All Collections
Member Management
Member Types, Dues and Renewals
Auto-Renewals, Drops & Grace Periods... oh my!
Auto-Renewals, Drops & Grace Periods... oh my!

How membership & accounting interact and what that means for drops.

Jenn Norman, CAE avatar
Written by Jenn Norman, CAE
Updated over a week ago

Auto-Renewals

Auto-renewals are used when an association assumes that the member wishes to renew for the upcoming term.

So, what happens when a member is automatically renewed?

  1. An invoice is generated.

  2. Novi automatically updates the member's expiration date to reflect the renewal. So for many of you, that date is 12/31/XX.

Great! But some of my members haven't paid their renewal. Now what?


Drops

In the case that the member has not paid their dues invoice, your association has the option to "drop" them from your membership.  In Novi, the fastest way to do this is using the "non-renew & credit" button.  

Sounds simple enough. Is there anything I should be aware of?

We're glad you asked! When you non-renew and credit:

1. Novi will revert the member record to its previous expiration date making that member expired. Inheriting members will become non-members. Any dependent members will show as pending.

2. Novi will issue a credit memo, offsetting the original dues invoice.  

  • The issuance of a credit memo is more advantageous than deleting or voiding the original dues invoice for financial transparency.

3. QuickBooks will mark that credited invoice as "paid" for accounting purposes,  just like any other invoice that is written off would be. 

For those of you not as familiar with QuickBooks terms, take note here! Please don't mistake this as a member who has actually paid their invoice and wants to retain membership. If you need a hint, members who have paid won't show as expired. 

That's a lot of information, but now I'm curious as to what this means for my grace period.


Grace Periods

The grace period applies to those members who are not set to auto-renew. More specifically, the Grace Period setting will only be shown on the Member Type's Renewal tab if Auto-Renewal is disabled.

On the other hand, if the Member Type is using any of the other Auto-Renewal settings (see all options with more information here), the "grace period" would be the time between the due date of the member's dues invoice and the date an admin drops them. This means the system does not manage the grace period - it's determined by how long the invoice has an overdue status before the Non-Renew & Credit process is triggered by an admin.


Additional Resources

  • Membership Status Types - A deep dive into membership statuses and scenarios relating to member benefits and member dependencies.

  • Membership Auto-Renewals - Learn how to set up auto-renewals for members and explore the workflow that Novi will follow to create the invoices.

Did this answer your question?