Discounts

You may wish to offer selected members discounts towards event registration, membership fees, or other charges. Discounts can be partial or total, resulting in a complimentary – i.e. free – transaction.

A discount – which reduces or eliminates the invoice balance – is distinct from a credit which is added to a contact's account balance then later applied towards the invoice.

The options for providing discounts differs depending on whether the discount is towards event registration, membership fees, or other charges.

Event registration discounts

Discounts for event registration can be provided using event coupon codes.

To create an event coupon code, you create a special event registration type with a reduced base price, and click the Registration code required option under Availability. You can then enter the coupon code yourself or click the Generate code button to create a randomly generated code.

The discount code can be provided to members and other supporters by email or any other method. On the event registration form, they select the special registration type...

...and enter the coupon code.

Membership discounts

Membership discounts can be provided using membership discount coupons. You can use discount coupons to offer free trials, early renewal incentives, or reduced first-year memberships. You can control whether each discount coupon applies to new memberships, membership renewals, and member level changes.

You cannot use membership discount coupons for free membership levels, or for levels that use automatic recurring payments. Also, you cannot use discounts for a renewal if the Generate invoice and change status to Pending - Renewal option is enabled for that membership level.

Creating membership discounts

To create a membership discount, follow these steps:

1. Click the Settings menu then click the Discounts option within the Members section.
   The Discount coupons screen appears.
2. Click the Add coupon button.
3. Specify the following general information:
   
   Active
   Controls whether the coupon is active. Unchecking this option allows you to disable the coupon without deleting it.
   
   Name
   The name used to identify the coupon.
   
   Code
   The discount coupon code. You can enter the coupon code yourself or click the Generate code button to create a randomly generated code. The code must be unique among the membership discount coupons, and is not case sensitive.
   
   Reduce cost by
   The amount of the discount as a percentage or a dollar amount. You cannot enter a negative amount or a percentage in excess of 100.
4. Indicate whether you want the discount to be available for new membership, membership renewals, and member level changes.
5. If you want, you can restrict the coupon to a certain number of uses, to a certain time period, to active members only (excluding those whose renewal is overdue), or to selected membership level(s).
6. Once you are finishing setting up the coupon, click the Save button.

Inactive discount coupons

If you apply a date range to a membership discount, the discount will no longer appear by default on the Discount coupons screen once the final date has passed.  

To display inactive discount coupons, click the Include inactive checkbox.

Using membership discounts

Depending on how you set up the discount, a Discount code field will appear on the detailed application form when a visitor applies for membership, renews their membership, or request a level change.

After the discount code is entered into the field, the discount will be applied to the membership fee, and a confirmation message will appear.

Tracking membership discount use

On the Discount coupons screen, the Used column indicates how many times each discount coupon was used.

Clicking the number under the Used column will display a list of contacts who have used that discount.

Discount coupons vs. pro-rating

You can use discount coupons instead of pro-rating new membership fees if you want to reduce a specific amount each month. For example, if someone joins in June, they get $10 off, $20 off in July, $30 off in August, etc., you can create separate discount coupons only active for that specific month. Pro-rating would not work in this case since it is automatically calculated.

Entering discounts manually

To provide a discount for other charges, or to enter a discount for event registration and membership fees manually, you can edit the invoice and add an item for the discount with a negative amount.

This will update the invoice and contact balances. However, the original transaction will not be changed. and there will be a discrepancy between the transaction amount and invoice amount.

For complimentary transactions – those with no cost at all – you can delete the invoice altogether. However, this will result in a transaction without a corresponding invoice. Transactions without invoices will not be included in your income reports.

Instead of providing a discount, you can provide a credit towards the full cost of the invoice.