Overview
This article explains how membership renewals work in CiviPlus. These typically fall into two categories:
Manual renewals
An Administrator renews a membership explicitly in CiviPlus itself, or a Member renews via the Self-Service Portal (SSP).
Automatic renewals
Where a Memberships is paid for via a payment plan these can be renewed automatically
These approaches can coexist on the same system.
Manual Renewals
Renewals by a CiviPlus Administrator
Find the membership that you want to renew, either from the Membership search page or from the contact record itself:
Click the Renew option on the membership record, and complete the Membership Renewal page. The first section of the renewal page has options specific to the renewal itself, highlighted in red below. The remainder of the form has the same options as when a new membership is created and described in the article here
The renewal specific options available on this page are:
Change Membership Type: This allows you to change the membership to a different type.
Date Renewal Entered: Renewals normally extend the membership from the end of the previous period for memberships, but for Expired memberships you can enter a date here so that the new period starts from the previous expiry date if continuous membership is required.
Membership period change: Renewal normally extends the Membership one membership period, but you can change this if you want.
After you have completed the remainder of the payment related information you can click Renew, and the membership will be extended based on the information you have entered.
Member renewals via the Self-Service Portal (SSP)
Members can renew eligible memberships directly through SSP using the My Memberships area.
When they visit the My Memberships tab on the Self-Service Portal Members will see a list of their current and past memberships with renewal options for memberships that are eligible to renew - this will depend on how the system has been configured.
The renewal options shown will depend on:
Membership status
Membership end date
Whether auto-renewal is enabled
Whether the membership is linked to a payment plan
What happens during renewal
When a member renews via the SSP:
A new membership period is created
The membership start and end dates are recalculated
A contribution or payment plan is created, depending on the payment option selected
Membership status is updated according to configured rules
This behaviour is consistent with the way renewals are handled when an administrator renews in Civi and uses the same underlying logic.
Automatic Renewals
Payment Plans and auto-renewal
If a Membership has a Payment Plan in place then automatic renewals can be enabled so that:
Monthly, quarterly or annual contributions are created.
Offline auto-renewal is available if payments aren't being made via an online Payment Processor such as GoCardless
Key concepts
Memberships created with a Payment Plan are automatically flagged as auto-renew
Auto-renewal is processed by a scheduled job within CiviPlus
Renewals can occur before the membership end date, based on the configuration
A key setting is the Days to renew in advance. For example,
Membership end date is 31 December
Days to renew in advance setting is 1
Result:
Renewal happens on 17 December
The new membership period is created early
Contributions or instalments are generated in advance
This allows organisations to:
Generate invoices earlier
Align renewal communications with billing
Avoid last-minute processing
Membership pricing on renewal
An administrator can enable "Use latest price when auto-renewing", in which case the renewed membership uses the current minimum price of the membership type so price increases will apply automatically. Note: Individual memberships can opt out of this behaviour if required.