communication with an attached report for more information.

Assigning payment reminder templates to billing cycles

After you have communication templates designed for email and print fee notifications, you must assign the templates to each billing cycle. These communications are assigned per billing cycle, so you are able to have different reminders sent to members based on their billing cycle.

Do the following to assign the templates to a billing cycle:

  1. Go to Membership > Billing cycles.
  2. Select the billing cycle.
  3. Scroll down to the Notifications area.
    1. Select the Email notification templates that will be sent to members when reminder notices are issued:
      • Initial notice - The first email the member will receive about their payment.
      • First reminder - The second email that is sent to the member, and serves as their first reminder that their payment is due.
      • Second reminder - The third email that is sent to the member, and serves as their second reminder that their payment is due.

      2. If there is already a chosen template, select Remove to choose a different template, or select New to create a new template.

      Note: It is suggested you make a copy of the existing communication templates (Marketing > Communication templates > Templates > Samples > Billing notifications) and modify them for your purposes.

    2. Select the Print notification templates that will be used when you are printing reminder notices. There must be an attached invoice report to the template. If there is no report attached to the communication template you are trying to select, then you will not be able to use the selected communication.
  4. Click Save & Exit.

Issuing renewal notices

Before issuing notifications, the renewal must be generated. See Billing for membership fees for more information.

Do the following to issue notifications to contacts about their renewal fees:

  1. Go to Membership > Renewals > Issue notifications.
  2. Locate the correct billing run, then select the Billing Run Name.

    3. Note: If you do not see the billing run and the accounting method for the run is accrual, you must post the associated batch before you are able to issue payment notifications. After the batch posting is complete, you can issue notifications.

  3. Review the list of contacts for any potential errors. After reviewing, click Back.
  4. Select the Issue notifications link for the desired billing run.
  5. Select one of the following Notification types:
    • Email - Sends an email communication as a reminder to the member. If there is not a valid email address for the member, then they are not sent an email.
    • Print - Allows you to download a single PDF of all notifications. Each notification is printed on its own page.
  6. Indicate the Notifications to send option.
  7. Choose a query of contacts to notify from the Select a query drop-down. If you are emailing notifications, it is recommended that you select Bill to contacts with email address.

    8. Note: To add additional queries to this drop-down, copy an existing query ($/Common/Queries/Billing/Issue Notification Selections), then add customizations to the copied query. Since these queries are used to execute back-end processing when issuing notifications, it is suggested to only add columns to the queries and not to remove any existing columns. Removing any existing query columns might result in a back-end failure when issuing notifications. Any custom query must contain both Bill to ID and Billing Log Key columns in order to properly work.

    Note: Any custom queries added to this folder for the purpose of issuing notifications will not display columns for any properties included in the communication template that you use to issue the notification.

  8. (optional) To select a single contact to notify, enter in their name (Bill to name contains) or iMIS ID.

  9. (optional) Enter a number in the Last notice sent field to narrow the search results based on the last time the member was notified. For example:

    • You are sending a First reminder and want to include only members who have already been sent the Initial notice. Enter 1 in the Last notice sent field and click Find.
    • You are sending the Initial notice and want to exclude any members who have already been sent a notification. Enter 0 in the Last notice sent field and click Find. This limits the notifications to only those who have not been sent any notification.

    The following numbers are available for use in the Last notice sent field:

    • 0 – Contacts who have not been sent any notice
    • 1 - Contacts who have most recently received the Initial notice
    • 2 - Contacts who have most recently received the First reminder
    • 3 - Contacts who have most recently received the Second reminder

  10. Click Find when you are finished entering additional parameters.
  11. Click Issue Notifications.
  12. Return to Membership > Renewals > Issue notifications.
  13. Click the Logs tab.

    14. Note: The Status will display as Failed if any of the emails were not sent. The Number of Notifications will display the number of emails that were successfully sent.

  14. For Email notifications:
    • Select the Billing Cycle name to review the list of email recipients.
    • The Billing notification log detail screen displays the recipients that were successfully sent reminders.

    Note: To review the specific email notifications that were not sent, go to Marketing > Communication logs.

  15. For Print notifications, click Download Notifications. A single PDF is downloaded to your browser.
  16. Repeat the process for additional reminders you need to send.

Once notifications are completed and processed, then the person who issued the notifications will receive an email stating that the billing process for the selected billing cycle was completed. The email will come from the same email address that is used for resetting usernames and passwords. This email address is configured from Settings > Contacts > Account management in the field The email address from which password reset and username requests should be sent.