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Setup> Finance, General Settings
These settings enable and disable different features in the system. Since these dues are typically billed once a year, these suggestions favor giving your team control over your billing instead of automating the process.
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Setup> Services, Products and Commerce, Fee Items
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Check the following settings for each fee item used for your association dues. This will include NAR Dues, State Dues, Local Dues, NAR Image Fee, RPAC, etc.
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Setup> Memberships, Membership Settings
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This setting prevents you from unintentionally changing the Next Bill Dates for scheduled billing items linked to memberships that renew on a certain date. This will prevent most situations where a member does not receive a membership dues invoice when they should have.
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Setup> Memberships, Types> Select desired membership name
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Membership Types for association dues should be set to follow the membership year defined by NAR to run from January 1st through the end of the year. Membership Types you use for billing MLS or lockbox fees may be configured differently.
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Setup> Memberships, Types> Select desired membership price
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With the NAR Image Awareness Fee increasing for 2023, you need to charge your members the new $45 rate for 2023 dues but continue charging new members $35 through the end of 2022. This feature allows you to define when to charge the increased fee and have the system automatically bill at that new rate for charges on or after a certain date. If your local, state , or other dues are also changing, you can use this tool to help with those price changes as well.
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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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Setup> Membership, Review Next Bill Dates
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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. Because your association has set the “renews on” date to Jan 1st for association memberships, 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 than 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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Reports> Search for desired report
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Utilize the reports listed below to confirm that your data is complete and accurate. Verifying this data, while sometimes time consuming, can help catch unintended issues prior to running your billing. Remember to save your reports so that you can easily run them each time you prepare to generate your upcoming billing.
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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 Amount
Use 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 Schedule Billing
If a dropped or non-member agent or broker has a scheduled membership billing, this is rare , and will require our support team to fix. 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.
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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Setup> Email Templates> edit/copy desired template
The following emails will be sent to members throughout the invoicing and payment process. Review the templates listed below to make sure they accurately describe your association’s processes and that they follow your brand standards.
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 to set the correct email template in the Automated Messages area of setup. Click here for more information on automated messages.
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Account Menu (Top, Right) > My Notifications
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Make sure that you and your staff receive the right notifications to keep your billing process running smoothly. Just like an airplane safety video, make sure your notifications are set before assisting the rest of your team with theirs. To modify your notifications, click on your name in the top right of the screen and then click on My Notifications. Easily view all Billing related notifications by setting the Category to “Billing/Finance”. Review a few key notifications listed below.
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Click on the Customize Results button to filter to the memberships you want to generate invoices for.
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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 An icon next to the amount indicating will indicate that the price will change. The effective date pricing will be used when you run the billing.
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Set the Invoice Date to 10/1/2022 (or the date your association desires).
Set the Fee Item to be your NAR Dues (or the name your association uses for national dues fees). This will include all invoices that are charging members for national dues and, more broadly, all association dues invoices.
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Billing > Sales/Invoices tab
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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 at the same timeinvoices simultaneously.
Review the message to make sure everything looks correct.
Click Send to email your invoices.
After Billing
After creating and delivering your invoices, use our post-billing guide to manage collections, late fees, and next year’s dues.