New applications tab

In Wild Apricot, you can allow for memberships to be automatically activated once the applicant submits the membership application form, or you can make them conditional upon receipt of payment and/or approval by an administrator. 

Requiring payment or approval before activating memberships

To require fee payment or administrator approval before activating a membership, follow these steps:

1. Hover over the Members menu and select the Levels option.
2. Click the membership level you want to set up application review for.
3. Click the New applications tab.
4. If you want membership applications for this level to reviewed and approved by an administrator, check the Membership applications must be approved by an administrator option. If you want membership applications for this level to be conditional upon payment being reviewed, check the Payment has to be received in full before membership is activated option.
   
5. When you are finished choosing your application review options, and other new application options, click the Save button.

If you enable both application review options, the system will check first whether the payment has been reviewed before displaying alerts regarding the need for administrator approval.

If you want visitors to be able to join as a member and immediately take advantage of member-only registration types, you must leave both these options unchecked.

Recording payments

Payments are automatically recorded for online payments, and can be entered manually for other forms of payment (e.g. cash, check). For more information, see Payment settings. When an online payment is completed, it is automatically settled with the corresponding invoice. For manual payments, the administrator must settle the payment to the invoice manually.

Approving applications

If administrator approval is required, the membership status of the applicant is marked as Pending - New . You can search for members with this status by performing a keyword search for the pending from either your contact list or member list.

To approve a new member, open their contact record and go to the Membership tab. From there, you can click the Approve or Reject button.

Records of rejected members remain in the system as contacts. For instructions on deleting contacts, see Deleting and archiving member and contact records.

After approval, the membership status is set to active, and the Member since date is set to the date the membership was approved. If the renewal date of the membership depends on the join date, then the next renewal date will be based on the date the membership application was submitted, not the date it was approved. Depending on your membership level settings, a membership activation email may be sent to the new member and to administrators.

If a recurring monthly membership is not approved before the next renewal date, the system will automatically charge the member for each month between the application date and the approval date. To avoid this catch-up behavior, an administrator can update the renewal date to the approval date.

Rejecting an unpaid membership application

If you want to delete a pending member application for someone who hasn't paid the membership fee, follow these steps:

1. Go to the contact's Membership tab.
2. Click the invoice number within the pending notice to display the invoice details.
   
3. From the invoice details, click the Void invoice button. You will be asked to confirm the voiding of the invoice.
4. Click the Delete invoice button. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.
5. Return to the contact's Membership tab where an option now appears to cancel the application. From here, click the Cancel button.
   

The membership application is now deleted, and the applicant is now a non-member contact without any membership history.

Rejecting a paid membership application

If you want to delete a pending member application for someone who has already paid the membership fee, follow these steps:

1. Go to the contact's Membership tab.
2. Click the Reject button.
   The application will be canceled, and the payment will be automatically unsettled from the invoice, which will be automatically voided.
3. You now need to refund the payment to the contact, then record the payment in Wild Apricot (if not automatically recorded via PayPal). For information on issuing refunds, click here. 
4. To record a refund issued via a payment provider other than Paypal, go to the Payments & refunds screen and open the unsettled payment.
5. Click the Refund button at the bottom of the payment details. 
6. On the next screen, you can adjust the details of the refund, and record a custom payment tender – the method by which the refund was issued.                
7. When you are finished entering the refund details, click the Save button. 

Wild Apricot does not process any transactions, so recording refunds in Wild Apricot will not result in the transfer of any funds. The transferring of funds associated with a manual refund must be initiated by you from within your payment processor. 

Approving or rejecting memberships from the admin app

Where the membership status is pending, a button will appear on the contact record screen within the admin app, along with the pending membership details.

Tapping this button will display a number of options, including the ability to approve or reject the pending membership.

The options available depend on whether the membership fee has been paid (or is not required), and whether an invoice has been generated.

• Fee has been paid (or is not required)
  Options: Approve, Reject
• Fee not paid, invoice generated
  Options: Activate without payment, Record payment, Reject
• Fee not paid, no invoice
  Options: Activate without invoice, Generate invoice, Reject

If you activate without payment, the member status will be set to Active and the invoice will remain outstanding.

Within the Settings screen on the admin app, you can choose to display a notification if there are pending membership applications that require approval.