Renewal forms can be used as a substitute or alternative to allowing members to simply pay an invoice to renew their membership. Renewal forms can be a good option if you use a highly variable, fair-share dues calculation based on a value that can change often. This way the renewal form can request the updated information and recalculate dues on submission, writing off any existing invoices and creating a new invoice based on the submitted information.
To create a renewal form, go to Communication > Form Builder, and select Create New Form, then choose Renewal Form from the dropdown.
Enter the title for this particular form, which will appear as the page title when viewed on your website. Note that you can create multiple renewal forms, so unique titles is an easy way to identify them.
Click Form Settings. A window will launch with several settings to configure the way people can interact with the form. Since renewal forms always rely on the member already being in your system, login is always required and all information will be updated on the existing member profile.
To determine which "member" profile to renew, the form looks at the logged-in user's profile and uses the following logic:
- If the individual profile that logged in is not a member, but they are related to a member organization profile, the organization member profile will be renewed.
- If the individual profile that logged in IS a member, and they are not related to a member organization profile, the individual member profile will be renewed.
- If the individual profile that logged in is a member, AND they are related to a member organization, the Form Settings configuration for "Individual" vs "Organization" will determine which profile to renew:
In the Payment Settings, choose whether you want to allow a member to simply submit the form without actual payment ("Allow Bill Me Option"). This may occasionally be a good option for very high level member types with manual follow-up required, but in general you'll want to just allow the credit card option when submitting payment.
Credit Card payments, when enabled, allow for additional features:
- IF you have Automatic Recurring Billing (ARB) in your gateway, you can choose to allow the profile to opt in to renew at this amount automatically moving forward by checking Allow member to subscribe to ARB. Note that once enrolled in ARB, you cannot update the amount without inactivating the old amount and having the member opt in again to the new amount. Click here to learn more about ARB settings and flows.
- If you have billed your members for a Dues invoice, and the renewal form is an alternative option to paying the existing invoice, you can choose Write off open Dues invoices upon submission so that when the new dues invoice is created/paid in the form, the old one is automatically written off using the adjustment type selected here. Any open invoice on the member profile that has a "Dues Type" revenue item will be written off.
If you would like to tag any profiles that submit this form (existing or new) with a specific Affiliation Code, begin typing the code name into the box shown below. Each affiliation code will be applied to the member profile on submission.
Finally, enter any email addresses to receive a notification when this form is submitted. You can also add custom text to the form confirmation page and email, which will appear in addition to the itemized invoice snapshot that displays by default after submission.
Click Done. Note that the form is not saved until you click "Save" at the bottom of the page, which is recommended in order to create the form after entering a title and your settings.
Once the new form is created, you can start adding elements. You can remove any of the existing element using the "Remove" button that appears when hovering over each element, or add new elements by clicking "Add New Element" in any location throughout the form or using the button at the top left.
Renewal Forms allow you to add the following elements:
Header: a larger, bold section of text that can be used to differentiate separate sections of the form
Text: a basic HTML text block in which you can include instructions, disclaimers, etc.
Individual Profile: the primary profile for a donation form, this element allows you to choose which fields within the profile should be displayed/collected on the form
Organization profile: allows you to collect organization information related to the individual donor profile
Custom Field: choose from any of your already-configured custom fields, which will populate automatically into the member profile to update the value. Number custom fields are often used for pricing calculations on renewal forms
Affiliation Code: select any affiliation code to appear on the form as a checkbox selection, such as opting in to certain mailing lists or areas of interest. You can add any number of affiliation code selections.
Listing: the primary listing for the profile will load when they log in (if one exists), and they can add or update the listing in the fields you enable in this element.
Purchase Item: you can add one or more purchase items to your form for the different items a donor can select to donate. The Revenue Item selected will be used to generate the resulting invoice, and you can enter a static amount, choose to use an existing Pricing Calculation based on other values in the form, and/or allow the donor to enter a custom amount. Click here for more information on setting up Purchase Items.
The new invoice will set the invoice date values to the current/submission day. However, the Service Period End Date can reflect 1 year from submission date if the Revenue Item set to Default Service Period of 365. Select a different service period if you do not want a 1 year membership.
Membership Level: choose one or more Membership Levels from the dropdowns that appear to allow the member to select a new Membership Level. This is common for tiered membership structures, where the member can choose to move up or down and self-select the level at which they want to renew. When selected/submitted on the form, the selected Membership Level billing record settings will be used to both generate the invoice/payment on submission and update the billing record on the member's profile.
Before changing membership levels, please consider the following:
- Any Active Benefits assigned through the former Membership Level will be inactivated.
- Any Affiliation Codes assigned through the former Membership Level will be removed.
- Note that if you have ARB (Automatic Recurring Billing) opt-in enabled on the form, you can choose whether the invoice/payment will be generated on submission, as opposed to only creating the ARB. Click here to learn more about ARB settings and flows.
- Membership Level must be selected on a Renewal Form that has any Levels available to select. The existing level will not display when the form loads, the member must explicitly select it, even if it is the same level they are currently in.
- All Membership Level settings will be updated on submission of the form for this profile, including the profile status, billing records (see ARB special circumstances), affiliation codes, listing settings, benefits, etc.
Upload File: if you need to collect any sort of documentation from the donor to store in your system, you can allow them to upload a file of any standard image or document type. After submission, you can view the web content record on the profile that is created or linked.
Open Field Entry: this allows you to ask ad-hoc questions that are not stored in the created or existing profile, but are instead only accessible when viewing or exporting the submission list. You can choose an open text entry, a dropdown of selections, or a multi-select set of checkboxes.
Once the form has been created (don't forget to hit Save at the bottom to save all of your changes), you can view the public form by clicking "View Renewal Form" in the upper right corner. You can also copy this link to use in your web menu, content, emails, or any other location where you'd like to link to the form.
Form Submissions
Upon submission, an invoice and payment will be immediately recorded in your system and assigned to the member profile for any purchase item or Membership Level charges from the form. If the member already had an open invoice with a dues-type revenue item available to pay, that invoice will be written off using the Adjustment Type in Form Settings, and the new invoice will replace it.
The invoice will reflect the date of submission and not the billing record (i.e., the invoice date, due date, line item apply date, and service period will all default to the date of the renewal form submission). The invoice can be manually edited if they need to reflect a different date.
You can view these submissions by going to Communication > Form Builder, then clicking the hyperlinked Submission Count in the grid for that form.