Statuses
- active (automatic)
- grace (automatic - for one month past expiry)
- suspended/cancelled (manual - suspended is when membership is revoked for abuse, cancelled is for members who call in to cancel before their expiry)
- expired (automatic - more than a month past expiry)
- historic (automatic - more than a year past expiry)
If you want to force the status to a state that it doesn't automatically go to, you can use the manual override. Any account that isn't being forced should not have manual override on.
Old system (prior to 2014)
In the old system, a contact would have a new membership created every year. The previous membership was marked as expired. The field "source" was used to write the cost. An extra field was added for payment date. A search for expired members would return any member who had previous year memberships, even if they were active this year.
To make a list of expired members (useful for renewal notices) you must first get a list of all members, then subtract the list of active members. The list is only accurate on the day it is made.
Current system (as of Jan 2014)
In the new system, payment history is moved into the contributions section. This gives us accounting tables, income per month or year, etc. It removes the two customized fields (source and payment date) from the membership. A contact will typically have one membership, which gets renewed each year, updating the status and expiry. In a pure version of this system, it is simple to get a list of expired members.
Blended system (during 2014)
The bridged system is an awkward blend of both.
It is possible to move all the old system records into the new system, but expensive. It can be done by hand (instructions on another help page). Or a consultant can create a tool to do this.
It is still complex to get a list of expired members: the method from the old system is still needed.
Blended system (2015 and beyond)
A year after the new site is launched, all of the records that are hanging around from the old system will be marked as "historic". "Expired" will only include members that expired in the previous 12 months and have not renewed. Once they renew, the membership status changes, they do not have an old membership hanging around. Expired will not be a list of everyone who was ever a member, because after 12 months they are off to historic land.
Getting a list of strictly historic members (or mix of historic and expired) is a little tricky, because there are multiple records for each client. You would start with the full list, subtract the active (as per the old system).