How to Set Up a Program for Memberships with Revenue in Another System

Some membership programs in your organization may be managed and have revenue tracked in other systems, but you may still be interested in information about members for the other program. For example, a university's alumni association may be interested to see that one of its members is also a member of an athletic booster program. In this situation, you can set up the athletic booster program as a membership program in which payments are made in another system. For these programs, you set up and can track basic information about the membership, but not things like benefits or add-ons.

This workflow walks through the setup of a membership program whose payments are made in another system, along with the different tabs and fields you encounter along the way.

From Memberships, select Add. The Add a membership program screen appears. The first fields on the screen are for general information about the membership program, such as its name and description. You also specify that payments for this membership program are made in another system. For more information, see General Information about the Membership Program.
On the General tab, make key choices about the type of membership program you want to set up, such as whether it is annual, recurring, or lifetime. You also choose whether membership in the program is based on dues, contributions, or both. For programs with payments in another system, you make these selections, but you won't actually set up the rules for membership dues or contributions.
For annual programs, on the Levels tab, set up the levels for your membership program. You need to have at least one level, but you can have multiple levels. For example, you might have a standard level as well as a premium one. When you enter your levels, begin with the lowest or most basic level first.

For dues-based programs, each of your levels has one price. You can also specify the number of members, membership cards, and children allowed for each level.

For contributions-based programs, you set minimum and maximum amounts for each level. The lowest level might be any gift under $50, while other levels may be between $50 and $99, $100 and $249, and so on.

If your program includes both, you specify how people obtain each level—whether it is purchased with dues or awarded with contributions. You then specify the amounts for each level accordingly.

For recurring or lifetime programs, on the Payment Options/Levels tab, enter the payment options for the membership program. On the Prices tab, you can enter a price for each payment option and level.

Note: Pricing information is for informational purposes only. When you add memberships, you will not enter revenue for memberships in this program.

For more information about levels, see Membership Program Levels and Terms.
The Renewals tab appears for annual programs only. On the Renewals tab for a dues-based program, specify whether the membership term varies based on the start date of the membership or based on a fixed date such as a calendar year. You also specify when dues-based levels expire.

Then on the Renewals tab for dues- and contributions-based programs, you set up the renewal window and determine how members' statuses change based on where they are in the window. For information about renewals, see Manage Renewal Information for Membership Programs.
The final tab is the Review tab. On this tab, you can select each level on the left and view information about the level on the right. If you need to make any changes to the information, you can select back through the tabs. Otherwise, select Save.