How to resign a swim club membership and get your bond back

Use Leaving the club to review a member's notice that they are leaving. It is part of the renewal season: open it from Members → Renewals, and its back link returns you there. Check the household's membership, dues balance, dates, and bond history before approving or declining the request.

Each notice has one Penalty field, filled in with the suggested amount. The line under it explains the suggestion: how many months after the dues deadline the notice arrived, times the per-month rate configured in Settings. The suggestion always uses the rate in Settings today, even for a notice that arrived before the rate changed. Change it, or set it to 0 to waive it. If the club has not set a per-month rate, has not saved a dues deadline, or the notice arrived before the dues deadline, the line says No penalty suggested. On the page where members give notice, they are warned about the penalty only when the club has a per-month rate and a saved dues deadline and the household has a bond.

The penalty can't be more than the bond on deposit. If you type more, the field says so and approving is turned down until you lower it.

The summary above the form shows the bond on deposit and the net check payout. The payout updates as you type the penalty.

The Approving will: list is worked out for that household and updates as you change the penalty. Depending on the notice it says approving will:

• cancel the household's unpaid dues bill for the season, if there is one (if a payment on it hasn't cleared yet, a bank payment or a check, approving is turned down until it clears; if a check bounced, mark it returned on the invoice first)

• if money was already paid toward that season's dues, add a check to Check run for the refund you enter, and keep the rest as the club's fee (see below)

• take the penalty out of the bond, if there is a penalty (or, if the penalty is more than the bond, say approving is turned down until you lower it)

• add the refund check to Check run for the treasurer, or say there is no refund check because nothing is left of the bond

• email the household that the request was approved, and email them about the bond deduction if there is a penalty

• email the treasurer notification list about each check. If nobody is on that list, it says No treasurer email instead: set the list in Settings

• open a spot on the waitlist. What happens next depends on the waitlist:

  • if the club turned on automatic offers in Settings, nobody else has an offer waiting for an answer, and someone is waiting, the spot is offered to the next household automatically

  • if another offer is still waiting for an answer, no new offer goes out yet. If that offer is declined or runs out, the next offer goes out automatically. If it is accepted, send the next offer from the Waitlist page

  • if automatic offers are off, send the next offer from the Waitlist page

  • if nobody is on the waitlist, it says so

• mark the household as having left the club

Preview emails opens the exact emails approving would send, with the penalty and payee currently typed on the card. If the penalty is more than the bond, the preview says approving would be turned down and shows the emails with the whole bond taken. Preview / edit emails opens the approval email under Messages → Automatic emails, so you can change its wording; when you are done you return here.

After you approve, the message at the top of the page links to the next steps: the check is in Check run (for admins) and See the waitlist. If the open spot was offered to the next household on the waitlist automatically, the message names that household, so nobody offers the spot again by hand, and See the waitlist opens the households with an offer out. If the offer could not be emailed to them, the message says so: the offer still stands and its time still runs, so use Replace accept link on their row on the Waitlist and send them the link yourself.

A bond refund is not a card or ACH refund. After approval, the refund moves into the club's check run. Review the payable, approve it, and record the mailed check when it is sent.

The History view on this page shows where each approved notice's refund check stands: Check awaiting approval, then Check approved, then Check #1234 sent once it is mailed, and cleared once the bank clears it (or Check voided), the same steps Check run shows. A notice with no check (nothing was left of the bond, or it was denied) shows nothing there. For admins it links to Check run, filtered to that household and that step.

The household can still view past invoices and statements after leaving. On the household's own page, the Overview and Billing & bond tabs show the date they gave notice and where it stands, with a link back to this page for managers and admins. See How swim club bond refunds are paid out.

The check the treasurer receives is always the check you were shown. The bond figure on the review card is sent back with your approval. If the bond has moved since the page loaded, because someone recorded a bond payment or an adjustment, the approval is turned down and the message names both the old figure and the new one.

Nothing has been approved when you see that. Reload the page, check the refund amount, and approve again if it still looks right. There is nothing to undo.

This check is only about the bond. The penalty you type is part of your approval, so it cannot change underneath you.

Whether the club refunds any dues is the membership team's call. If the household already paid toward the season's dues, the card says how much, for example $400.00 was already paid toward the 2027 dues bill, and has a Refund field. It starts empty: nothing is chosen for you.

• Enter the refund. Any amount from $0 up to what was paid (less anything already refunded). The club keeps the rest as its fee. Enter 0 to keep it all.

• Money already given back as credit is not counted twice. If the household paid more than the bill by bank transfer, the extra was turned into account credit when it arrived. The card's amount leaves that extra out, and is never more than the bill: anything paid over it goes back on its own, as account credit for a bank transfer or as a treasurer task. If a transfer paid $50.00 more than the bill, the card shows only the bill's amount, and the $50.00 is shown as account credit instead (see below). That way the household can get it back once, not twice.

• Say why, when the club keeps any. Once the refund is less than what was paid, a note field appears. Write at least three words, such as "change of mind fee". Approve stays greyed out until there is an amount and, when the club keeps any, a note.

• One check. A refund above $0 adds one check to Check run, to the same payee and address as the bond check. Its memo names the season and the invoice number. The treasurer notification list gets an email about it. With a $0 refund there is no dues check.

• What the bill does. If the bill was paid in part, approving cancels what is still owed and the refund comes out of the part that was paid. If the bill was paid in full (the household paid its renewal, then changed its mind), the bill stays paid and the refund is a check.

• What the household hears. The approval email states the refund when it is above $0. When nothing is refunded it says nothing about the dues: the membership team has that conversation.

• Account credit. If the household still holds account credit, the card says so, for example This household has $150.00 of account credit, with a box to include it in a refund check. The box starts unticked: the team decides. Credit you include goes into the dues refund check, or into a check of its own when no dues are refunded, and never into the bond check. The check's memo says "account credit". Credit you don't include stays on the household's account. Only credit that can be paid out counts: credit that has expired, or that can only be used on one kind of bill (such as camp), is not offered. Credit that is given back when approving cancels the dues bill is counted in.

• What is saved. The amount paid, the amount refunded, the amount kept, the account credit refunded, your note and the check are saved with the approval.

• If the check is voided. If the treasurer voids the refund check in Check run before it is mailed, the account credit that was in it goes back on the household's account. The dues part of the check is simply not paid.

The confirmation names the check amount and what the club keeps. After you approve, the message at the top of the page says when the dues check was queued.

A season that is already over is not a refund question. A bill paid in full gets the Refund field only when its season had not ended by the day the notice arrived. A season ends when the next one begins, on October 1. So a household that swam the summer and gives notice in October, before next season's bill exists, sees no Refund field, and approving works as it always did.

The amount paid is checked again when you approve. If a payment landed on the bill after the page loaded, the approval is turned down and the message names the new amount. Reload the page and enter the refund again. A refund larger than what was paid is turned down too. The account credit is checked the same way when you include it.

If a refund on that bill is still being processed, the card says to wait and approving is turned down until the refund finishes. Otherwise the amount on the card would still count money that is already on its way back, and refunding it by check would pay it twice.

If the bank takes back a payment on that bill after you approve (the household disputes it, or a bank payment is returned after it cleared), the treasurer gets a task that depends on where the refund check is:

• still waiting in Check run: Stop a refund check: the bank took the money back (void it);

• mailed: A refund check was mailed, but the bank took the money back (ask your bank to stop payment);

• cashed: A refund check was cashed, but the bank took the money back (contact the household);

• voided: on a cancelled bill, The bank took back money on a cancelled bill, saying nothing needs to be stopped; on a bill paid in full, no task.

If approving cancelled the bill (it was paid in part), it stays cancelled. If the bill was paid in full and stayed paid, it shows as open again, because the club no longer has that money.

If the household then loses the dispute and the bank gives the money back, the treasurer gets a second task, The bank gave back money on a bill with a refund check, which also depends on where the check is. "Refunding a payment" explains what to do.

A bill that nothing was paid toward is cancelled exactly as before, with no refund to enter.

Preview emails shows the refund check once you have entered a refund or ticked the credit box.

Approving through the API or a connected assistant works the same way: when money was paid toward the bill, the approval is turned down until it gives a refund amount (0 is allowed, with a note), so money never moves, or is kept, without someone choosing. Account credit goes into the check only when the approval asks for it.

If the penalty uses up the whole bond, or the household never posted one, there is no check. A refund is only queued when something is actually owed, and every message says so: the confirmation, the review card, the banner after you approve, and the member's approval email, which explains that no check will be sent instead of promising one for nothing. These households do not appear in the check run, which is correct, unless you entered a refund of dues they had already paid: that check is still queued, and the email says so.

While a notice waits for your decision, the member's Relinquish membership page says it is under review, that the membership team will be in touch, and that any bond refund comes by check. After you approve it, the same page says their membership has ended and on what date, and points them to their statement to see where the bond refund check stands. It never says the check was sent; the statement does that once you mark it mailed in the check run. A household with nothing left to refund is not promised a check.

Declining does not email the member. The portal tells them the membership team will be in touch once a decision is made, so someone has to actually do that.

If two people review the same notice at once, the second action is turned down because the status has just changed. Reload to see what the first person decided.