How swim club membership renewals and dues billing work

Use Renewals to create a membership year, set tier prices, open renewals, and follow renewal progress. Dues deadlines and late-fee rules are configured in Settings. Automatic late fees are only available when dues are billed once a year (see Can I charge late fees if we bill quarterly or monthly?).

1. Create or open the membership year.

2. Check the price for every membership tier.

3. Review renewal dates and the reminder schedule.

4. Prepare the list.

5. Tell members renewal is coming (optional, but it is the only email before the bill).

6. Bill dues when the information is ready.

Before you can bill dues, three things must be done: every membership type has a price for the year, the list is prepared, and, if your club bills dues once a year, the dues deadline is saved. A new club starts with no dues deadline. Choose it under Club → Membership → Dues and renewal. Until all three are done, Bill dues and Tell members renewal is coming stay off and say what is missing first, for example "Set the dues deadline first". The same check applies however the request is made, including by an assistant connected to your club. A club that bills quarterly or monthly does not need a dues deadline to bill, because each bill is due on the first day of its period.

Members renew by paying their dues bill. Use the renewal list to see who has renewed, who has an open balance, and who needs follow-up. See Late fees, extensions, and termination.

The page puts what you need next at the top. Until bills have gone out for the year, Season settings come first, then Prepare, announce & bill, then Households, Collection and Period activity. Once bills have gone out, Households and Collection move to the top, followed by Prepare, announce & bill, Season settings and Period activity.

The page counts bills as gone out once you have billed dues, or once any household has a bill or has paid. Nothing is hidden in either order. The shortcuts under the status tiles list the sections in the same order as the page, and each one jumps straight to its section, so season settings are one click away after billing starts.

After you prepare the list, open See the list under step 1. It shows every household on this year's list with its membership type, its dues, and anything worth knowing before you bill:

• On automatic payment: the household gets the same bill and reminders, and also a notice before its payment is taken (when automatic payment is on for the club).

• No confirmed email address: nobody in the household has an email address a reminder can reach. They still get a bill in their portal, but you will need to call or mail them.

• Owes $0: their membership type costs nothing this year, so billing marks them renewed without a bill.

• Bill cancelled: issue a new bill or close the renewal: someone cancelled this household's dues bill. See What if a household's dues bill is cancelled?

If a household joins after you prepare the list, step 1 says how many current households are not on it yet and offers Add N to the list. Once everyone is on it, that button goes away.

Step 2, Tell members renewal is coming, emails a heads-up to each household on the list that has not been billed yet and has someone to email. The button says how many that is, and the line under it says who is left out and why (for example, households that already have their bill, already renewed, or are leaving the club). It is not a bill and nothing is charged. Each household sees its own numbers:

• their membership type and what it costs this year

• the dues deadline

• how to pay, and whether a card adds a fee

• when reminders will arrive, if reminders are on

• how to tell you they are not renewing, and by when, so their bond refund is not reduced

• if they pay automatically: the date the payment will be taken, and that they need do nothing

The facts in it come from settings you have already filled in. You write two kinds of words: the optional note from the board at the top, under Club → Membership → Renewal announcement: your opening note, and, if you want, the email's standard opening, heading and closing, which you can change for every household under Messages → Automatic emails (it is called the renewal announcement there). If your club has no bond, or late fees are off, or reminders are off, those parts of the email do not appear. A club that bills quarterly or monthly never gets the late-fee line, because automatic late fees are only for annual billing. In that email the date to tell you about leaving is called the club's yearly deadline, so nobody mistakes it for the due date of the bill. Nothing is made up.

You must read it first. Click Preview to see the real email for a real household, then Send me a test to get a copy in your own inbox. The send button stays off until you have done that. If you then change a price, the deadline, your note or the email's wording (under Messages → Automatic emails), or add or remove the club's reply-to address, the button locks again and asks for a fresh test, because the copy you approved no longer matches what would go out.

Households whose membership type has no price yet get nothing. The count and the membership types appear under the button so you know who is missing out. Set the price and send again.

Sending again is safe: it only emails households that were missed, including any that joined since.

Billing dues puts a dues bill in each household's portal right away. It doesn't email anyone by itself, unless you've turned on a workflow that does. Members hear about their bill from the reminder schedule: each reminder goes out on the schedule shown, starting with the next daily run after its date. If reminders are off, households get no email about their bill at all, and the page warns you before you bill.

Above the button, What members will get walks through this for your club's schedule, with a Preview of the first reminder email shown for a real household on the list. The confirmation says who gets what, for example: Bill 26 households for 2027 dues: 22 get a bill and reminder emails (3 of them also pay automatically), 1 has no confirmed email address, 3 owe nothing. Households on automatic payment get the same bill and reminders as everyone else; they are counted only when automatic payment is on for the club.

Once you confirm, the banner tells you what has just happened: how many households are being billed, that the work runs in the background, and that reloading the page shows the counts move. It also names any tier that was passed over because it has no price. Nothing else is needed from you.

Open Edit reminders, or click Change the reminder schedule under the Bill dues step, to see the schedule as a timeline: the day the bill goes out, each reminder with its date this season, and the dues deadline. Before bills go out, reminders timed from the bill say "about 14 days after bills go out" instead of a date.

• Each reminder is an email or a text message, sent a number of days after the bill or on a date you pick. Text messages go only to members who agreed to texts. A member whose text was held back by the club's daily text limit, or turned away for a moment by the text service, is tried again the next day. A text refused for good (for example, the number can't get texts) is not tried again. Members who already got it aren't texted twice.

• The third email and any after it are worded as a final reminder; the timeline marks them.

• Preview on any reminder opens in a new tab and shows exactly what a household would get, including their extended due date if they have an extension.

• Change a reminder's timing, remove it, or Add a reminder, then Save reminders. Changing when a reminder goes out does not send it again to households that already got it. Switching a saved reminder between email and text saves it as a new reminder, so households that got the email also get the text.

• To change what the reminders say, click Edit the reminder wording. It opens the dues reminders under Messages → Automatic emails, with one version per reminder on your schedule, plus the email a week before an extended due date. See Automatic emails. The amount still to pay, the Pay button, the thank-you for anything already paid, and the line about a penalty for leaving late are filled in for you. Moving a reminder to a different day keeps its wording. Switching it between email and text starts it again from the standard wording.

• If late fees are on (annual billing only), the deadline shows the late fee (configured in Settings) that is added the day after the deadline.

Reminders stop on their own once a household pays or gives notice they're leaving, or once their dues bill is cancelled, or, when late fees are on, once a late fee makes them past due. With late fees off (or on a quarterly or monthly schedule, where there are no automatic late fees), unpaid households keep getting reminders after the deadline. Past-due households are listed under Past due on the Renewals page. Waive late fee there asks you to confirm the amount first; if the member has a payment page open for the dues bill, it is closed first so they can't pay the old amount (see Delinquency and termination). A household given an extension skips the reminders set for a date, and gets one email a week before their new date instead.

Reminder emails mention a penalty for leaving late only if your club charges a penalty for late notice to leave and has saved a dues deadline (both configured in Settings). The date they give is your club's yearly dues deadline, when the penalty starts counting, even for a household with an extension or on a quarterly or monthly bill.

Cancelling a dues bill (Void this invoice on the invoice page) stops that household's renewal reminders: no more emails or texts about a bill they can no longer pay. Their renewal stays where it was, still unpaid, so it doesn't drop off your list. Instead, Renewals lists it under Collection → Bill cancelled, and the household list says Bill cancelled: issue a new bill or close the renewal.

Each one needs one of two things, and neither has its own button yet:

• Issue a new bill. Billing dues only bills households that haven't been billed yet, so it won't bill this one again. Ask Swim Ops support to bill the household again. Don't use a one-off (ad-hoc) bill for the dues instead: paying it would not mark the household renewed.

• Close the renewal. If the household is leaving, they give notice from their member portal (Relinquish membership), and you approve it under Leaving the club, as for any household that leaves. Otherwise, ask Swim Ops support to close it.

View the cancelled bill on the card opens the bill. A household that gives notice they're leaving, or is terminated, has its bill cancelled for it as part of that; those households don't appear here. A past-due household whose bill was cancelled stays on the Past due list instead.

Not automatically. Automatic late fees are only available when dues are billed once a year. The automatic late fee is tied to the club's yearly dues deadline, which doesn't line up with a quarterly or monthly bill. So, for a club on a quarterly or monthly schedule:

• On Renewals, the Late fee row says automatic late fees aren't available, and there is no switch to turn them on. Club → Membership says the same in a note at the top of its settings.

• The renewal heads-up email and the reminder schedule say nothing about a late fee.

• If you try to turn late fees on anyway, you are told why and nothing changes.

When a household is late, you can still charge a fee by hand:

• Household page → New ad-hoc invoice adds a one-off bill with up to three lines, for example a late fee. Managers, treasurers and admins can do this.

• Invoice page → Adjustments & credits adds a fee line to a bill that is still open. Treasurers and admins can do this.

Switching to quarterly or monthly billing is refused while automatic late fees are on. Turn them off on Renewals first (the Late fees on switch), then change Renewal cadence under Club → Membership. Going back to annual billing is always allowed; late fees stay off until you turn them on again.

Use the Households shortcut on Renewals to search by household name or filter by status, Contact exception (no confirmed, reachable email), or Missing price. Click a household name to open its record, or Review renewal to check its invoice balance, household confirmation status, contact issues, recent notes, and activity in a side panel without leaving the list.

• Payment processing means a payment hasn't cleared yet: a bank payment still going through, or a check that isn't marked cleared (separate from Unpaid). If a check bounced, mark it returned on its invoice.

• Dues in the renewal table shows the season membership price, while Invoice balance shows what remains after payments and adjustments.

• Contact exception does not stop a household being billed; it means emails about the bill can't reach them.

• A manager or admin can act on renewals; a treasurer can review them.

• Unsaved staff notes stay in this browser for seven days for the same staff member, club, and household until you save or click Discard draft.

For clubs that bill quarterly or monthly, choose the Billing period before setting prices or billing. Preparing the list creates records for the whole renewal year. The invoice due date is the start of the selected period. The bond-notice and late-notice-penalty deadlines stay on the club's yearly dues deadline (set under Club → Membership); choosing another period does not move them. If the club has not saved a dues deadline, no late-notice penalty is suggested, and renewal emails name no notice date or penalty. Automatic late fees are not available for quarterly or monthly billing.

• Households on a retired tier still need an explicit price. A $0 price is valid; an unset price is not.

• Households whose membership type no longer exists at all (for example, from an old import) can't be priced. Billing skips them, and the confirmation counts them as having no price set.

• If a billing run stops partway, refresh the counts before you try again. Billing again keeps the invoices already created and only processes the households that weren't finished.