Dues and Renewals

Keeping track of who has paid their dues is one of the steadier rhythms of running a club, and Clubistry is built to carry most of that work for you. It watches renewal dates, moves members through their renewal periods, and records online payments on its own. Your job is mostly to keep an eye on things and to record the payments that come in offline. This page walks you through how that all fits together, so you can step in with confidence when you need to.

Who can use these tools?

Dues and renewal management is intended for Member Managers, Administrators, and Super Admins.
The main resources for this workflow appear under Club Management: Members, Membership Renewals, and Renewal Transactions.
Reminder timing is configured on Membership Types, while reminder content is managed under Membership Tools > Reminders/Notifications.

Where to manage dues and renewals

Use Members when you want to review one member's current renewal dates, next renewal dates, membership status, and renewal history.
Use Membership Renewals when you want to review or edit renewal records across the club.
Use Renewal Transactions when you want to review payment records that were created from Stripe or from manual payment entry.

How the renewal process runs automatically

Clubistry runs renewal processing once per day for every club.
This daily check runs automatically at 7:00 AM, so you do not need to start it yourself.
Only active members are included in the daily run.
Members without a membership type are skipped.
Before renewals are processed, Clubistry recalculates stored renewal-period dates for members.
When a member reaches the start of a new renewal period and does not already have an open unpaid renewal for that period, Clubistry creates a new Membership Renewal record.
For non-zero renewals, the member's membership status is changed to unpaid and the Start of Renewal Notification email can be sent.
For zero-dollar renewals, Clubistry creates the renewal as paid, creates a zero-dollar transaction, keeps the member paid, and sends a payment confirmation email.
For calendar-based membership types, if a member joins after the current renewal period has already started, the first renewal is normally pushed to the next renewal cycle.

Renewal statuses and member statuses

Renewal records use the statuses paid, unpaid, late, and delinquent.
Member accounts are updated separately with membership statuses such as paid, unpaid, late, and lapsed.
At the start of the renewal period, a new non-zero renewal is created as unpaid.
When the due date passes without enough payment, the renewal becomes late and the member's membership status also becomes late.
When the grace period ends without enough payment, the renewal becomes delinquent and the member's membership status becomes lapsed.

How renewal amounts are calculated

A new renewal starts with Dues Price + Processing Fee from the member's membership type.
When an unpaid renewal moves to late, Clubistry updates the renewal amount to include the Late Fee.
The renewal's displayed amount due is based on the renewal amount minus all successful attached transactions.
If you need to remove a late fee or reduce the amount due, edit the renewal amount before registering the payment.

Reviewing renewal information on a member record

On a member detail page, the Current Renewal Period section shows Period Starts, Period Due, and Grace Period Ends. These describe the member's most recent membership period. Once the member has paid that period's dues, these dates keep reflecting it until the next period begins.
The Next Renewal Period section shows Next Period Starts, Next Period Due, and Next Grace Period Ends. It appears only when the member is currently paid, and it is a preview of the cycle that takes over once the current one ends, so a member who has just renewed can already see when their next renewal will open and when it will be due. These dates stay put and do not move forward until the current period's dues are paid. Future-dated values here are expected once the member has paid their current dues, and they are not a sign that anything is stuck or that the member has been charged early.
The Membership Renewals relationship on the member record shows the member's renewal history.
The Check Membership Status action is available from the top-right Actions menu on the member detail page when you need to manually re-check renewal processing for a member.

Where to find renewal and payment actions

On a member detail page, open the top-right Actions menu to use Check Membership Status or Register Payment.
On Membership Renewals, the Pay button is a shortcut that opens the renewal and launches Manually Register Dues Payment.
Some clubs may also see other action menus or shortcut buttons depending on role and page.
For a fuller explanation of where action menus and shortcut buttons appear, see Actions.

Recording dues payments

Online payments

When a member pays dues through the website, Clubistry records the Stripe payment automatically.
Clubistry creates a success transaction, attaches it to the related renewal, updates the renewal to paid when the balance is covered, updates the member's membership status to paid, and sends a payment confirmation email.
The Stripe connection itself is part of initial setup, while renewal-specific payment handling and status changes are managed here.

Offline or manually entered payments

Open the member's detail page and use Register Payment, or open the renewal record and use Pay / Manually Register Dues Payment.
Choose the payment type, such as Stripe, PayPal, Cash, Check, or Other.
Enter the amount being recorded and any internal notes.
Save the action.
If the total successful payments attached to that renewal meet or exceed the amount due, Clubistry marks the renewal paid and the member's membership status paid.

A few things worth knowing as you do this:

Manual payment entry creates a Renewal Transaction record and attaches it to the relevant renewal, so you have a clear record of what came in.
If the payment does not fully cover the amount due, Clubistry records it but waits to make the membership active until the balance is met.
If you need to adjust the amount due (for example, to waive a late fee), make that change on the renewal first, then record the payment. The member detail page reminds you of this as well.

Working in Membership Renewals

Search renewals by ID or by member first name, last name, or email.
Use filters and columns to review renewal dates, status, membership type, total amount, amount paid, and amount due.
The index includes a Pay shortcut for unpaid, late, and delinquent renewals.
On detail and edit views, you can update the renewal amount, dates, admin notes, and status when a correction is truly needed.
If a situation calls for special handling, authorized users can create a renewal here by hand, though Clubistry generates them automatically in the normal course of things.
You will not attach existing transactions to a renewal yourself. The dues payment actions take care of that for you whenever a payment is recorded.

Working in Renewal Transactions

Renewal Transactions is your payment history for dues. It is where you go to see what has come in.
You can search and review transactions here, including payment type, amount, created date, notes, and the renewals they relate to.
Transactions are not created directly in Renewal Transactions.
Most transaction records are created either by Stripe website payments or by the manual payment actions on member or renewal records.

Renewal reminder and status emails

Start of Renewal Notification is sent when a non-zero renewal is generated and the member enters the unpaid renewal window.
Renewal Due Date Reminder emails are sent based on the reminder schedule configured on the membership type while the renewal is unpaid.
Start of Grace Period Notification is sent when the member becomes late.
End of Grace Period Reminder emails are sent based on the grace-period reminder schedule while the renewal is late.
Membership Lapsed Notification is sent when the grace period ends and the membership lapses.
The renewal record controls status and dates, the membership type controls reminder timing, and Reminders/Notifications controls the email content.

A few things to keep in mind

These are not warnings so much as good habits that keep your records clean and your members in good standing.

When a member's dues come in, record the payment rather than switching their Membership Status to paid by hand. Recording the payment is what creates the transaction, updates the renewal, and keeps everything in sync. A manual status change skips all of that, which is why the Club Management Portal points it out.
Only active members are picked up by the daily renewal run, so a member who has been set inactive will pause until you make them active again.
When you change pricing or renewal rules on a membership type, those changes flow into new renewals and amount calculations for everyone using that type. That is by design, but it is worth knowing before you make a change.
If you ever create or edit a renewal by hand, glance at the dates, amount, membership type, and member status together so the whole record tells one consistent story.