Effective every April 1 (by Pacific Time midnight), a 25% late fee should be charged to all members who let their membership lapse. However, the system currently allows lapsed members to log in to their profiles and renew without paying the late fee.

Additional Issue – Self-Service Renewal for Lapsed Members

Members > Levels > Renewal policy > Disable self-service for members renewal:

• This setting prevents members from renewing their membership themselves online; only admins can process renewals.

• For active members in good standing, this cannot apply because they should be able to renew themselves between January 1 and March 31.

• However, for lapsed members, we should not allow self-service renewal without paying a late fee.

If “Disable self-service for members renewal” is unchecked:

• Both active and lapsed members can see the red Renew button in their profile.

• Lapsed members could restore their membership by paying the renewal fee from their profile—this is exactly what we do not want.

Key principle: Lapsed members should not have the same privileges as active members in good standing. Specifically, lapsed members should:

• Not renew automatically without paying a late fee
• Not access website resources
• Not participate in meetings with voting rights
• Not receive mass emails through the organization’s email distribution
• Not appear in the public directory

To prevent lapsed members from renewing themselves, I have to manually remove their email addresses. When they contact me to reinstate their membership, I must create an invoice with the late fee manually: under Finances, click Add Invoice, then click the + button to add an itemized line to the invoice form.

Some lapsed members who have already paid their renewal late receive a separate invoice specifically for the late fee, but some resist paying it, which makes this process even more challenging.

Due to this website design limitation, it seems the only solution is for me to work at 3 am Eastern Time (my time) to remove the email addresses of all lapsed members so they can contact me to reinstate their membership and receive the invoice with the late fee. I certainly don’t think this is convenient or sustainable. Last week, I had to remove the email addresses of over 100 lapsed members individually, and I will have to repeat this process every year on April 1. It is very time-consuming.

For example, the website is set to Pacific Time. Below are five members who paid their membership dues without being charged a late fee (all times in PT, with our local time in parentheses):

• Member #1 (Alberta), invoice 5171, at 2:49 am PT (5:49 am our time)
• Member #2 (Manitoba), invoice 5172, at 5:25 am PT (8:25 am our time)
• Member #3 (Manitoba), invoice 5174, at 6:15 am PT (9:15 am our time)
• Member #4 (Ontario), invoice 5175, at 6:33 am PT (9:33 am our time)
• Member #5 (British Columbia), invoice 5176, at 7:25 am PT (10:25 am our time)

That is why I am asking if there is a better solution to handle this situation.

I have contacted Wild Apricot Support via Live Chat several times, and their response remains the same:

“This is currently by design. There is no built-in way to automatically apply or enforce late fees, as they must be added manually to invoices.”