Hi Erica, thanks for posting about this. We have been thinking about this for some time.

I would appreciate comments from everyone, e.g.:

- if you have different renewals dates for these two levels, how do you deal with that

- how do you typically round remaining balance (by day, by month etc.)

Allowing members, anytime during the year, to "upgrade" from one membership level to a "higher" level & apply membership fees already paid toward new membership would be really helpful.

I am surprised nobody else commented on this yet - it does sound like a common need.

Might be the thread title, I have edited it to make it more self-explanatory.

We currently plan to implement pro-rating of membership fee for new memberships in version 3.4.

(see http://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308920-archive/suggestions/8831275-pro-rate-membership-fee-for-partial-periods-507 )

Once that is done, it should become a good foundation to rationalize the level upgrade pro-ratement calculations.

In the meantime I would appreciate thoughts and ideas from others on this thread,

The situation we have is when a member at Level 2 pays before his due date, AND pays extra to become a member of Level 1.

The problem:
* If we change his Membership Level to the Level 1 when we receive his payment he's been cheated out of the remaining months of his Level 2 membership.

* If we change him to Level 2 when he pays he's getting extra months at the higher level that he didn't pay for.
* The only fair way to handle it is to add a year to his existing due date when he pays, and then remember to go in and change his member level to Level 1 manually on the day his original Level 2 membership expired. Obviously, this doesn't work when you have many members.

The proposed solution:

Add to the system the ability to change a membership level on a set date using 2 input fields (Change Level and Change Date). So in the case above, if the member's Level 2 membership expires on 1/1/10, and he pays extra on 6/1/09 to become a Level 1 member, we would handle this when we received his payment on 6/1/09 as follows:
* Change his renewal date to 1/1/11
* Set the Change Level menu to "Level 1"
* Set the Change Date to 1/1/10.

So the member gets his full year at Level 1, at which time he's upped to Level 2, and administration only has to adjust his profile once, when his payment is received.

We're facing this issue a lot, as many of our members are renewing early (and changing levels) in order to send their payments in by the end of the year for tax purposes.

Thanks!

I like this idea also. Our need is similiar with a twist. In our case, we charge everyone on the same date each year for there membership dues. What will happen is someone will join during the year. We charge them a full year membership at that point. Then on the annual renewal billing date, we charge them a full year less a prorated amount for the prior year.

For instance, we charge everyone on 9/1 of each year for their annual dues. If someone starts on 4/1 of a given year, they are charged a full year rate at that time. Then on 9/1, we provide them with a discount on their renewal for the number of months they were not members in the prior year (7 mths in this case). So if their dues was $200 charged on 4/1, we would charge them $83 on 9/1 ($200 - $117 which is $200 x 7/12).

I think the concept is similar, but ours is retroactive instead of prospective as describe above.

oops - didn't mean to make it sound like that!!

Once they pay the upgrade fee, they should be at level b and immediately start getting level b benefits - which for most people in our org means they can apply for jury or inclusion in a specialty index. So yes, when they upgrade I'd like the membership level to change and the date of the change recorded - but they keep the existing renewal date.

What I was trying to convey was if they upgraded 2 months prior to their renewal date, the price is the same as if they upgrade 10 months prior to their renewal date. So if their level a renewal is in 1 month, they can elect to wait for a month and then upgrade . . .

Sounds like I'm clear as mud.

It sounds like actual upgrade of level would be deferred until the expiry of the current membership term.

We have not considred this - good to know. We assumed that user would want to be at level b right now - not from the renewal date.

Very interested to get feedback from others.

Our 2000 + organization offers 1 year, 2 year and 3 year memberships. Our renewal date for everyone is Jan 1. We send out dues notices starting 60 days before dues are due.

The issue we are having is that the system does not calculate renewal dates correctly for our members who move from one level to another.

If an annual member has a renewal date of 2012 and we send out the dues notice in Nov of 2011, the member has the option of changing to a 2 year or 3 year membership. If they do so, the new renewal dates are calculated from the date of the change and NOT from the date of renewal.

The following table explains my frustration - All changes were made in 2011 at dues renewal time...

Renewal Current New Level WA Calculation Should Be
Date Level

2012 Annual No Change 2013 2013

2012 Annual 2 Year 2013 2014

2012 Annual 3 Year 2014 2015

This causes our administrator to be constantly changing dates for people exercising level changes. Why would the software make the change to renewal dates based on the date of the change and NOT by adding the new level to the existing renewal date?

Is this a problem for anyone else?