My organization's memberships are based on the school year which is approximately from August 25th through June 15th. While the bulk of our memberships are acquired between August 25 and Oct. 31, we do get some early sign-ups and we continue to accept memberships all year until June 15 or so. But regardless of what date a person joins, their membership needs to be renewed again for the next school year.
The problem I'm having is that on the Renewal Policy screen for a given Member Level, I can only choose an Annual renewal period based on either (a) the member's join date, or (b) a specific date such as 1 September.
If I choose (a), then someone who joins on January 1 won't get renewal notices until Jan. 1 of the following year. Not what we want. We want everyone to get renewal notices at the same time just prior to the beginning of the school year (i.e., in late August).
If I choose (b) and specify 1st of September as the hard date, then a new member who joins prior to Sept. 1 will still be tagged for renewal a few days later on Sept. 1. For example, if someone joins on August 25th, 2008 as a new member, their renewal date will be Sept. 1, 2008 -- not Sept. 1, 2009 as it should be from a functional point of view. If I back up the date from Sept. 1 to Aug. 1 to try to prevent this problem, then the renewal notices get sent out too early (in July when everyone is on Summer Break) and are likely to be ignored.
One Solution?
Ideally, any new memberships that are created within n days (administrator specifiies number of days) prior to the hard start date (Sept. 1 in my case) would have a renewal date of Sept. 1 of the following year. Sort of like a preregistration grace period.