I too would like invoice generation and mail-out as separate functions. A recent example of "egg on face" was when Invoice was wrong (my fault) but the invoice was already emailed before the fault (double billing) was detected. If I could have checked Invoice prior to dispatch the embarrassment would not have occurred. This will probably cost you a customer as resentment ran high as a result of this.

I agree with others' comments on this matter. The renewal invoice should be allowed to be generated without emailing the member. This is important for organizations who handle all payments offline, but would still like the renewals auto-generated. It's also important for organizations who wish to take a more customer-friendly approach; the invoice shouldn't be the first point of contact reminding someone to renew their membership (but the invoice should be auto-generated so they can still go online to pay it when they get the friendlier, customized renewal reminder). Separating the invoice out from the first renewal reminder would be helpful; the invoice should have two dates: 1) generation date, and 2) email to member date, with the latter being optional. Also, the renewal invoice should allow customization separate from the general invoice (preferably customizable on a member level basis too).

This one makes me go aarrrgggghhh!

Since we can't customise the invoice, sending it out by itself is very curt and yes, rude.

Sending a nice please renew letter at the same time looks silly, unprofessional, redundant and confusing.

I honestly can't figure out why it's set up this way.

Agreed! Please separate the options to generate the renewal invoice and to email it.

Some organizations require membership renewal for professional certification, and for those organizations sending an invoice makes sense. Other organizations ask and beg for membership renewal to create "a sense of belonging" and as a much needed funding source; for those organizations sending an invoice comes across as presumptuous and even rude.

There are two more concerns with the system currently sending out both an invoice and a renewal reminder email: (1) it is redundant and unnecessary, (3) currently, both are sent out at the same time, which means that sometimes the invoice is sent out before the renewal reminder email - which is doubly presumptuous and rude - very embarrassing.

In the membership renewal policy, there is only one choice that both emails an invoice and sets the status to "Pending - renewal."

We don't email the invoice because it can't be customized and would confuse the members' workflow, and we don't accept dues payments online. That means we can't use the "Pending - renewal" status.

It would help if WA would:

1) Provide independent choices to send out the invoice and to set member status to Pending - renewal.

2) Permit customizing the dues invoice separate from the standard invoice.

We get a very poor response from email renewals and get our best response from reminders that are posted. We have many members who either don't use email, or whose emails are no longer valid and need to be posted renewals. Our last CRM had a PDF template facility that allowed us to create renewals and reminders using tokens to complete individual fields that matched the members member type, renewal cost, address, etc. After 5 months with WA we still don't have a proper working alternative as they are still figuring out how to find a way around WA not having a postal function.

I like this idea. Along the same thread, we would like to create the invoice for our members, but not necessarily send it out now. This way members can renew easier, but not be nagged.