Dues and Renewals

Dues and renewal management is how your club tracks membership periods, monitors payment status, records offline dues, and confirms that transactions are created correctly. The main tools are Members, Membership Renewals, and Renewal Transactions under Club Management, with reminder timing on Membership Types and email content in Reminders/Notifications.

Who can use these tools

Dues and renewal management is available to Member Managers and Administrators.

Where to work

Members — View one member's current renewal dates, next renewal dates, membership status, and renewal history.
Membership Renewals — Review and manage renewal records across the club.
Renewal Transactions — Review payment records created by Stripe or manual entry.

How automatic renewal processing works

Clubistry runs renewal processing once per day at 7:00 AM Central for each club. Only active members with a membership type are included.

When a member reaches the start of a new renewal period and doesn't already have an open unpaid renewal:

Non-zero renewals: Clubistry creates a Membership Renewal record as unpaid, changes the member's status to unpaid, and the Start of Renewal Period reminder can be sent.
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 started, the first renewal is pushed to the next cycle.

The status timeline

Renewal status	Member status	What happened
Unpaid	Unpaid	Renewal created, payment not yet received
Late	Late	Due date passed without payment; late fee added
Delinquent	Lapsed	Grace period ended without payment
Paid	Paid	Payment received, balance covered

How renewal amounts work

A new renewal starts at Dues Price + Processing Fee from the member's Membership Type. When an unpaid renewal moves to late, the Late Fee is added. The amount due is the renewal amount minus all successful attached transactions.

If you need to remove a late fee or reduce the amount, edit the renewal amount before recording the payment.

Recording dues payments

Online payments

When a member pays through the website, the Stripe webhook handles everything automatically — it creates a transaction, attaches it to the renewal, updates the renewal to paid, updates the member's status to paid, and sends a confirmation email.

Offline or manual payments

On the member's detail view, use Register Payment from the Actions [] menu, or on the renewal record, use the Pay shortcut / Manually Register Dues Payment.
Choose the payment type (Stripe, PayPal, Cash, Check, or Other).
Enter the amount and any internal notes.
Save.

If the total payments meet or exceed the amount due, Clubistry marks both the renewal and the member as paid. If the payment doesn't fully cover the balance, it's recorded but the membership isn't made active yet.

Important: Don't manually change a member's Membership Status to "paid" when there's an open unpaid renewal. The correct workflow is to record the payment.

Reviewing renewal information on a member record

On a member's detail view:

Current Renewal Period shows Period Starts, Period Due, and Grace Period Ends
When the member is currently Paid, Next Renewal Period dates are also shown
Membership Renewals shows the member's full renewal history
The Check Membership Status action lets you manually re-run renewal processing for that member

Renewal reminder emails

Five automatic emails can be sent during the dues cycle — their content is managed in Reminders/Notifications, and their timing is configured on each Membership Type:

Start of Renewal Period — when the renewal is created
Due Date Reminders — scheduled days before the due date
Start of Grace Period — when the member becomes late
End of Grace Period Reminders — scheduled days before the grace period ends
Membership Lapsed — when the grace period ends

Important cautions

Don't treat a manual status change on a renewal as a substitute for recording a payment — the portal warns that changing status does not create a transaction.
Inactive members are not included in daily renewal processing.
Changes to membership type pricing or renewal rules affect new renewals and calculations for members using that type.
If you manually create or edit renewals, review dates, amount, membership type, and member status together to keep the record consistent.