Record a new membership when someone joins, then use its detail page to see who it covers, who pays, how it’s paid for and when it’s due for renewal.

Before you start

Find a membership

Open Memberships → Memberships. The list shows each membership’s Number, Type, Members, Status, Started date and when it Expires (Never for a type that doesn’t expire). Use Status to show one status only. Select a row to open the membership.

A person’s contact record also has a Memberships panel, split into Covered by and Pays for.

Issue a membership

  1. On Memberships, choose New membership.
  2. Choose the Membership type.
  3. Choose the Payer: the person paying for it.
  4. Under Members covered, choose the people it covers. An Individual type covers one person; a Group type allows up to its maximum, if it has one.
  5. Set the Start date. If the person first joined earlier, enter that in Member since (optional) so their history is kept.
  6. Check How is this membership paid for? It follows the type’s pricing:
    • Free membership: nothing more to add.
    • One-off payment: enter the Payment ID of the payment.
    • Recurring payment: choose the payer’s recurring payment, or Create a new recurring payment.
  7. Choose Create membership. It may take a moment to appear in the list.

Creating a membership records how it’s paid for. It doesn’t take a card payment or set up a direct debit.

What the statuses mean

Status Meaning
Pending Waiting for its one-off payment to be marked as paid
Active Current
Lapsing Current, but inside the type’s lapsing window before expiry
Expired Past its expiry date
Cancelled Cancelled by your team, or its recurring payment was deleted

A membership paid by One-off payment starts as Pending. It becomes Active when the linked payment’s status changes to Paid. If the payment was already marked as paid before you created the membership, the membership stays Pending, because nothing changes on the payment to prompt it. Renewing the membership makes it Active, but restarts its term from today (see Renew a membership).

Free and recurring memberships start as Active. Statuses are refreshed once a day from each membership’s expiry date and its type’s lapsing window. A membership whose type never expires stays Active.

Read the detail page

The page heading is the membership type, with the status beside it. A Gift membership badge means the payer isn’t one of the people it covers.

Card What it shows
Members Everyone it covers, each linked to their contact record
Payer Who pays for it
Payment Amount due and Frequency, from the membership type, and the Linked payment
Dates Membership number, Member since, Start date (Current cycle) and Expiry date

On the Payment card, Linked payment shows the one-off donation (its amount and date, which you can select to open the payment) or the recurring payment (its amount and schedule, linked to the payer’s contact record). If the payment can’t be found, perhaps because the ID was typed by hand or the payment has been deleted, you’ll see the reference followed by “(not found)”.

Change who it covers

  • To add someone, choose Add member, pick the contact and choose Add member.
  • To remove someone, choose the bin icon next to their name, then Yes, remove them. They’re no longer covered by this membership.

An Individual membership can cover one person, and a Group membership can’t go over its type’s maximum. If the membership is already full, the person isn’t added and no error message appears, so check the Members card after a moment.

Cancel a membership

Cancelling ends the membership. It doesn’t refund anything or stop a recurring payment, so deal with the payment arrangement separately.

  1. Open the membership and choose Cancel membership.
  2. Add a Reason (optional).
  3. Choose Yes, cancel it.

The status changes to Cancelled. Deleting the recurring payment a membership is paid by also cancels the membership.

Next steps