Automatically Invoicing Membership Renewals

Instead of watching the roster and billing members by hand, GoodBooks can create and email each member's dues invoice automatically as their renewal date approaches. You choose how far ahead to bill; everything else — the invoice, the email, the term rolling forward, the reminder emails — happens on its own.

Availability: Foundation plan and up. It's off by default; turn it on per the steps below and nothing changes for anyone until you do.

Turning it on

Go to Settings → Membership and find Automatic Renewal Invoicing:

1. Switch the toggle on.
2. Set the lead time — how many days before the renewal date the invoice goes out. The default is 30. Set it to 0 to bill on the renewal date itself.

What happens once it's on

Each day, GoodBooks looks for members whose renewal date is within your lead time and, for each one:

• Creates a dues invoice from their tier — amount, fund, and revenue account all come from the tier, and the line shows the term it covers (e.g. Membership Dues — Individual (08/08/2026 – 11/07/2026)). Any required additional charges on the tier are added as their own lines, and an optional charge the member chose on their last renewal is carried forward until someone unticks it on a manual renewal.
• Emails the invoice to the member.
• Dates the invoice today and makes it due on their renewal date, so a 30-day lead reads like net-30.
• Rolls their membership forward a full term, exactly as if you'd billed them yourself.

The renewal reminder emails adjust automatically: once a member has an open dues invoice, reminders track that invoice's due date and remaining balance ("Invoice INV-260010 for $30.00 is due August 12"), and stop the moment it's paid. Before the invoice goes out, the reminder tells them one is coming and when.

Who does NOT get billed

• Lifetime members — they have no renewal date.
• $0 (comp/honorary) tiers — those members renew on schedule with no invoice and no email about money. (A $0 tier that carries required additional charges is invoiced, for the charges alone.)
• Members with a bank-account renewal still clearing — an online ACH payment takes a few days; until it clears or fails, that member is left alone.
• Tiers missing a fund or revenue account — GoodBooks won't guess where dues money belongs in your books. Fill in the tier's fund and revenue account and the member is picked up on the next run.
• Members already renewed today (by you or by an earlier run) — nobody is double-billed.

Good to know

• If a member's renewal date slipped past while auto-invoicing was off, they're billed on the first run after you turn it on — nobody falls through the cracks for having lapsed quietly.
• The setting is organization-wide. If you want to bill one particular member by hand, renew them yourself before their date enters the lead window, or move them to a $0 tier.
• Automatic invoices count toward your plan's monthly invoice allowance, same as ones you create yourself.
• Payments are recorded like any other invoice payment — one at a time from the invoice page, or several dues checks as one deposit with Batch Payments.