Managing Lapsed Members

A member is lapsed when their membership is expired but not terminated. When they renew, lapsed members renew to the membership cycle following the one in which they expired.

Example: A lapsed member expired in 2015. Their membership was not terminated. They later decide to renew their membership in 2018. Because the membership was not terminated, their membership cycle is advanced forward to the next cycle, which in this scenario is 2015-2016.
Had the membership been terminated after expiration in 2015 and the customer rejoined in 2018, their current membership cycle would be for the 2018-2019 term.

Unless an association wishes to allow members to lapse and require the purchase of back years, it is recommended that staff terminate lapsed members.

"Fixing" Lapsed Memberships

If memberships were allowed to lapse (and allowing lapsed memberships is not part of your business practices) there are two ways to rectify the situation. In the recommendations below, assume the scenario described above: a member lapsed in 2015 who attempted to purchase a membership for the 2018 term, but was renewed to the 2016 term instead.

Retroactive Termination

If a lapsed member already purchased the membership for the current term and submitted a payment, taking the following steps allows staff to undo the order, set the member as terminated, and then re-create the order.

  1. Cancel the invoice for the customer's current term membership purchase. A credit for payments associated with the invoice is automatically created and linked to the Invoice Record.
  2. Terminate the customer's membership and apply a termination date.
  3. Re-purchase the membership and use the credit just created as payment.

Multi-Membership Update

If there are multiple lapsed memberships, staff can get them "up to speed" to the current membership term by selling the interim memberships at zero cost until the current membership term is reached.

For example, for members lapsed in 2015 who wish to renew to the 2018 term, staff would create zero dollar orders for the 2016 and 2017 terms. The 2018 term purchase can then be entered as usual.

  1. Create membership orders for lapsed members. This can be done one at a time, or by running the mass membership renewal process and opting to create open orders (instead of creating invoices).
  2. Update the price on the order to $0.00. This can be done by changing the price during checkout (for a single membership purchase) or by editing open orders (generated by the mass membership renewal process).