Understand the renewal process

This article outlines how the renewal process works within White Fuse, enabling you to effectively manage your membership organisation's subscriptions.

Key concepts

• Auto-renewal: Unless a particular subscription has been set to cancel, White Fuse automatically renews all subscriptions on their renewal dates.
• Grace period: This buffer period allows members to update their payment information if an automatic payment fails, minimising disruptions to their membership. It also gives time for manual payments to be recorded.

Overview of the default renewal process

Renewal reminders

White Fuse automatically sends renewal reminder emails to members 14 days before their renewal date.

Invoice generation

On the subscription’s renewal date, White Fuse automatically generates a new invoice. You can access these invoices through the member's contact record or the membership subscriptions report.

Automatic payment processing

If a member has a saved payment method, White Fuse automatically processes the renewal payment. If successful, the subscription the invoice status changes to “Paid” and the subscription status changes to “Valid”.

Grace period

If an automatic payment fails, the subscription enters a 30 day grace period. During this time, the subscription status is shown as “Overdue” and the contact continues to receive the benefits associated with their subscription.

Payment reminders

Where a membership invoice remains outstanding for 14 days, White Fuse automatically sends a reminder email to prompt the contact to make payment.

Expiry

If the invoice remains unpaid beyond the grace period, the member's subscription expires. Expired subscriptions can not be restored and if necessary a new subscription must be created.

Customising the renewal process

Within the settings for each membership plan you can:

• Disable advance renewal reminders
• Set up to three unpaid invoice reminders with customised intervals
• Define the length of the grace period

Customising renewal emails

Reminder emails tell your members about upcoming payments and chase outstanding payments. The emails make clear whether or not action is required and, if so, what action is required. The layout of the reminder email is determined by:

• The payment methods enabled on the membership plan
• The payment method of the subscription
• Whether the contact has a valid payment method

You can see the structure of these emails and add extra wording in the membership plan settings.

Sending renewal reminders manually

In addition to the automatic renewal reminders configured on a particular membership plan, you can also trigger additional reminders at any time. This can be done from an individual contact record or from the Membership subscriptions report.

Tracking renewal statuses

You can get an overview of subscription statuses in the Membership dashboard report and a more detailed and actionable view in the Membership subscriptions report.

Helping members update their payment information

Members can view the status of their membership and update payment details by logging in to their account and going to the Membership section. If no payment method exists you can email the contact to invite them to add a payment method. This can be done individually from the contact record or in bulk using Broadcasts.