Came here with the same critical issue. We have a setting for our membership renewals that allows anyone renewing after Oct 1 to renew for the following full calendar year, since our memberships run Jan-Dec. If someone renews at their current level during that time period, the renewal works properly. BUT if someone decides to change their membership level as part of renewal during this time period, then they only are renewed for the remaining few days or months of the current calendar year. Between Oct-Dec, we would like all new memberships and all renewals to allow them to renew for the next full calendar year, without having to search for these errors every few days and update them manually.

The issue is that if I was a nonmember and signed up for a new "patron" membership (for example) between 10/1/24 and 12/31/24, my membership would be active for the full 2025 year.
But as a current "regular" member, if I purchase a new "patron" membership on 12/25/24, for example, my patron membership is only valid through the end of 2024 (essentially for less than a week). Isn't there a way for any new or existing members to purchase a membership between Oct-Dec and have it be active through the next calendar year? This is incredibly frustrating, because we'd love to invite current members to renew at a higher level of annual membership, but it they do that right now (Nov 2024) and submit payment, they will automatically recieve an email saying that their membership has been renewed until only 1/1/25. They will pay more, but be punished for changing their membership level rather than keeping it the same. Wouldn't it make sense to fix it on WA's end so that anyone can purchase a new membership? This has also been happening with expired and archived members renewing their membership between Oct-Dec and hitting the same problem. It's not like we get notified whenever this happens--members have to reach out in confusion and ask why the system didn't renew their membership correctly. I worry this will impact membership levels if this keeps happening. It's crazy that a current regular member could renew their membership one day before their membership expires and not recieve a year of membership, just because they changed to a different tier of membership. This is a huge setback for our membership efforts and seems to serve no benefits.

My biggest concern is the idea of prorating costs when changing levels. I can see why that could be good, but my use case can't use that. We have a fixed renewal period, and if a member goes from level A to B during that renewal period, I want to change his level to B immediately, charge for B, and extend membership for one year like all the other people renewing at B. So the person essentially gets the first couple of months free. Happy to talk about it anytime.

I found this feature box on the New Applications tab: "Charge full regular fee AND extend renewal by one additional period". What I would like is to have this feature for when a member CHANGES to a new level. Thanks.

When you have fixed renewal dates, new applicants can join "early" and get prorated or credited for an additional renewal period a set of number months before the fixed renewal date.

If an existing member renews early and changes level (e.g. 1 year to 3 year membership), he does not get the same proration/credit applied. e.g. renew 1 month early, changing to 3 year membership, his new renewal date is in 25 months, not 37 months. He feels he has been shortchanged an entire year.

The same prorating settings under "new applications" should apply.

Please add a setting to allow pro-rating of the previous membership level when a member upgrades or downgrades during renewal. As a WA admin, I currently am required to monitor level changes and manually reset/prorate the renewal date when a member changes membership level to ensure renewing members do not lose membership time. This occurs when a member renews early and simultaneously changes (usually upgrades) membership level.

We use a calendar-year membership with two levels: $35 and $50. When I send the e-mail blast for renewals (in Nov/Dec), if a member at the $50 level tries to change their level to the $35 level, the level is updated and they are charged $35, but their renewal date isn't changed. So now they've paid $85 for a one year's membership. We do not wish to pro-rate dues. The solution I am seeking would allow them to make a change to their membership level that becomes effective with the renewal (e.g., if you're a $35 member and you change your level, you stay a $35 member until Dec. 31, you pay $50 for your renewal for the new year, and your membership level is changed on Jan. 1).

In the meantime, I'm happy with a workaround that would enable those members who wish to change their membership levels to notify me rather than handling it through the system. (Our membership is small enough to accommodate these manual level changes, and they are infrequent in our organization.) Thanks!

I sent a membership renewal blast to 475 members on Dec 8. Membership is by calendar year. So far two members changed their level first (as I had told them), then renewed. But the "renewal" was for the year that ends in 21 days. Had they joined on Dec 8, they'd have been shown as paid for the next year (that's set to kick in on November 15). Please treat "level" changes the same!

This proposal is that when a member changes to a membership level of a longer term that the automatically generated renewal date adapts to the new membership term.

We recently inaugurated quarterly memberships and invited our monthly members to upgrade to them. However for every member that upgraded after the monthly invoice was generated we had to manually adjust the membership renewal date on their accounts. As the system automatically emailed out renewal notices, the notices for the late upgrading members still stated the monthly renewal date rather than the new quarterly renewal date, which forced us to to reassure these members that they in fact had purchased quarterly memberships.

I support this option but I recommend that this be flagged as an option when defining membership levels. Some organizations may have rules about changing membership levels that require review and approval by the organization management.

Another basic functionality missing in Wild Apricot. I'd really list to support these guys but its getting more difficult to manage these issues manually all the time. It doesn't make it any easier for our customers either. I can't believe this would be that difficult to create this functionality. At the very least, a reduced fee option or two that could be triggered by number of days since initial subscription/renewal.

We have the above need, and also other issues with member levels and renewals.

The issue we have falls into the category that others mention - free first year dues etc. If the member level had the ability to have a first year dues (which could include initiation fees) and a different renewal fee, the issue would be resolved.

Also, we have members who wish to renew for multiple years. The only way to do that currently is for them to issue the member renewal multiple times. We've had a few figure this out, but it's not very intuitive and certainly not straight forward. The better way would be for WA to have an option to allow for x number of renewals with the member being able to select how many periods they wish to renew for at the time they renew. The invoice would then be calculated based on the annual renewal fee and the member has complete control without involving our volunteer staff to make the changes via admin privileges.

The other issue we have which others have expressed concerns about. (Dimity has even commented to me that this is something that needs to be addresses) is the issue of changing member levels. We have some levels that members should not be able to change to and others where they should be able to do so. The issue is the next renewal date is not calculated correctly. It assumes the member level being changed to starts all over. In our case a member could be paid through 1/1/18 and when the level is changed, it reverts to a new renewal date of 1/1/17 rather than keeping the same date it had. As a result having the ability for a member to change levels creates a serious problem. This even happens when an admin changes the level is a constant source of errors and double checking manually to keep things straight. With a large club, this defeats many of the benefits of using WA in the first place for member management.

We just need WA to offer more flexibility in the primary area that we use the site for in the first place - Member Management.

Allow upgrade from one membership level to the next by paying the difference only.

Simply apply the calculations for the upgrade as if the member we applying as new. At the moment the same person can apply for an upgrade or an outright new membership at the same level and for the same price receive two different renewal dates.

When level is changed, new level renewal dates and fees apply. No prorating can be applied currently (see help http://help.wildapricot.com/display/DOC/Renewal+date+calculation#Renewaldatecalculation-Formemberlevelchanges ).

It means that if your member updates to new level (say, Gold membership) on July 1st, and renewal date for Gold membership is July 15th, he will receive renewal notification for the full price of Gold membership before July 15th (according to renewal reminders setup).

The same works if renewal date is linked to application date (e.g. renew yearly on application date). This is discussed in these threads:
* Prorate membership level upgrades http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8825686-prorating-membership-level-upgrades-7030
* Change membership level during upgrade http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826244-provide-a-way-to-change-membership-level-during-re

If this is not your case, please elaborate more

Has this been addressed?

We have an issue where a member upgrades their membership level, and pays, just before their renewal yet they still receive a renewal notification stating that they need to pay. The system shows that the member paid, with the correct date yet it still shows that they need to renew. It's happened twice now and it's eroding confidence in our system.

Please advise.

Thank you Mr. Chief for the quick response.

I am pleased that you have this issue in your sights. please let me know if you need any help with testing or logic on this problem.

We all have the same goal - make WA do everything for everyone!

Kim P.

Thanks for the detailed description. What we have now is that WA does not really deal well with level changes which happen at the same time as renewals - it assumes they should be handled separately. This is definitely something we would tackle - it's on our roadmap.

Our need is a bit different:

We have a three-month membership (Learn to Row, or LTR) that costs $250, after which time some people choose to become regular members (Annual Row/Scull), which costs $450. These three-month memberships start at various times during the summer, coinciding with our LTR training sessions.

If someone wants to become a regular member, and benefit from a prorated membership fee, it seems we must suspend and delete them, and then ask they to reapply. Right? This is onerous, as our membership application is pretty lengthy.

It would be tons better if they could just convert AND get their fees prorated, just like a new member.

Merged last comment to existing thread.

@chapka: what you describe makes complete sense but we have not enough resources now to make the change this year - we are busy with other things right now. Still, this is quite high in our priorities so we are keeping this problem on our radar.

Here's the problem we've run into.

Our org has two membership levels, one free and one paid. Membership is always for the calendar year; we run events pretty much every week from March through November.

Our membership campaign for the new year starts in late summer or early fall. This was the first year running it in Wild Apricot. We set up the "new applications" settings for the membership level so that anyone joining after September 1 or so would get a renewal date of January 1, 2013 ("charge full regular fee AND extend by one period").

So far, great--that's exactly the functionality we wanted.

The problem is, if someone was already a member at the "free" membership level, they don't get to take advantage of this logic. Instead, they get their existing membership level bumped up to the paid level...but their membership then expires a few months later, before the 2012 events start.

It would be very helpful if there was some way to apply this new member logic to upgrading members as well. Maybe a fourth tab in the membership options, called "level changes"?

Is there any way around this problem? I hate to tell people who want to pay for memberships in September to wait until January.