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This document outlines the settings and processes we have tested to ensure that your membership dues billing runs smoothly. Most of this guide focuses on fixed renewal membership billing (i.e., memberships that are all billed at the same time once per year), but almost all of the processes are also useful, even if you bill your members monthly. Steps that are specifically for fixed renewal memberships are clearly labeled.
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Click the “Need Help?” sidebar on the right side of any GrowthZone screen to open our new Resource Center. In there, you’ll You’ll find interactive guides and training to help you configure the system, as suggested below. Look for sections of this document marked with , indicating there is the “Show me in GrowthZone” link in this document. That link will take you to an in-app guide to walk you through those steps in more detail.
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Disable Automated Billing
Automated Billing is useful if you frequently bill your members for a small set of items. For less frequent and larger billings, Automated Billing can make your processes more complicated by requiring you to constantly monitor when your members will receive invoices. When enabled, this feature hides advanced controls to set the invoice date and due date of your dues invoices.
Set Lead Time Days to Greater Than Zero
This field restricts access to the Invoice Before Autopayment feature when it is set to 0. The exact value of this field only matters if you are using automated billing. Since we’re not using that, you can set this to 15, which is a reasonable default value if you choose to use automated billing in the future.
Enable Invoice Before Autopayment
With Invoice Before Autopayment enabled, invoices indicating that the invoice will be paid by payment profile (on a specific date) will be generated when running your upcoming billing. You can set the date that these automatic charges will happen when generating your membership dues invoices.
Disable Auto-Apply Credits to Newly Created Invoices
This should be disabled if you frequently credit members for specific items. If this is enabled when running your billing, credits for things like event registrations or sponsorships will be applied to membership dues. Members may have been planning to use a credit for something similar in the future and could be unpleasantly surprised when they discover it was already used.
Enable the New My Billing Info
We encourage you to enable the Use the new My Billing Info tab (if you haven’t already). When enabled, your members will see a “My Billing Info” section in their Info Hub left-hand navigation. This makes it easier for members to view their open invoices, make payments, and download receipts.
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Term Length Should be 12 Months
All association dues membership types should be set to a term length of 12 (months).
Renewal Pricing Should be “Do not recalculate price” You may have previously configured your membership types to recalculate. This year we have a new feature specifically built to help out with the any dues increases for your 2023 membership year. We strongly suggest setting your membership to “Do not recalculate price” so that you can use this new feature.
End Type Should be Manually Ended
GrowthZone can automatically drop members who have not paid for a set number of days after their original invoice date. We strongly suggest setting your membership to “Manually ended” for association membership types.
Fixed Renewal Memberships: Set Renew Everyone On
This setting helps the system follow the membership year as defined by your association. This setting is also required to use the new feature that increases dues for your 2023 membership year.
2.3 – Fixed Renewal Memberships: Membership Pricing Changes
Setup> Memberships, Types> Select desired
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membership price
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This feature allows you to define when to charge increased membership dues and have the system automatically bill at that new rate for charges on or after a certain date. You can set this for 1 or more fee items on a membership. This feature does not yet work with formula-based pricing.
To set new prices for a membership , on a certain date:
Edit the membership type’s pricing
Enable “Change Prices On…”
Pick your desired date for new pricing to start.
Enter new prices in the “Price on <Date from step 3>” column.
Note: Leaving a field blank in this column will carry the current price forward. (If using levels, see note below.)
Save your changes.
The above steps will need to be completed for each effected affected membership type.
For those Associations utilizing Levels within Membership Types: You will need to set the "Change Pricing on..." date within the Membership Type pricing screen , and then make the necessary pricing adjustments on the Level(s) itself.
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Your membership type is set to a specific “renew everyone on” date (noted in section 2.2 of this guide)
Membership recalculation is disabled (noted in section 2.2 of this guide)
Formula-based pricing is disabled
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We’ve built a tool to help associations identify members (if any) that may have the wrong next bill dates for their annual scheduled billings. When you previously set the “renew everyone on” date in step 2.2, the system is able to use that information to identify next bill dates that potentially do not align with the expected date. This tool can be a great way to double-check that members will be billed/charged on the dates that you expect.
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Open the Review Next Bill Dates tool , under Setup.
Review those members listed (if any).
Note: Members listed here , have next bill dates that are not expected. Meaning , the current Next Bill date is different that from the “Renews on…” date set on each membership type. Notice the “Current Next Bill Date” and “Proposed Next Bill Date” column.
Filter results (if needed) by Status, Membership Type, or Current Next Bill Date. Then click “Load” to see the proposed results.
Click “Update” “Update,” which will kick off a mass change for those filtered results to have their Current Next Bill Date changed to the Proposed Next Bill Date. This will update all scheduled billing with incorrect next bill dates, even though only the first 500 are listed. If you have more than 500 listed, use the Download button at the top of the screen to review all scheduled billing items that will be changed.
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Confirm All Active Members Have Scheduled Billing
Use the Membership Report for verification. See View Report of All Active Members Without Recurring Billing. If the member does not have a scheduled billing use the upgrade/downgrade options to assign a scheduled billing.
Confirm All Scheduled Billing is Set for the
Correct AmountUse the Membership Report to verify that active memberships have the correct scheduled billing amounts. See View Report of Active Members Scheduled Billing Accuracy. If the scheduled billing amounts are not correct, use the adjust membership option to update the schedule.
Confirm Dropped Members Do Not Have Scheduled Billing
Ensures that you do not bill dropped members or non-members for unexpected items. While rare, if a dropped member or non-member has a scheduled membership billing, please contact our support team for help fixing this. Use the Membership Report for verification. See View Report of All Dropped/Non-Members With a Recurring Billing.
Confirm Members Have an Email Address to Receive Their Invoice
Use the Membership Report for verification. See View Report of Active Members Missing Billing Contact and Billing Email. If the membership does not have a billing contact and/or address information, use the adjust membership option to assign this information to the membership.
Check for Expired Payment Profiles
Use the Stored Payment Profile report to check expiration dates. If updates are needed, contact your members to access the Info Hub to update.
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4.2 - Review Email Template to Send with Invoices
Setup> Email Templates> edit/copy desired email template.
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Creating a new email template for each year’s association dues billing makes it easy for you and your staff to collaborate on your billing preparations. Using a new email template can help trigger discussions around dues deductibility statements or other policies that you want your members to see both in their dues email and on their invoice document. See Working with Email Templates if you wish to review and update your email templates.
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The Online Payment Receipt email template is sent when the system successfully charges a saved credit card or if a member pays an invoice with a credit card.
The Recurring Charge Failed email template is sent if a member has saved a credit card , but eCommerce has an issue charging it.
Note: Whether you've created a new email template or just want to double-check which email template will be sent out, be sure you set the correct email template in the Automated Messages area of setup. Click here for more information on automated messages.
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Auto Payment Failed - Sent if eCommerce cannot charge a saved credit card.
Charge Capture Failed - Very rare, ; this is sent if eCommerce successfully authorizes a charge with a card but cannot capture the payment. (Credit Card Lingo 101: An authorization is sometimes called a “hold” on a credit card and is used to check if a card is valid and if the card can accept a charge for the total amount. A capture is a request to move money from the credit card bank (e.g., Visa) to eCommerce).
Duplicate Charge Detected - Sent if a member tries to pay the same amount twice in a short period of time. There are guardrails in place on the invoice payment page and in the Info Hub to prevent this from occurring, but sometimes members find a way.
Failure to Send Receipt - Sent if a GrowthZone issue prevents a member from receiving a receipt. Members can access receipts from the Info Hub, or you can email the member a receipt from the Contact → Billing tab → Actions button next to the payment.
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The system will only generate invoices for the scheduled billing items displayed from your filtering.
If using the “Change Pricing on…” feature (from Section 2.3 of this guide), please know , on the Upcoming Billing Tab, you will still see the old pricing listed in the amount column. There will be an icon next to the amount indicating that the price will change. The effective date pricing will be used when you run the billing.
TIP: Start by generating an invoice for just one member by searching for them on the Upcoming Billing tab. Running the billing for a small subset allows you to review the invoice prior to running it for all members.
5.2 – Generate Invoices
Billing > Upcoming Billing tab
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Click on the Actions button and choose Run Upcoming Billing. There are a few fields on this screen you’ll want to set:
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Note: We recommend utilizing the Sales/Invoices tab to deliver your invoices. However, if you have previously sent invoices from the Pending Delivery tab, feel free to continue using that process. Just be sure to clear it out of the Pending Delivery tab before running upcoming billing.
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After filtering the invoices, prepare to send them by clicking on Actions , and selecting Email Invoices/Statements.
Set the Template field to the email template you previously created.
Set the From email address where you would like to receive billing questions or notices about bounced emails from this round of invoices.
Check Select All to send all membership dues invoices (if shown). Critical if handling more than 500 invoices. This ensures that all of your members receive their invoice invoices at the same time.
Review the message to make sure everything looks correct.
Click Send to email your invoices.
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