Recurring Membership Renewals
Memberships can be set to be recurring when setting up a Member Type in netFORUM Pro for Realtors. This allows individuals to purchase a membership and select to have it automatically renew at the end of each membership period. In order to process a recurring membership, three steps must occur:
- The membership must be set to recurring
- The member must purchase the membership and authorize the recurring purchase/renewal
- The automatic renewal must be processed in netFORUM Pro.
Recurring renewals use NRDS E-Commerce as the payment processor.
Setting up the Member Type for Recurring Memberships
Before a membership can be purchased and set to automatically recur, it must be enabled to do so. To set up a MemberType to allow for recurring renewals, check the AllowRecurringRenewal? check box.
Tip: The AllowAutoRenewRecurringBilling system option must be enabled in order to see the Allow Recurring Renewal? check box. Contact Abila Support to have this system option enabled.
Clicking this check box will present members who visit the Online Store to renew their membership with the option to select a check box that will automatically renew their membership without their interaction with the system.
However, only individuals who are current, active members of that member type and who are purchasing their renewal with a credit card will see this check box. Individuals will not see this check box when they are first purchasing a new membership - it is only visible upon renewal.)
Authorizing the Recurring Membership Renewal
Once the Member Type has been set up to allow for recurring renewals, any individual who meets the following criteria will have the option to enable their membership to automatically be renewed without their involvement:
- Must be a current, active member of that Member Type
- Must be purchasing their renewal with a credit card.
When an individual meets the above criteria and visits their site’s Online Store to purchase a membership renewal they will be presented with the option to authorize a recurring payment for their membership renewals going forward - for this same Member Type.
As long as the Member Type remains the same, this automatic renewal will continue regardless of the fees for that membership renewal. If at any time an individual wants or needs to cancel the automatic membership renewal they will need to contact their association.
Processing the Automatic Membership Renewal
Once Dues Orders are created through the membership renewal process, a second batch process must occur for those member types that allow recurring payments. The NRDS E-Commerce Profiles must also be processed so that the amounts that have paid in NRDS E-Commerce can be applied to the open Dues orders created to obtain that revenue.
To batch process NRDS E-Commerce Recurring Profiles:
- Hover over the Modules tab in the top navigation bar. in the fly out menu, click CRM.
- Expand the Membership Actions item and click Process Membership Renewals.
Complete the normal renewal process by clicking the Process Membership Renewals link to create the open Dues Orders.
Tip: In order to process the automatic membership renewal, a dues order must exist for that Member Type.
- Once the open Dues Orders have been created, expand the Financials Actions item and click Process Recurring Payment Profiles.
Note: If the Process Recurring Payment Profiles link is not available, contact Abila Support to have the system option activated.
The Process Recurring Payments window appears.
To see a list of all profiles meeting a set of criteria, enter the desired criteria and click the List Profiles button.
- Click the check box next to the profile to be processed in this batch.
- Click the Process Selection button to run the process.
A message is sent confirming that the selected profiles have been processed. This means that the payment was found and applied to the open order, an invoice was created for the member, and membership dates were updated. Note that when the accounting batches are closed, the appropriate accounts are credited with the renewals as well.