Pending Memberships
How do I monitor pending memberships and what should I do with them?
Run the Pending Members Report regularly as part of your admin routine with the aim of clearing outstanding pending memberships. When you find one, check whether the person still wants to join:
NO, they don't want to continue or it was created in error:
Go to Actions > Delete Membership.
YES, they want to continue:
Agree how they will pay and take the appropriate action (see below).
More Help: Pending Members - what actions can I take?
Unpaid Memberships
How do I monitor unpaid memberships and what should I do with them?
Check the Unpaid Active Memberships Report regularly as part of your admin routine. The report identifies memberships where there is no payment matching the cost of the membership.
Focus on memberships that should have been paid by now, rather than very recent memberships where a payment or Direct Debit may still be processing.
For each membership, check how the member is expected to pay and investigate the payment accordingly. The aim is to resolve outstanding items so that memberships that should have been paid no longer appear on the report.
Renewals
How do I monitor membership renewals and what should I do?
Check the Members Renewing Report regularly as part of your admin routine. This shows memberships approaching renewal and helps you keep an eye on the overall renewal process.
Most renewals should follow your organisation's configured renewal process, so your role is to monitor progress and focus on exceptions rather than manually processing every renewal.
Members who do not renew and reach their membership end date will become Lapsed and should then be managed as part of your lapsed membership monitoring.
More Help: Members Renewing Report
How do memberships that renew automatically work?
An automatically renewing membership will renew on its end date without administrator action. Renewal and payment are separate, so the membership can renew even if payment has not yet been collected.
Members receive their renewal confirmation as part of the automated process. Where payment is collected automatically, for example through GoCardless or Stripe, sheepCRM will process the payment according to the configured payment plan.
You normally do not need to manually process these renewals.
What happens if an automatically renewed membership isn't paid?
An automatically renewed membership can remain Active while its payment is outstanding. Depending on your organisation's configuration, sheepCRM can send automated non-payment reminders to the member.
These memberships will appear on the Unpaid Active Memberships Report and should be managed as part of your normal unpaid membership monitoring.
How do I manage renewals where the member pays by invoice?
When a membership renews with Pay Later / Invoice as the payment method, the membership renewal and payment are handled separately.
The member receives their renewal confirmation with access to their membership statement/invoice in sheepApp, where they can pay by card or view the details needed to pay by BACS.
The membership may therefore be Active while payment is still outstanding.
If payment is received outside sheepCRM, for exaample by BACS, record it against the membership so sheepCRM recognises the membership as paid.
Outstanding payments can then be managed through your normal Unpaid Memberships process (see above).
How do I manually renew a membership and request payment?
An administrator can renew a membership manually and request payment when the member isn't completing the renewal themselves.
Follow the Administrator Guide to renew the membership and set up the appropriate payment request.
Lapsed and Leaving Members
How do I monitor lapsed memberships and what should I do with them?
Run the lapsed members segment regularly as part of your admin routine. Go to segments > search for lapsed members > run the segment.
For each lapsed member, check whether they intend to renew:
Yes they want to renew: if they are still within their grace period, ask them to log in to sheepApp and renew: https://app.sheepcrm.com/yourflockname/login
If they are beyond the grace period and can no longer renew themselves, the administrator will go to the membership record and select Actions > Renew Membership.
No, they are not renewing: Go to Actions > Edit Membership and set Decided to Leave to Yes.
More Help: Renewing a membership and Membership renewal and grace
Payments and Payment Plans
How do automated Direct Debit membership payments work?
For an automatically renewing membership, the simple workflow is:
Membership renews → sheepCRM creates the payment → GoCardless collects it → GoCardless confirms collection → sheepCRM marks the payment Paid → sheepCRM reconciles it to the membership.
You normally don't need to mark successful GoCardless payments as paid yourself.
If a membership remains unpaid when you would expect payment to have completed, manage it through your normal Unpaid Memberships process (above).
Why is a membership showing as unpaid when payment has been received?
Some payments are not automatically reconciled in sheepCRM.
If payment has been received but the membership is still showing as unpaid, check whether the payment has been correctly linked and reconciled against the membership.
Payments that do not reconcile automatically need to be reconciled manually so sheepCRM recognises the membership as paid.
Finance and Reconciliation
How do I reconcile a Stripe or GoCardless payout with our finance records?
The Partner Payouts report is used for finance reconciliation (not membership reconciliation). You do not need to use the report to update the individual memberships in sheepCRM.
The report gives your finance team a breakdown of the individual payments included in a combined Stripe or GoCardless payout, so they can reconcile the money received in their accounting system.
More Help: Partner Payouts Report
Changing or Correcting Memberships
How do I upgrade or downgrade a membership mid term?
Mid-term membership changes are handled manually in sheepCRM.
The existing membership is ended and the new membership plan is applied while retaining the appropriate membership end date. If there is a price difference, the pro-rated amount must be calculated manually based on the remaining membership period.
More Help: Manually upgrade or downgrade a membership
How do I create a backdated or historical membership?
You can create a membership with dates in the past when you need to record membership history in sheepCRM.
More Help: Create a backdated or historical membership
How do I send an invoice to a member who isn't using sheepApp?
You can request payment by invoice without requiring the member to use sheepApp.