Allowing members to renew in advance

Members can renew their memberships in advance, allowing them to renew their membership term before their bill is issued. The renewal is for the same membership type, and the point in time in which they are eligible to renew their membership is a time specified during configuration.

Note: All billing is done for a full-term for the member. There is no prorating, and processing is identical, regardless if it is done on an annual or anniversary basis.

Out-of-the-box, this option is disabled. To offer members the option to renew in advance, do the following:

  1. From the Staff site, go to Settings > Commerce > General.
  2. Select the desired Membership renewal prior to billing option:
    • Disabled - No one is able to process membership renewals before billing is issued.
    • Allow for staff only - The early-renewal button will appear on all profile pages, but only staff users can see the button and have the ability to generate the renewals on behalf of users.
    • Allow for staff and members - The early-renewal button will appear on all profile pages for all users to see, allowing members and staff users to renew memberships in advance.
  3. In the Number of days prior to expiration that members can renew in advance field, enter the number of days in which the Membership renewal prior to billing button will begin appearing for eligible users. For example, entering “30” in this field means that the button will begin to appear 30 days prior to a member’s expiration date. Setting this field value to “0” means that the button will always appear. If Membership renewal prior to billing is Disabled, this field takes no effect, and the button will never appear.

    4. Warning! Entering "0" in this field means that the button will always appear.

  4. Click Save.
  5. Navigate to the content record used for member and contact profile pages. Out-of-the-box, these pages are Account Page Staff and Account Page (@/iCore/Contacts/ContactLayouts).
  6. If the Invoice Payment Link content item already exists on the page, select Configure to open the content item for edit. If there is no Invoice Payment Link content item on the page, select Add content, and add the content item (Commerce folder).
  7. Select Enable renewing membership prior to dues billing, and configure the Renew without billing options:
    • Select Allow only for unexpired members. When selected, members can renew in advance, prior to their paid-through date. When their paid-through date has passed, the renewal button no longer appears.
    • Button text - Enter the text that appears on the button.
    • Message - Enter text to be displayed above the button. For example, you could enter a message that explains to users what to expect when they click the button.
  8. Click OK, and Save the changes.