Membership/Subscription FAQs

Sometimes you want to split your Members into groups, such as interest groups to send emails to. While you can add members to separate Member Lists by name, this takes a long time and would need updating EVERY time a new member joined or an existing member changed their preferences.

The better solution is to create a member attribute so that it can be used for emails, but also in other aspects of the website. To do this you will need to first create a form (Forms > Forms Manager, “Add new”) with a single question. This should be a “List” type question, with each of the answers being one of the groups you have in your club. Save the form.

Now you will need to make the groups question an attribute. To do this, go to Forms > Set Up Attribute Questions and click “Add”. Select the form you just created and the question from the drop downs and then click “Save changes”.

On each user’s profile page, the groups will be displayed and can be edited on the left hand side. Alternatively, you can change large quantities at once using the “Amend Answers” button on the Forms Manager (Forms > Forms Manager). This attribute can also now be used in Member Lists as a criterion, and would be best used with a second criteria of “Current Member = Yes”. For more help on Member Lists, read this guide here: Member Lists

“Active Members” don’t exist on myClubhouse, “Active” is a status used to describe subscriptions belonging to a Member.

Current Members are Members who have any Active Subscription.

A subscription will be “Active” if it is either:

(a) “Current” (in date today) and Paid (all payments are up to date or there is a payment scheduled on GoCardless)

OR (crucially)

(b) if it is Expired and Paid, but has a renewal in the offered state and we are within the renewal grace period.

Is a member not appearing in the Member Directory as a Current Member, even though you are sure they signed up to group subscription? The most likely cause is that they have not been assigned into a slot of the group membership. To rectify this, go to their profile page (by searching their name in Member Directory). Click their name underneath the “Current Subscriptions”. You can now click “Assign” next to one slot. Select “Existing Registered User” and then search the user. Untick the Send Email box and then click OK. Repeat for all other members of the group subscription. Once in a slot, the members will appear as a Current Member.

A Member’s subscription will only appear in their basket once it has been accepted. Members can do this themselves by going to Their name > My Subscriptions and clicking “Accept Offer” beneath their subscription.

Administrators can also perform this action on a Member’s behalf. Under Subscriptions > Manage Subscriptions, locate the appropriate subscription under the “Pending Member Action” section. Click Action > Accept Offer.

Once the offer has been accepted, the subscription will be in the basket for the member to pay for, or will change to “Active” if there is no cost.

If you find that Members are appearing in the Member Directory or in Member Lists centred around “Current Members” but the Members in question have not renewed their subscription for the new season, the reason they still appear is because they are still within the “grace period” of their subscription. The Grace Period is a period of time after a subscription has expired that a member is still treated as a Current Member as long as a Renewal is in progress. This means that a Renewal has been offered but not rejected; or offered, accepted, but not paid. Grace Periods are often used so that you can contact Members more easily and remind them that they still need to pay for the new season, but have plenty of other uses too.

The Grace Period is set in each Membership Category, under the “Renewals” tab. Also be aware of “Subscription Offers Valid For Duration” in Admin > Settings > General Club Settings as if an offer expires during the Grace Period, the Grace Period will end.

Sometimes a member needs to put their membership on hold, but doesn’t want to leave the club completely. Pausing a subscription allows you to do this more easily. Any subscription that is being paid by Direct Debit can be paused. Read this guide for help on Pausing Subscriptions: Pausing Subscriptions

There is a setting in each Membership Category called “Available to those without a Date of Birth”, if checked, a user with no DOB in the system will be able to have a subscription under this category. If a Membership Category has age criteria (and this not option not checked), a user with no DOB can still be offered a subscription manually by an administrator. In this instance, the member will stay in this Membership Category come renewal time, despite not meeting the age criteria.

More information on Membership Categories can be found in this guide: How to Create a New Membership Category

Once you have generated your Renewals and emailed them out (possibly automatically), it can be frustrating if Members are being slow on the uptake. emailing them a reminder is often helpful but you don’t want to chase those who have already paid for their Renewal. You can use a Member List to filter down to just the Members who are appearing in the “Pending Member Action” section of “Manage Subscriptions”. The Member List will need to have the criteria of “Subscription exists where Lifecycle Status is any of Offered OR Payment status is any of Awaiting First Payment, Payment Overdue”.

You can then use this Member List to send an email remind the appropriate Members to pay for their renewals. Don’t forget to include a link to “My Subscriptions” in the email so that Members can find their subscription more easily to accept and pay for it.

To see this example and for other help with Member Lists, visit this guide: Member Lists

On the Manage Subscriptions page (Subscriptions > Manage Subscriptions), the subscriptions are sorted into sections to make it easier to find the Subscription you are looking for. This is what each of the sections is for:

• Requiring Action: Subscriptions that need to be approved or cancellations that have been requested but need to be approved.

• Recently Expired: Subscriptions that have recently reached their End Dates.

• Expiring Soon: Subscriptions that are nearing their End Date.

• Pending Member Action: These are Subscriptions that have been Offered to applicants who need to either accept and/or pay for them.

• Pending Member Action (Linked Subscriptions): The same as Pending Member Action but only for linked subscriptions.

• Suspended: All subscriptions that are currently suspended will be shown here.

• Active: Shows all Active Subscriptions. Subscriptions still in the Grace Period will say “Renewal offered” instead of “Active”.

• Future: These Subscriptions have a start date in the future.

• Declined/Rejected: Subscriptions where the offer was rejected.

Each type of membership will need its own Membership Category.

For individual memberships, such as adult or junior memberships, follow this guide here: How to Create a New Membership Category

For group memberships, such as family or couples memberships, follow this guide here: How to Create a Group Membership Category

If you have created a Membership Category and set the “Role when Active” to “Guest”, anyone with this subscription will have access to anything with an Entitlement of “Level: Registered” or “Level: Public”. Entitlements can be checked and edited in Admin > Settings > Entitlements Manager.

This guide will also help you understand Entitlements: Access Control in myClubhouse

If a member in the wrong membership category, there’s no need to cancel it and make a new one. Navigate to the subscription from Manage Subscriptions or their Profile. Click Actions > Edit, and change the Membership Category to the correct one. The cost will update. Enter a Reason and click “OK”. If there is more to pay, this will be in the member’s basket, if the new Category is less, a refund will have been generated and can be marked off in Admin > Finance > Pending Refunds once it has been paid. More information on Refunds and Membership Categories can be read here: Refunds | How to Create a New Membership Category

Moving a Member to a different Membership Category mid-season does happen. As explained above, this is a straightforward process. However, when a Subscription is being paid in instalments with GoCardless, there are some extra steps.

1. Navigate to the Subscription for which you wish to change the Renewal Chain. This can be via a member’s profile, through Subscriptions > Browse Subscriptions, or Subscriptions > Manage Subscriptions.

2. Click Action > Edit.

3. Change the membership category from the drop-down.

4. Change the cost back to what it was before.

5. Enter a reason for the change.

6. Click “OK” to save changes.

7. Click Action > Edit GoCardless payments.

8. Take the total you want the Subscription to be (e.g. £450) and subtract any payments which have already been paid or submitted (e.g. £50) to give you the total you want left to pay (e.g. £450 - £50 = £400)

9. Take the total you want left to pay and divide it by the number of instalments you want it paid in. (e.g. £400 / 10 = £40)

10. Under New Subscription Details put in the amount (e.g. £40), start date of the next instalment which has not already been submitted (e.g. 6/11/21), the payment count (e.g. 10)

11. The New Subscription total and TOTAL will be calculated. If the total doesn’t divide into equal payments you may end up a few pence short or a few pence over.

12. Check the amounts and dates then click “OK”.

13. The new total will be saved against the Subscription cost.

Sometimes Membership needs to be cancelled part way through the season for a variety of reasons. It may be for injury, for disciplinary reasons, or simply that someone moved away, all depending on your club and your rules surrounding Membership. Members can request a cancellation, and an Administrator approve it, or an Administrator do it independently.

More information on Cancelling Subscriptions can be found in this guide: How to Cancel a Subscription

Sometimes when you renew a Subscription, a new Subscription gets created rather than renewing it from the old one. This can be by mistake, on purpose, or as part of a process of tidying up a mistake. Changing the Renewal Chain allows you to mark the new Subscription as a renewal of the previous one. This can be done in both directions, meaning you can set a Subscription to be a renewal or a predecessor of another one.

This method can also be useful for renewing linked Subscriptions to another family member, especially for things like boat parking spaces.

More information on Cancelling Subscriptions can be found in this guide: Change Renewal Chain

When a member pays for a Subscription by instalments, the payment date is always centred around when the first payment is made. This isn’t always ideal for the member based on their personal finances, so they might want to change their payment date. This can be done by an admin:

1. Navigate to the Subscription that you want to change the GoCardless instalments for. This can be via a member’s profile, through Subscriptions > Browse Subscriptions, or Subscriptions > Manage Subscriptions.

2. Click Action > Edit Repeating Payment.

3. Scroll down to “Amendments”.

4. For “Type of Change” select “Dates and Amount”.

5. Change the “Next Payment Date”.

6. Click “Apply Changes”.

Sometimes a Subscription is over paid by accident. This can be from a miscommunication or a discount that wasn’t applied before payment. An admin can fix this very easily:

1. Navigate to the Subscription that has been overpaid. This can be through the member’s profile page, Manage Subscriptions, or somewhere else.

2. Click Action > Edit.

3. Adjust the cost to the amount that the Subscription should be.

4. Enter a reason explaining the change.

5. Uncheck “Send Notification Emails”.

6. Click “OK” to save.

7. A refund for the difference between what was paid and the new cost of the Subscription will be created.

8. Follow the instructions in this guide to process the refund: Refunds

Subscription offers can be set to expire after a certain number of days. This can reduce clutter of those who don’t reject their offer when they leave the club, as well as allow others to join if membership places are limited.

To change the default offer expiry date:

1. Navigate to Admin > Settings > General Club Settings.

2. Click on the “Membership” tab.

3. Scroll down to the “Membership Application Workflow“ section.

4. Subscription Offers Valid For Duration: Enter the number of days after a Subscription is offered that it will expire. If left blank, or set to 0, Subscription offers will not expire.

5. Click “Save Changes“ at the bottom of the page.

6. Any existing Subscription offers that are in an offered state will not be affected

To change an individual offer expiry date:

1. Navigate to the Subscription that you want to change the expiry date for. This can be through the member’s profile page, Manage Subscriptions, or somewhere else.

2. Click Action > Edit.

3. Offer Expiry Date: Enter the last day that the Subscription can be accepted.

4. Enter a reason explaining the change.

5. Uncheck “Send Notification Emails”.

6. Click “OK” to save.

7. If you entered a date in the past, the Subscription offer will expire overnight.