In this article, we’ll guide you to set up Memberships which automatically renew for your Customers. You’ll also find links to other resources you may find helpful.
This article covers:
- Why use auto renewable Memberships?
- Understanding the Auto Renewal Process in Spektrix
- Getting Started with Auto Renewals
- Setting Up an Auto Renewable Membership
- Editing Auto Renewable Memberships
- Selling Auto Renewable Memberships
- Updating Auto Renewal Options
Before reading this article, make sure you are familiar with:
- Setting Up and Editing Memberships
- Selling and Renewing Memberships
- Continuous Authority and Recurring Payments in Spektrix
- Card Wallets in Spektrix
Why use auto renewable Memberships?
You can set Memberships in Spektrix to automatically renew (sometimes referred to as auto renew) by using continuous authority. This means that when a Membership is due to expire, it’ll renew automatically. The payment for the renewal will be taken from a card stored on the Customer Record. This means the Customer won't have to visit your website or get in touch with the box office to renew their Membership.
In addition to automatic payments, you have the option to automatically send notifications to Customers when their auto renewable Membership is due to expire. You can also notify your Customers of any expired or missing cards and payment successes or failures.
Auto renewable Memberships let you generate recurring income without the need to manually track renewals. Auto renewable Memberships renew indefinitely until you or the Customer cancel the Membership.
TIP: You can set up auto renewable Memberships to create recurring Donations. To do this, be sure to set up your Membership to include a Donation.
If you choose to enable auto renewable Memberships then you can set some or all of your Memberships to be eligible for auto renewal.
Understanding the Auto Renewal Process in Spektrix
After the Customer has purchased and sets their Membership to automatically renew, the auto renewal process will begin during the renewal period.
The auto renewal process requires a stored card in the wallet section of the Customer Record. This card should be selected to take the payments for the auto renewable Membership.
WARNING: Spektrix won’t attempt payment from any card that hasn’t been selected specifically for the auto renewable Membership.
For example, a Customer may have several cards in their Wallet. However, if none are selected for the auto renewal at the time of purchase or any time before the renewal period, the auto renewal will fail. Additionally if the selected card fails, Spektrix won’t attempt payment on any of the other cards in their Wallet.
WARNING: Spektrix will attempt auto renewal payment only once.
The auto renewal process will look different whether you choose to set up notifications or not. Customers will receive a notification to let them know that an automatic renewal payment will be taken. A Customer may receive further notifications to let them know if they don’t have a card selected for auto renewal, or if the payment was successful or not.
Auto Renewal Process with Notifications
Two things are required for an auto renewal with notifications to be successful:
- A valid email address for auto renewal notifications
- A valid stored card selected for auto renewal
WARNING: With notifications turned on, if Spektrix can’t send a notification email to a Customer, the entire auto renewal process will fail, even with a valid stored card.
As a Customer’s auto renewable Membership reaches the renewal period, the following will happen:
- A Customer will receive an Auto Renew Notification email saying that your organization will take an auto renewal payment on a specified date and that they can stop the renewal and cancel by updating their Membership.
- If the Customer doesn’t have a valid card selected for auto renewal, they will receive an Auto Renew Update Card email advising them to update their card.
- Spektrix will attempt the auto renewal payment on the specified date.
- The Customer will receive an Auto Renew Success or Auto Renew Failure email depending on whether the auto renewal payment succeeded or failed.
- Your organization will receive an email of all the auto renewal payment successes and failures.
Auto Renewal Process without Notifications
You can choose to sell an auto renewable Membership without notifications set up. As a Customer’s auto renewable Membership reaches the renewal period, the following will happen:
- Spektrix will attempt the auto renewal payment on the specified date.
- Your organization will receive an email of all the auto renewal payment successes and failures.
If you would like to start selling auto renewable Memberships, go to Getting Started with Auto Renewals.
Getting Started with Auto Renewals
In order to start taking auto renewal payments, you’ll need to set up the following:
Once you are able to take auto renewal payments, you can set up auto renewable Memberships.
Continuous Authority with Payment Service Providers
TIP: All organizations in US and Canada and organizations who use Spektrix Payments in any region will have continuous authority already set up. Skip to Auto Renew Feature in Spektrix.
If you're in the UK or Republic of Ireland, you’ll need to contact your merchant bank to generate an additional Merchant ID (MID) for the purposes of continuous authority. Some merchants will allow you to use one MID for all your transactions. We would recommend contacting your merchant bank who’ll be able to advise further.
REMINDER: It can take several weeks for some banks to generate MIDs, so take this into account when planning to start using auto renewable Memberships.
Once you have your new MID, contact Spektrix Support with this information and they'll pass it on to Opayo in order to get continuous authority switched on for your account. This normally takes around one working week.
For in-depth information on setting up continuous authority with your Payment Service Provider, read Continuous Authority and Recurring Payments in Spektrix.
Auto Renew Feature in Spektrix
Once continuous authority has been set up, contact Spektrix Support to turn on the Auto Renew feature in Spektrix. You’ll need to provide one or more email addresses where you’d like to receive confirmation of successful and failed renewals. We recommend using a shared email address.
Setting up an Auto Renewable Membership
Follow the steps in Setting Up and Editing Memberships to set up new auto renewable Memberships or edit existing Memberships to make them Auto Renewable.
Make sure the following are set In the Membership Basic Details:
- Check the box for Can Auto Renew?
- Enter the number of days before the expiry/expiration date when you’d like Spektrix to attempt auto renew payment. The number of days should be less than the renewal period and equal to 1 or more days.
WARNING: Choosing an auto renew payment attempt at 0 days (the day of expiration) may cause an error.
You also have the option to choose to notify Customers of auto renewal by checking the box and entering the number of days before expiration. The number of days should be equal to or less than the renewal period but more than the days for the attempt.
REMINDER: The Renewal Period is the designated time before a Membership expires when a Customer can renew their Membership at the Renewal Price.
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The renewal period for a Membership is 7 days before expiration. Notification of auto renewal payment is sent 6 days before expiration. Auto renew payment is attempted 5 days before expiration.
REMINDER: Make sure to set an auto renewal payment attempt date with sufficient time before the expiry/expiration date so that if an auto renew payment fails, a Customer can renew their Membership manually during the renewal period. They can also renew during the grace period.
Auto Renew Notifications
If you have auto renew notifications set up, Customers may be sent one or more notifications at the time of auto renewal.
These emails are system generated emails that send for any auto renewable Membership. Default email templates are already available for use in your system. If you’d like to customize these emails, you can do so in the Admin Interface > Document designs > Membership Emails.
TIP: Setting up Membership auto renew notifications takes place in the Admin Interface. In order to navigate to and access the Admin Interface you’ll need the General Administrator role.
If you don’t have this user role, contact a Settings Administrator in your organization to edit your User Account and add the General Administrator role.
Click on the Edit button to make any changes and click Save to update the emails.
You must include the data fields in the emails:
Auto Renew Notification Email
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- {Customer/FullName}
- {Membership/Name}
- {Subscription/AutoRenewPrice}
- {Subscription/AutoRenewPaymentDate}
Auto Renew Update Card Email
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- {Customer/FullName}
- {Membership/Name}
- {Subscription/AutoRenewPaymentDate}
- {Subscription/AutoRenewPrice}
Auto Renew Success Email
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- {Customer/FullName}
- {Membership/Name}
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- {Customer/FullName}
- {Membership/Name}
- {Subscription/ExpiryDate}
REMINDER: These emails don’t output HTML or CSS except for line breaks.
Editing Auto Renewable Memberships
If you’d like to make an edit to an auto renewable Membership, follow the steps in Editing Existing Memberships. Editing existing Memberships can affect currently held auto renewable Memberships.
Selling Auto Renewable Memberships
You can sell auto renewable Memberships in the Sales and Opportunities Interfaces or online in the same way you sell all Memberships. For more information, read Selling and Renewing Memberships.
To sell auto renewable Memberships in the Sales and Opportunities Interfaces, read Set the Membership to Auto Renew in Selling and Renewing Memberships.
To sell auto renewable Memberships, online, read Selling and Renewing Memberships Online in Selling and Renewing Memberships.
Updating Auto Renewal Options
It's possible to make changes to an auto renewable Membership once it has been purchased, including:
- Changing a Membership to be auto renewable
- Changing the Customer’s stored card used for auto renewals
- Cancelling auto renewals, to revert back to a manual renewal
REMINDER: Changes to an auto renewable Membership can be made anytime during the Membership period but before the renewal period.
Changes can be made to individual Memberships on a Customer Record in the Sales or Opportunities Interfaces without any need to reissue the Membership and amend the Order. A Customer can also make changes to their Membership online.
TIP: If you would like to make changes to the initial Price, initial Benefits/Goods & Services amount, start dates, expiry/expiration dates and/or Membership period, you must reissue the Membership before the Renewal Period.
Making changes to the Membership in the Customer Record
If you want to change a Membership to auto renew or change the card used for auto renewals, a Customer must have a stored card in their Wallet.
You can make any changes to a Membership by going to Subscriptions > Memberships in the Customer Record. Under the Membership you'd like to update, click on the box of the Membership or click the pencil icon to edit.
Here you can:
- Start auto renewals: Check the Auto renew box and select a stored card from the dropdown menu.
- Change the stored card: Select a different card from the dropdown menu.
- Stop or cancel auto renewals: Uncheck the Auto renew box.
Click Save to update the changes.
WARNING: If a Membership is within the renewal period, you'll be unable to make any changes to the Auto renew checkbox.
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Customers can use ApplePay to pay for Memberships and auto renewals online. However, current Memberships can’t be updated online or in the Sales Interface to auto renew with ApplePay if this payment option was not previously selected.
For example, ApplePay may be available in their Wallet:
This method of payment won’t be available to use for existing auto renewable Memberships.
Making changes to the Membership Online
In order to let Customers make changes to their auto renewable Memberships online, make sure that these features are enabled in the Settings Interface. For more information and set up, read Viewing Memberships and Updating Auto Renewals Online.
If a Customer wants to change a Membership to auto renew or change the card used for auto renew, they must have the card in their Wallet. They can add a new card in their Online Account under Payment Cards.
From their Online Account they can also see their current Memberships under Memberships.
Here they can:
- Start auto renewals: Check the Automatically Renew box and select a card from the dropdown menu.
- Change the stored card: Select a different card from the dropdown menu.
- Stop or cancel auto renewals: Uncheck the Automatically Renew box.
WARNING: If a Membership is within the renewal period, they’ll be unable to make any changes to the Automatically Renew checkbox.
Further Reading
You now have the information needed for understanding, setting up and selling auto renewable Memberships.
For further information on Memberships, check the Memberships section in the Support Centre.