Recurring Memberships

  • Resolved Nik

    (@nikbond)


    6 years, 6 months ago

    Can anyone possibly clarify exactly how recurring memberships work ie. this is what I am hoping to achieve –

    Member signs up on 1st January 2018 for annual (1 year) membership (which he can choose to pay either by check or by Paypal – as a one-off payment. At the end of that year, he receives an invoice for the next year (ie. 1st January 2019 – 31s December 2019) that he can chose to pay either by check or by PayPal (as a one-off payment).

    Using the Pay by Check Add-on, this seems to work fine ie. an order is generated and an email is sent out remnding him that he needs to pay but what about those who have opted to pay via PayPal? Is there any way of sending them a link to make their next year’s payment via PayPal?

    Or do recurring memberships only really work if members are willing to set up recurring billing on PayPal?

    The problem we have is that although most of our members are happy to pay by credit/debit card or one-off PayPal payment, they are not so keen to set up automatic recurring billing.

    If the above isn’t possible, I guess we will have to create a 1 year (non recurring) membership which needs to be renewed each year. The only problem with that is that it won’t run concurrently ie. if member doesn’t renew until, say, 1st February 2019 then we’ll be “losing” any payment from them for January (albeit obviously they won’t have access to the content either)! Unless there’s a way to “back date” the start of the renewed membership so that it starts on the date it *should* have been renewed?

    Any suggestions as to the best way to handle this would be much appreciated.

    With many thanks in advance
    Nik

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
  • Plugin Author Andrew Lima

    (@andrewza)

    Hi Nik,

    The easiest way to achieve this is to set your membership level to expire after 1 year if you don’t want automatic subscriptions.

    If you want to offer user’s to opt-in to automatic billing (for those that don’t want to manually renew) you may use the Auto-Renewals Add On.

    By default, if you set a membership level to 12 months it will expire their membership level one year later on the day of signup and not 1 January 2019 for example. So you won’t lose out for the month of January, unless you are wanting to setup memberships that expire at the end of each year etc.

    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    Thank you Andrew.

    Unfortunately I don’t think I explained this one very well.

    Currently my clients have an offline system with a membership level which runs for 12 months, at the end of which, the members are sent an invoice for the next 12 month period (ie. immediately following the expiry of the previous period) and as long as they pay within 30 days, they have continued access to membership facilities.

    I’m trying to find a way to mirror this as closely as possible in PMPro, but slightly complicated by the fact that some members prefer to pay by cheque/bank transfer or one-off PayPal payment.

    As far as I can see, what they want is actually a “recurring” membership but without forcing members to set up recurring payments in PayPal. And therefore what I am trying to figure out is what happens with a recurring membership at the end of the first 12 month period if the member has NOT signed up for recurring payments through PayPal. Do they get a email reminder and/or an invoice (or page) with a link to pay?

    (Yes I see I could set up the membership level to actually expire after 12 months but, long story short, this might mean that members who don’t use the site so regularly and therefore only renew a month or so after expiry of their previous membership would only be paying a the fee every 13 months (or more), instead of every 12 months! Not sure if that makes better sense but either way… I would prefer to be using a recurring membership system if there’s a way to make it work.)

    With many thanks again for any thoughts
    Nik

    Plugin Author Andrew Lima

    (@andrewza)

    what happens with a recurring membership at the end of the first 12 month period if the member has NOT signed up for recurring payments through PayPal. Do they get a email reminder and/or an invoice (or page) with a link to pay?

    User’s will have to manually process the renewal, if they fail to do so their membership level will be cancelled. They do receive an email notification before their expiration and on the time of their expiration. You may send more email notification reminders using the Extra Expiration Email Reminders – https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/add-ons/extra-expiration-warning-emails-add-on/

    As mentioned the user’s membership starts on the day of their signup and not on 1 January, unless you are using a custom solution / Add On to achieve this. If the user signs up on 12 December 2018, their level expiration will be 12 December 2019 ensuring that user’s will always receive 12 months.

    I hope this makes sense.

    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    Many thanks again Andrew… but HOW does a member “manually process a renewal”? Will a link appear on their account page or…?

    Sorry if it’s a stupid question… I’m just getting used to PMPro having struggled for months with a different plug-in. Really liking what I see so far but just need to get my head around some of the basics ??

    Note: please ignore the bit about dates. I think I gave a bad example originally but PMPro already does exactly what I need in that respect.

    Plugin Author Andrew Lima

    (@andrewza)

    The renew link will show up on the user’s account page. This is usually under their membership name etc. User’s will need to manually checkout again as per the signing up process.

    User’s will also get a link within their expiration emails.

    I hope this helps.

    • This reply was modified 6 years, 6 months ago by Andrew Lima.
    Thread Starter Nik

    (@nikbond)

    Thank you again Andrew. As far as I can see, the renew link will only show up if it’s a one-time rather than a recurring membership, but that’s actually OK as I think the one-time model will probably suit my clients’ needs a little better anyway.

    So… membership level will run for a fixed 12 month period from sign-up. Members will get a reminder to renew prior to the expiry date, as well as on expiry. As I understand it, if they renew before the expiry date, they’ll get another 12 months added on after the expiry date… which is all good.

    My only problem is with members who “renew” after the expiry date. Ideally I would like the start of the 12 month period to be “back dated” to the end of the previous expiry date eg.

    Member signs up for 12 month level from 1st May 2018 to 30th April 2019 but he doesn’t “renew” his membership until 15th May 2019. Ideally I would like this new (or extended) membership to run for 12 months from 1st May 2019 (when it should have been renewed) and NOT for 12 months from 15th May 2019 (or whatever date he happens to purchase it).

    I’ve seen quite a few code examples which extend the expiry date but none that seem to address quite this particular issue of BACK-dating it, although I’m thinking that possibly something along the lines of –

    add_filter( ‘pmpro_checkout_level’, ‘pmpro_find_a_way_to_change_expiry_date’);

    might work… and/or I guess I might need to change the start date too?

    I would be very grateful if you could let me know if I’m heading in the right direction and/or any other suggestion to achieve what I need.

    With many thanks in advance.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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