Membership

The membership record is crucial for the solution since it represents the different options that organisations provide their members to be part of. All members must therefore have at least one active membership in order to be considered a member. It is also the record that will provide the invoicing details for the membership.

The membership holds information that represents the organisational structure. Our solution has different layers which makes it a good fit for different types of organisations with varying requirements.

By using the above mentioned features we can strucuture our member information to fit the organisational structure, to provide 360 overview of memberships to area/product managers and to manage the invoicing with differential pricing if needed.

A membeship is always connected to a member and a payment responsible. Many times the member is also the payer of the membership fee, but our solution makes it possible for one payment responsible to manage multiple members. An example could be employees that are members with their employer as payment responsible.

Depending on the organisation it might be that a member needs multiple memberships in different areas/products. This is possible in our solution and it aligns great with the invoicing, where you can choose to invoice every area/product separately or in bulk for each member.

Memberships are linked to specific areas/products with aim to visualize the member belonging in the organisation. Areas/Products can be either geographical or organisational and are setup as a hierarchy structure.

Each Area/Product holds important information for resource and member management as well as financial management . Every area/product with its corresponding sub area/product can be connected to an area manager, thus giving managers a 360 view of all memberships they manage.

Since different areas could have different member fees our solution holds the fee items on this record. All memberships will inherit this fee while sent for invoicing. By storing the fees on this level it is easy to adapt when membership fees change.

The area manager is given the possibility to customize email settings so that members receive a more personal notification when receiving their invoice transaction.

The membership has to be linked to a specific membership type. The type reflects the organisations offer to members and will also be a key factor of the membership fees. For each area/product the same membership type could have different member fees. Our solution covers that by adding all unique prices for each type on the area/product level.

Our solution also makes it possible to link membership to different categories with aim to structure the members in more detail.

With membership types we can manage to set up group memberships with a payment responsible for all included in the same membership group. A good example for this could be family memberships. By using this feature we provide possibility for alternative pricing based on number of group members.

Membership Period
The validity of a membership is managed by a Start- and End date. A membership is active as long as the end date is empty or ahead of time.

The startdate will also be considerd as a starting point for the invoicing engine. Depending on the members preffered invoice frequency (monthly, quarterly, yearly) the membership will be included automatically in the invoice schedule by calculating the frequency in regard to the start date.

All memberships that include an end date that has passed will automatically be removed from all lists of active members and most importantly from future invoicing schedules. Those memberships will from that date be included in lists capturing terminated memberships.

Invoice method and frequency
The invoicing details of a membership determines both how the invoice engine will manage the membership but also how the member will receive information.

In regards to the members requested settings the invoice details hold information of the invoicing frequency and also the incoicing method. Based on the frequency (monthly, quarterly or yearly) our enginge will determine when it's time to invoice and include it in the run. The latest transaction created will appear in a field for easy access. All transactions regarding the membership will also be linked under the subtab Transactions.

The invoicing method will determine how the invoice will reach the member. Common options that we include are Print or Email. For all memberships with setting to Email the invoice will be sent directly upon creation. The email is based on a template so all members receive the same notification in a professional way.

For invoices with setting to Print he transactions will be printed via the Netsuite mass Print functionality. Printed invoices can then be sent to the members delivery address.

Hold invoice feature
The invoicing engine provides a great feature to exclude memberships from beeing part of the invoice run during a specific timeframe. This is easely achieved via the hold funtion. If a membership is marked as Hold it will be excluded from further invoicing until it is unchecked again.

When holdning a membership the user can enter a reason for hold in order to keep track of the details. All memberships put on hold will apear in specific lists for the finance team to monitor.

When members take the decision to end their membership there are some important steps that need to be followed in order to terminate the membership correct. Our solution provides a termination checklist where member administrators can follow the necessary steps of the process. By utilizing this structure we make sure that the member is fully aware of the progress and important steps are not missed.