Creating a Membership Package

You can create the following membership packages on Clubspark: 

• Fixed Date: same dates for all members' e.g. club year 1st April to 31 March
• Date of Purchase: start from date of purchase, rolling (continuous).

You should create different packages for all memberships available at your venue. e.g. Adult, Student, Junior, Family, Honary etc. 

Step 1: To create a membership package click on the Membership module on the left-hand side within the Admin area.

Step 2: Then click on '+New Package' 

Step 3: The first section to complete is the 'Details':

• Name: Enter the name of the membership package
• Code: An optional code for the membership package which will help you identify packages in the admin area (e.g. ADM03).  It is not displayed to the public.

• Availability: 

1. Anyone(public)- The package will be on display for the public to purchase. 
2. Invite only (closed to new members) - The package won't be displayed for the public to purchase on your website. You will have to add the member into the membership package and send off an invite for them to join. Please note: You will have to change the availability of your existing packages to 'Anyone', for the package to be publicly available for renewals.
3. Hidden(closed to everyone) - The package won't be available to anyone. Use this status to prepare your package before it's available to the public. Once the package is available, you should change its status.
4. Unavailable (archived) - The package is no longer available at your venue.

• Type/Category:

1. Individual: would be used for the following categories; Adult, Child, Junior, Social, Student, Veteran and Other.  
2. Group: would be used for the following categories; Couple, Family and Other.

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 4, a maximum of 4 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

We have a new feature that has been added you can add a minimum and maximum age to the package you are creating. If you only add a minimum age, it will be displayed as '[Min Age] and over'. If you only enter a Max age it will displayed as '[Max age] and under'. If you enter both it will display as '[Min Age] - [Max Age] years'.

The system does check the age so a member must have a DOB on their record which makes them eligible to join the package. The members that fail the 'age validation' for a membership package they are trying to join, will be shown an error on screen advising they need to contact the administrator of the club or select another package. The admin can then add them to the corect package or advise them to head over to your membership page and select a suitable package.

• Summary/Eligibility: Add in your text for both fields. 
• Contact Tags: Once a user signs up to a membership, they will automatically have the tag applied to their contact record. 

  You will notice you can also 'Manage contact tags' here. You can begin typing to show existing tags or create a new tag by pressing enter when you have completed typing. 

Step 4: The second section to complete is 'Dates':

• Type:

1. Same dates for all members (Fixed Date Membership): 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.
2. Based on the date purchased (Date of Purchase Membership): 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.

• Grace Period (days): 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 5: The third section to complete is 'Payment method': 

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 this doesn't appear it means the accounts have been set up. Please contact us at support if you need us to disconnect these so you can link up new accounts. 

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. 

Step 6: The forth section to complete is 'Costs': 

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

Please note: 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'.

• Allow Payments in Installments: If you want to offer installments turn on this feature.

Here you will need to enter the following information:

1. Monthly cost for new members
2. Monthly cost for renewals
3. Number of monthly payments
4. Installment payment date

Step 7: The last section to complete is 'Payment reminders': 

Here 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 8: Once you are happy with all details entered, please click 'Save package' 

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

If your venue uses fixed date memberships, when it comes to your renewal period, you will need to create a new membership package, using details from your current package, e.g. Adult 2023. 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.