Late fees, extensions, waivers, and termination

This page covers the three staff actions around a delinquent dues invoice: granting an extension before it happens, waiving a fee after it happens, and terminating a membership when nothing else has worked.

Late-fee assessment ships disabled per org. Nothing happens automatically just because a dues deadline (configured in Club → Membership) has passed. A staff member has to turn late fees on from Admin › Renewals (the Before you open checklist, Late fee line) first.

Late fees on is a switch: flipping it saves immediately, with no separate save step. The checklist shows the current state as soon as you flip it. This does not waive fees already charged.

Good to check first: because this is off by default, don't assume the daily pass is running for your org just because you see a deadline configured in Club → Membership. Confirm late fees are on under Renewals before telling a member a late fee is coming.

Once enabled, a daily scheduled process pass:

• Adds a late-fee adjustment line (amount configured in Club → Membership) to any dues invoice that is still open/reminding past the deadline.

• Escalates that membership year to delinquent.

• Skips, does not escalate, any household whose payment is mid-settlement (processing) that day. An ACH payment sitting in processing on the day the pass runs buys that household one more day before it's reconsidered.

The fee and the state change commit to the database before the notification email is attempted. If the email fails to send, the fee still stands and the rest of the pass keeps running for other households. An email failure never rolls back the fee.

Membership-team staff or an admin can grant a per-household extension from the household's own page (Admin › Households › [household] › Grant extension), setting a new deadline for that household. This prevents the late fee from being assessed at all for that household. It isn't a waiver of a fee already charged, it's pushing the trigger date itself. Grant this before the deadline passes if you already know a household needs more time; granting it emails the household to let them know. The same panel on the household page also lets you revoke an active extension.

Membership-team staff or an admin can waive a late fee that's already been charged (treasurers can't: waiving a fee is gated differently than the general money-moving actions elsewhere on the invoice):

1. Go to Admin › Renewals and find the household in the Delinquent table for the renewal year. Not the invoice detail page; that's where the fee line lives, but waiving is done from here.

2. Next to the household's row, enter a waiver reason and choose Waive late fee. This records a new negative adjustment line against the fee. The original fee line itself is left untouched, consistent with the platform's append-only rule (nothing is edited or deleted, only offset).

3. The reason field is required; it's kept as part of the audit trail.

Waiving the fee does not un-delinquent the membership year. The year stays delinquent until the underlying dues invoice is actually paid — waiving the fee only removes the extra charge, it doesn't reverse the escalation.

Termination is the last step, and it's narrow, including who can do it: only managers or admins can terminate a membership. The treasurer, who can act on invoices, cannot terminate. Like waiving, it's done from the same Delinquent table on Admin › Renewals. Enter the board resolution or reason next to the household's row and choose Terminate.

• Only reachable for a year already in delinquent status.

• Blocked while a payment on that invoice is still settling (processing): you can't terminate out from under a payment that might still land.

• Voids any open dues invoice for the year as part of terminating. And since voiding is now period-gated, termination itself fails with a closed-period error if that invoice falls in a month you've already closed. Reopen the period, or resolve the invoice out of band, then retry (see Reports and CSV exports. Accounting periods, and the month-end checklist on Reports → Accounting periods).

• Moves the membership year, the membership, and the household to terminated.

Termination does not touch bond disposition. It deliberately does not automate any bond refund or forfeiture decision — that's a board call. After terminating, queue whatever the board decides manually through Relinquishment / Check run; termination on its own leaves the bond ledger untouched.