Membership Plan upgrade issues

Well, we don't want to chance breaking the site. But with a calendar year plan, I would have to set expiration date to be the same for all members and then for the next year all members would be pro-rated, which would cause a mess for office personnel. After that, when all plan expiration dates are in alignment, the major influx of proceeds will be at one time. This would cause huge budgeting problems. If my understanding of calendar term is correct.

By calendar year affects duration. Not quite when they pay. So if I paid 3 months after the year started then I'd get the remainder of the year. It's not really ideal for magazine subscriptions, but could work. I suggest using my below suggestion from my previous reply.

"...allow for different expiration dates. Then simply stop sending them magazines if the magazine is released after the expiration date. This is how every magazine I've subscribed to has done it."

Another option that I've seen is you simply are purchasing a years worth of issues. So for example I pay $150 and that gives me 12 issues. It doesn't matter when I paid or if I'm expired as I paid for 12 issues. So the next 12 issues I would receive. You could use a simple integer field to keep track of how many issues they have left and subtract by 1 everytime an issue is released. You could automate this somehow as well, but have no idea how you issue magazines so can't suggest anything in that regard.

So, if a query will not cause any of the issues Auto Actions might cause, that seems to be the best course of action. I can handle setting that up.

A query is the issue. CB Auto Actions isn't going to cause a problem. It just would execute your query. Avoid tampering with the database and editing subscriptions.

allow for different expiration dates.

I don't see how this is possible as the plan would have a fixed expiration date:

Start date of calendar year: 01/01 (MM-DD)

Unless there's something I'm missing, wouldn't all members eventually end up with 01/01 as their expiration date? Even if this could work, then hypothetically, a person registering in Oct (assuming a Jan/Dec plan), would pay a pro-rated fee and then in January have to renew their plan again.

Certainly not optimal.

I don't see how this is possible as the plan would have a fixed expiration date:

Don't use by calendar year and instead use 1 year duration. I proposed 2 different solutions. My previous reply supplied a third as follows.

"Another option that I've seen is you simply are purchasing a years worth of issues. So for example I pay $150 and that gives me 12 issues. It doesn't matter when I paid or if I'm expired as I paid for 12 issues. So the next 12 issues I would receive. You could use a simple integer field to keep track of how many issues they have left and subtract by 1 everytime an issue is released. You could automate this somehow as well, but have no idea how you issue magazines so can't suggest anything in that regard."

Unless there's something I'm missing, wouldn't all members eventually end up with 01/01 as their expiration date?

Yes, that's how by calendar works. They are subscribing for the calendar year only (regardless of when the subscribe) so there's possibility they'll end up paying for magazines they won't receive (say they subscribe mid-year).

The best approach is probably my latest suggestion; please see previous reply or above quote.

Don't use by calendar year and instead use 1 year duration.

1 year duration is how we currently structure the plans and it has worked fine as far as the magazine expiration is concerned.

allow for different expiration dates. Then simply stop sending them magazines if the magazine is released after the expiration date. This is how every magazine I've subscribed to has done it

This is the current structure. But, this is also what caused the renewal overlap issue. We wanted to allow members to change plans upon renewal and still maintain their original expiration date. However, it doesn't look like this is possible without causing problems.

Thanks for your assistance.