Creating A Membership Package

You can create seasonal (fixed date), start from the day of purchase and rolling (continuous) membership packages. You should create different packages for all memberships available at your venue. e.g. Adult, Student, Junior, Family, Honary etc. 

When creating membership packages, please also ensure that you have your Membership Settings set up as you wish more details are available here: Membership Settings

Step 1:

To create a membership package click on the Membership Module on the left-hand side within the Admin area, then click the '+New Package' button.

The first section to complete is the details section:

Enter the name and code of the package.

Choose the availability of the package.

• Anyone (public) - The package will be on display for the public to purchase. 

• Invite only (closed to new members) - The package won't be displayed for the public to purchase. An invite will have to be sent to purchase this package. Please be aware anyone in an 'invite only' package will see the package on the membership page under the 'Your memberships' section, this won't be visible to anyone else. Once an invited member renews their membership the renewal package will disappear from their view of the membership page. Please Note: that all your existing packages will not be displayed publicly by default. You will have to change the availability of your existing packages to 'anyone can join', for the package to be publicly available.

• Hidden (closed to everyone) - The package won't be available to anyone (i.e. your members won't be able to 'renew' a membership into this package). Use this status to prepare your package before it's available to the public. Once the package is available, you should change its status.

• Unavailable (archived) - The package is no longer available at your venue.

Next, select the type and category of the membership package. The type indicates if the package is 'individual or a 'group' package. Individual would be use used for an Adult package and 'group' for a Family package. It is important you get this section correct as it determines how members will join a package e.g. a junior package needs to be set up as a 'junior' package as when a junior signs up it requires the parent/ guardian to register and enter their details first. 

Please Note: if you create a group package you can add a group limit. Adding a group limit will restrict each group to a maximum number of members. For example, if the group limit is four, a maximum of four members could join each group. If the group limit is left blank there will be no restriction on the number of members who can be added to a group

Then add in your summary and eligibility text: 

Contact tags can now also be applied:

Once a user signs up to a membership, they will automatically have the tag applied to their contact record.

You can begin typing to show existing tags or create a new tag by pressing enter when you have completed typing. 

You will notice you can also 'Manage contact tags' here. 

Step 2:

After completing the details section you can decide the dates of the package.

First, you will have to decide the type:

• Same dates for all members (Fixed Date) - This allows you to put in a fixed start and end date, which will be the same for all members. Venues with seasonal memberships should use this option.

• Based on the date purchased (Date Of Purchase) - This allows you to select the term length which can be a set number of months e.g. 12 months or 'continuous (no end date)'. If you select 'continuous (no end date)' this will be a rolling membership, with the only payment method being online monthly Direct Debit.

You can also decide your grace period for renewing at the end of this membership. This extends the membership by the number of days entered into the grace period box. If the membership period ends on 31st March and  '20' days entered in the grace period box - the member will have until 20 April to renew their membership. After the grace period, any membership that is not renewed in a new package will be moved to 'Lapsed' status.

Step 3:

Now, decide the costs of this package:

If you select 'Allow payment in full', all payment methods will be available e.g. Direct Debit, Credit Card, Cheque, Cash and Other. If you don't select 'Allow payment in full', only online instalment payments will be available (these are collected via your GoCardless account).

If you are creating a membership that requires no payment, such as an Honorary membership, you can set the package costs to £0.00. When members are added to these packages, the payment status will default to 'Paid'.

If you offer payment in instalments then you can turn this feature on here: 

You will be able to set the monthly cost and the number of instalments for your members. We have a new feature that enables you to set the instalment payment date. You can set it as based on date of purchase, 1st of the month, 14th of the month and user selection (1st or 14th).  

Please note that to allow payments via instalments you need to select Credit Card as a payment method

Step 4:

The final part of creating a package is deciding the payment methods you will accept for this package.

If you would like to accept online payments, you will first have to create a GoCardless account for Direct Debits which can be one off payments or monthly instalments or a STRIPE account for Credit Card payments. You can do this by clicking on the 'Setup your account' link.

If you decide to accept Cheque, Cash and Other methods, you will have the option to add instructions for your members. If you haven't set up a GoCardless or Stripe account the payment method box will be grey, it will become available once you have set up an account. 

Finally, decide if you would like to send payment reminders to your members. If they haven't paid yet we'll automatically send a reminder email to membership primary contacts 7, 14 and 21 days after a Payment Request was first sent to them. You can enable or disable these emails here.

Step 5:

Once you are happy with all the details of the membership package, click the 'Save package' button at the bottom of the page.

Your newly created package will now be listed in the Membership Module.

If your venue uses seasonal memberships, when it comes to your renewal period, you should create a new membership package, using details from your current package, e.g. Adult 2021. You can then import from your current package into the new package. These members will go into the new package with a payment status of 'Pending' until payment has been received.