GoodBooks membership ties your member list to your books: every member is a contact, every dues payment flows through your regular invoicing and deposits, and renewal dates track themselves. This article covers the initial setup; How Membership Renewals Work covers the ongoing lifecycle.
Availability: Foundation plan and up. Your plan sets the active-member limit (Foundation: 250, Core: 1,000, Pro: unlimited).
Step 1 — Create your tiers
Settings → Membership Settings. A tier defines what a membership costs and where the money goes:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Tier Name | "Individual", "Family", "Corporate Sponsor"… |
| Dues | Per renewal period. $0 means comp/honorary — those members renew on schedule but are never billed. |
| Renewal Period | Monthly through Every 2 years, or Lifetime. The dues hint updates ("per quarter") so a quarterly $50 never reads as annual. |
| Fund / Revenue Account | Where dues post in your books. Required before a tier can be billed or offered online. |
| Online Renewal | "Available on the public membership page" — see Letting Members Join and Renew Online. |
The settings page also holds the grace period (days past the renewal date before a member goes from grace to lapsed, default 30) and the automatic renewal invoicing toggle.
Additional charges (pass-through dues and add-ons)
Some organizations collect more than their own dues. A Rotary, Lions, or Kiwanis club bills district and national dues along with club dues; a society might offer a printed journal as an extra. The tier editor's Additional Charges list handles both. Each charge is billed as its own invoice line to its own account:
| Field | Notes |
|---|---|
| Label | What prints on the invoice line ("District dues"). |
| Amount | Per renewal period. |
| Fund | Leave as Tier fund unless the money belongs to a different fund. |
| Account | A liability account (Accounts Payable, or a "Due to District" account) for money you collect on someone else's behalf and remit later, or a revenue account for add-ons that are yours. |
| Optional | Off: billed with every renewal. On: offered, and only billed when the member or your staff picks it. |
The hint under the list does the math for you: "Every renewal bills $85.00 (dues $40.00 + required charges $45.00), plus up to $10.00 in optional charges."
Once set up, the split follows the member everywhere: the Add Member and Record Renewal forms show the required charges and a checkbox per optional one, automatic renewal invoices carry them, and the public membership page shows the full price with the optional add-ons as checkboxes. When the payment posts, each charge lands in its own account, so a pass-through sits in the liability account until you write the check to the district, and the balance sheet shows what you owe at any moment.
Editing charges affects future renewals only; what was billed on past renewals is kept as it was.
Step 2 — Add your members
Donations → Members → Add Member. Each member is anchored to a contact — pick an existing contact or create one on the spot. Choose the tier (dues, fund, and account pre-fill), set the join date, and choose how to handle their first dues:
- Record Payment Now — they handed you a check; the dues invoice is created and marked paid in one step.
- Create Invoice (bill later) — bill them; the invoice is emailed.
New members get the welcome email automatically (customize it under Settings → Customization → Email). A contact can hold only one membership, and the contact list shows a membership badge so you can see status at a glance from either direction.
Bringing over an existing roster
People who are already members shouldn't get a welcome email or a new bill just because you moved to GoodBooks. At the top of the Add Member form, switch from New Member to Existing Member. The Dues section disappears and a Next Renewal Date field takes its place: enter the date their current membership runs out (it has to be in the future). The member is added as active with no invoice, no payment, and no welcome email, and is billed for the first time at that renewal date, by automatic renewal invoicing if you use it or by hand from their record if you don't. Lifetime tiers don't ask for a date.
The roster
Donations → Members shows everyone with status counts across the top — Active / Grace / Lapsed / Cancelled — with filters by status and tier, lapsed rows highlighted, and a CSV export for the board packet. Each member's page shows their renewal history, with every renewal linked to its actual invoice.
Where the money goes
Dues are ordinary invoices: accrual organizations book the receivable when the invoice goes out, cash organizations when it's paid. Checks can be recorded one at a time or as a batch deposit; online renewals settle through deposit batches like every other card payment. There's no separate "membership money" to reconcile — it's all in the books you already keep.
Good to know
- Tier changes: editing a tier's dues or period affects future renewals only. Moving a member to a different tier happens on their record at renewal time.
- Someone quits: cancel the membership on their record — a manual, deliberate status that GoodBooks never sets on its own. Their contact and giving history stay.
- Members' donations and dues live on the same contact — giving statements and donor history show the full relationship.
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