Non-Renew and Credit

Learn how to drop members that have not paid their dues invoices.

Pete Zimek, CAE avatar
Written by Pete Zimek, CAE
Updated over a week ago

While most members will pay their outstanding dues invoices, there are always a few who will not. At some point in time, association staff will decide that a particular member or a group of members should be "dropped" from the membership roster. 

In Novi AMS, the way to process drops for unpaid members is with "non-renew & credit."

Remember that when a membership auto-renews, two things happen: an invoice is created and the member's expiration is moved forward to the next year.

Non-Renew & Credit comes in when a member hasn't paid their invoice and you essentially want to un-do that renewal.


Video Tutorial


Non-Renew

The process handles the entire rollback for you while creating the proper accounting transactions. Many Calendar Year associations call this their "annual drops." 

The button itself is found on specific dues invoices, as well as in a bulk action on the Transactions page.

When the button is pressed, the member's expiration date is rolled back to the prior expiration date (or removed, making them a prospect, if they were new and had no previous expiration date)

Depending on your settings, this could immediately remove member benefits for that member as well as for those inheriting member benefits.


Credit

The other side to this feature is the credit. Novi will create a credit memo to offset the original dues revenue booked when the invoice was created.

This adds a layer of detail and transparency to your accounting records, and it keeps your financial reports from magically changing.

If a member chooses not to renew and to leave their dues invoice unpaid, the Novi team highly suggests that you not simply delete that dues invoice from QuickBooks. Doing so could alter your financial reporting from previous periods. Trust us, you don't want to report X dollars for January's income to your board only to revise the number down a few months later. 

Instead, we suggest that you use our non-renew & credit button.

Accounting

When Novi creates a credit memo to offset your dues invoice, the credit memo we create will reference the specific QuickBooks items (product or service) referenced in the original dues invoice.  This will debit the exact same revenue or deferred revenue accounts that the original invoice credited. Ultimately, the P&L shows a net effect of zero, unless the invoice date and credit date fell in different time periods.


How To Non-Renew & Credit

Processing in Batch

To non-renew & credit dues invoices in batch, you'll want to:

  • Go to Accounting > Transactions on the backend of Novi.

  • From there, use the Filter drop-down to identify dues invoices that are overdue.

  • You can add additional filters like member type and date of the transaction.

  • You will want to select all or manually select the invoices you want to non-renew & credit. NOTE: You must do 25 at a time. Change the number of invoices displayed by using the gear icon on the right-hand side.

  • Once the actual invoices are selected, click the Batch Actions drop-down, then select Non-renew & credit.

Processing a Single Dues Invoice

The non-renew and credit button is also available on individual dues invoices as well.

After clicking the Non-Renew & Credit button (see below), you can click the "X" in the top right of the modal or "Close" in the bottom left of the modal to close without sending an email.


The "Non-Renew" Transaction Status

When it comes to the transaction status of Non-Renew and Credited invoices, QuickBooks Online considers the status of these transactions as paid. In most cases, a zero-dollar payment is automatically created to link the credit memo with the outstanding invoice.

However, we wanted to be sure that you have a clear view of your transactions in Novi, so the transactions in this scenario will appear with a status of "Non-Renew."

This status will appear:

  • Admin - Transactions Page List View

  • Admin - Member Detail Accounting Tab

  • Admin - Recent Signups

  • Admin - As A Transaction Status Fiter

  • Members - Member Compass Accounting Tab


Important Items of Note:

  • This is a Novi feature. QuickBooks Online will still show the invoice as PAID.

  • This status will only appear if the invoice is credited inside of Novi by using the Non-Renew and Credit functionality. Invoices credited inside of QuickBooks Online will NOT appear with the Non-Renew status in Novi. This is intentional, as there may be times a credit memo is used, but not as a write-off. Please consult your bookkeeper for further information on the accounting side of things.

  • Invoices themselves are generated by QuickBooks Online. Therefore, if the invoice is printed, it will say PAID.

  • An expired member can still pay their invoice online if they go back to their initial reminder email link.

  • When invoices are non-renewed and credited as a batch action on the Transactions page, a copy of the credited invoice is not automatically sent to the member. The reasoning for this is because QuickBooks shows the invoice as "Paid" which can be confusing to the member.

  • A Non-Renew and Credit can only be completed on a specific invoice once. If the member reaches out after they've been dropped and asks to pay their dues so they can reinstate their membership, we recommend leaving the old invoice as-is and renewing the member from the Details tab of their record. This will create a new dues invoice (or you can charge a credit card which will create a sales receipt).

Renew a dropped/expired member:


Troubleshooting

Note that this functionality is only available for open dues invoices. Once a dues invoice is paid, for security reasons, any action to non-renew the member must be handled manually both in QuickBooks (refund if necessary) and in Novi (change expiration date).

There is also a possible exception if your member types have any optional dues rules (like PAC or Foundation contributions). Reference this article for more information on when this applies - you'll see that option #2 prevents non-renewal and recalculation of the invoice (but only if an optional item is removed).


A Note on Seat-Based Dues Invoices

If you need to make changes to a member company that has seat-based dues, please refer to the corresponding article for more detailed information:


Related Articles

Did this answer your question?