A membership form is an application and a payment in one, and the two halves have different rules. The application half wants the member's details and the tier; the payment half wants the dues as a line with the tier's price, the renewal date stated before the card, and the arithmetic of what the club actually receives after the processor's cut. This page builds the membership form for a club, a society or an association running its own site, keeps the application to one screen and the payment to the next, and works the dues on the free payment form calculator so the treasurer knows before the first joiner what a year's dues lands.
The application: details and the tier
Name, email, phone optional, address if the membership is posted anything, and the tier as a dropdown: individual, household, junior, life. Five fields on the first screen at nine seconds each is 45 seconds, and the tier is the field the payment screen branches on, so a household tier reveals the second member's name and a junior tier reveals the date of birth. A referral field, optional, is the one extra a club usually wants and it costs nothing when it is not required.
The dues, worked
The tier's price is a line with a quantity of one, and a joining fee or a badge is an option fee. On the payment form calculator a $125 annual tier with a $15 joining option and no sales tax at 2.9% plus $0.30 charges $140, the processor keeps $4.36 and $135.64 reaches the account; put your own tier prices, any tax that applies and your processor's rate in and it prints yours. The renewal date and the renewal amount are shown above the card field and repeated on the confirmation, because a membership that renews without saying so is a complaint.
Renewal, the register and the members list
A renewal is the same payment a year on, and the fixed fee comes off every one. Each member is a sender in Shortcodo Pro with their application entry, their tier and every dues payment against them, with a status from applied to current to lapsed, so the members list is a filter on a list rather than a spreadsheet rebuilt each spring. The membership form's shortcode is kept with it, and the renewal reminder goes to the members whose status is about to change.
Questions people ask about membership form
Should the membership form take the dues on the same form?
Yes, on the second screen, once the tier is chosen. An application without a payment is a lead, not a member, and the renewal terms belong above the card.
Is sales tax due on membership dues?
That depends on what the membership buys and where; the calculator takes any rate and publishes none. The treasurer's accountant answers the question.
How are lapsed members handled?
As a status. A member whose renewal did not go through moves to lapsed with the date, gets one reminder, and comes back to current with the next payment.