GoodBooks tracks each member's renewal date, moves them through active → grace → lapsed automatically, reminds them by email before they're due, and records dues through your regular invoicing and deposit flow — so membership money lands in your books like everything else.
Availability: Foundation plan and up. Members live under Donations → Members; tiers and settings under Settings → Membership.
Membership tiers set the terms
Each member belongs to a tier, and the tier decides three things:
- Dues — what a renewal costs. A tier with $0 dues is a comp/honorary membership: those members renew on schedule but are never billed.
- Renewal period — how often dues are owed: Monthly, Quarterly, Semi-annual, Annual, Every 2 years, or Lifetime. A lifetime member never comes due, never gets reminders, and is never billed again after joining.
- Fund and revenue account — where dues money posts in your books.
The dues amount is per period — a Quarterly tier with $50 dues bills $50 four times a year (the form shows a "per quarter" hint so there's no confusion).
A tier can also carry additional charges (district dues passed through to a parent organization, an optional publication). Required charges are billed with every renewal as their own invoice lines; optional ones appear as checkboxes when you record a renewal. See Setting Up Membership for how to define them.
The member lifecycle
| Status | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Active | Paid up — renewal date is in the future (or they're lifetime). |
| Grace | Renewal date has passed, but they're inside your grace period (default 30 days, adjustable in Membership Settings). |
| Lapsed | Grace period expired without a renewal. |
| Cancelled | You ended the membership manually. GoodBooks never sets this on its own. |
Status changes happen automatically every day. Renewing a grace or lapsed member makes them active again immediately.
Renewal reminders
Members with an email address get renewal reminders automatically, on a schedule that fits the term length:
- Annual or longer: 30, 14, and 7 days before the renewal date
- Quarterly / semi-annual: 14 and 7 days before
- Monthly: 7 days before
- Lifetime: never
The email states the term and the dues for the coming period. If you use automatic renewal invoicing, the reminders follow the member's actual invoice instead — "Invoice INV-260010 for $30.00 is due August 12" — and stop as soon as it's paid.
You can customize the reminder message under Settings → Customization → Email.
Recording a renewal by hand
Open the member's record and use the Record Renewal panel. Pick the tier (it pre-fills the dues), then choose:
- Pay Now — the member handed you cash or a check. GoodBooks creates the dues invoice and marks it paid in one step.
- Create Invoice — bill them. A "Membership Dues" invoice is created and emailed, showing the term it covers (e.g. 08/08/2026 – 11/07/2026).
Either way the member's renewal date rolls forward one full period and their status returns to active. The renewal is added to their history, linked to the invoice.
Renewing early never costs the member time. The new term starts from their current renewal date, not from today. A lapsed member's new term starts today.
Good to know
- Changing a tier's renewal period affects future renewals — nobody's current renewal date moves.
- Each member's record shows their full renewal history with links to the actual invoices.
- Your plan has an active-member limit (Foundation: 250, Core: 1,000, Pro: unlimited). Grace, lapsed, and cancelled members don't count against it.
- A stack of dues checks can be deposited in one step — see Batch Invoice Payments.
- A member who renews online by bank account shows an ACH Pending renewal for a few days. Their term doesn't move until it clears, and reminder emails and automatic invoicing leave them alone in the meantime, so nobody gets nagged about dues that are already on the way.
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