Create a New Dues and Fees Item

Set up a new “Dues & Fees” item and establish its payment requirements. Any setting marked with a red asterisk (*) is mandatory, so you must make a selection for these settings before you can save your “Dues & Fees” item.

Click on the “Payments” tab on the vertical Dashboard menu at the left side of the screen.
Click on the “Dues & Fees” tab.
In the “DUES & FEES” window that opens, click on the “Dues Actions” button at the top right and choose “+Add New Dues Tier.”
The “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window that opens contains four tabs. When you first create a new dues item, you must work through all four tabs to complete the setup process, even if you skip some non-required items on the various tabs. (Note that all items marked with a red asterisk are required aspects of dues-item creation.) Use the “Next” buttons to move to the next tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window, and the “Back” buttons to move to the previous tab.
On the “INVOICE DETAILS” tab, type a descriptive name for the dues item in the “Dues Name” box.
Type the billable amount of the item in the “Amount” box. (Note that if you edit the “Amount” of an existing “Dues & Fees” item, you only change the billable amount of future payments, not the amount of any existing invoice.)
Set the “Would you like to activate this Dues Tier?” radio buttons to “Yes” to schedule this dues item for invoicing. If you are testing out the Dues & Fees process, set this option to “No” to avoid sending “test invoices” to your entire membership. Note that to make this charge available for online payment, you must add a website page based on the “Payments” page template and attach your charge to the page, activate the Member Portal, or both.
Set the “Should this due be required for Member Access?” radio buttons to “Yes” to block late-paying members’ access to members-only portions of your website until they pay the invoice for this item. Set the “Should this due be required for Member Access?” radio buttons to “No” to allow full website access for members who have not paid the invoice for this dues item.
If you have synced your account with your QuickBooks account, click on the “Quickbooks Account” dropdown menu to open it and designate a QuickBooks Account Name—other than the default you set up on the Account > Settings page—to receive your invoice and payment data from this dues item. If you do not want to override the default setting, do not change this dropdown menu. Note that not all customers have access to QuickBooks integration. (For instructions on how to use QuickBooks integration, see the “QuickBooks® Integration” section of these instructions.)
Click on the “Next” button to advance to the second tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window. To exit the process without creating a “Dues & Fees” item, click on the “Cancel” button, press the “Esc” key, or click on the “X” in the top right corner of the window.
On the “ADD FEES” tab, activate the checkbox for “Enable Partial Payments” to allow members to pay a dues item in multiple separate installments. Note (1) that you cannot activate both partial payments and late fees, and (2) that activating partial payments does not set a payment schedule, but simply allows members to make more than one payment toward the total amount due.
Activate the checkbox for “Enable Service Fees” to apply a transaction fee to each payment.
Once you activate “Enable Service Fees,” the service-fee percentage and amount boxes appear.
These boxes are preset with the correct values for dues items with values ≤$625. If the face value of your dues item is >$625, change the ACH services fees to 0% and $6.25.
Transaction processing fees are added to the amount the resident pays. If you do not activate the “Enable Service Fees” checkbox, these fees are deducted from the amount that Stripe deposits in your community bank account.
(For instructions on how service fees work, see the “How Transaction Processing Fees Work” topic in the “Best Practices” section of these instructions.)
In the “Late Fees” section, activate either or both of the two fee options.
Activate the “Enable Interest-Based Fee” checkbox to apply a simple or compound interest-based late fee with configurable grace period and optional recurrence.

Set the “Interest type” dropdown menu to “Simple” for simple interest and “Compound” for compound interest.
In the “Percent” box, enter the fee value as a percentage of the face value of the dues item.
Click on the “Frequency” dropdown menu to open it and select “Once,” “Daily,” “Weekly,” “Monthly,” “Quarterly,” “Bi-Annually,” or “Yearly,” depending on how often you want the late fee to recur.
In the “Grace Period” box, enter the number of days before the late fee applies.
To remove an interest-based late fee, click on the trash can at the right of the data-entry area. Note that this deletion icon is not visible unless the “Enable Interest-Based Fee” checkbox is activated.

Activate the “Enable Flat Fee” checkbox to apply a flat-amount late fee with configurable grace period and optional recurrence.

In the “Amount” box, enter the dollar value of the late fee.
Click on the “Frequency” dropdown menu to open it and select “Once,” “Daily,” “Weekly,” “Monthly,” “Quarterly,” “Bi-Annually,” or “Yearly,” depending on how often you want the late fee to recur.
In the “Grace Period” box, enter the number of days before the late fee applies.
To add more flat fees, click on the “+Add Another” button. Note that you cannot create more than one interest-based late fee.
To remove a flat late fee, click on the trash can at the right of the data-entry area. Note that this deletion icon is not visible unless the “Enable Interest-Based Fee” checkbox is activated.

Click on the “Next” button to advance to the third tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window. To exit the process without creating a “Dues & Fees” item, click on the “Cancel” button, press the “Esc” key, or click on the “X” in the top right corner of the window. To go back to the previous tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window, click on the “Back” button.
On the “SELECT FREQUENCY” tab, click on the “How often should this due repeat?” dropdown menu to open it and select an invoicing frequency.

Select “Annually,” “Quarterly,” “Semi-Annually,” or “Monthly” for periodically recurring invoices.
Set the “How should recurring dues be scheduled?” radio buttons to “Based on each member’s join date” to base the invoice due date on each member’s website-signup date.
Set the “How should recurring dues be scheduled?” radio buttons to “Based on due date” to use a specific date as the remittance due date.

Click in the “Due Date” box to reveal a calendar from which to select the due date. By default, the calendar displays the current month.

To change the month, click on the arrows to the right of the month and year displayed in the calendar. Click on a start date to select it, and then an end date to select the conclusion of the exclusion period. To confirm the settings, click on the “Set” link at the top of the calendar window.

Click on the “Terms” dropdown menu to open it and select payment terms.

An invoice goes out a specific number of days before it is due, which equals the payment terms. Select “Net 15,” “Net 30,” “Net 45,” “Net 60,” “Net 90,” “Net 120,” or “Net 365” to give residents 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, or 365 days to make a timely payment. Select “Custom Terms” to reveal the “Custom Terms” box and set a different value for the payment terms. Enter the desired number of days into the “Custom Terms” box. The system automatically shows you the date on which your invoices will go out.

Click on the “End Repeat” dropdown meaning to indicate whether your dues item does or does not recur. Set the “End Repeat” dropdown menu to “None” if the dues item recurs, or to “On” if the dues item should stop recurring on a specific date.
If you decide to add an end date, click in the “End Date” box to reveal a calendar from which to select the date on which your dues item stops recurring. By default, the calendar displays the current month.

To change the month, click on the arrows to the right of the month and year displayed in the calendar. Click on a start date to select it, and then an end date to select the conclusion of the exclusion period. To confirm the settings, click on the “Set” link at the top of the calendar window.

Click on the “Next” button to advance to the fourth and final tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window. To exit the process without creating a “Dues & Fees” item, click on the “Cancel” button, press the “Esc” key, or click on the “X” in the top right corner of the window. To go back to the previous tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window, click on the “Back” button.
On the “CONFIGURE INVOICE” tab, choose who will receive invoices for this dues item and activate the appropriate checkbox.

To invoice only those Members with selected Member Tags applied, leave all of the checkboxes in the “Whom would you like to invoice?” section deactivated. Click on the “Select Applicable Member Groups (Tags)” dropdown menu to open it and choose one or more Member Tags that you have applied to various Member records.
Choose one or more member groups from the “Select Applicable Member Groups (Tags)” dropdown menu to bill all and only the members to whom you or the system have applied specific tags. These tags may represent committee memberships, which carry system-applied tags, or affinity/activity-type involvements, which you tag manually.
To select all member groups, activate the “Select all” checkbox at the beginning of the list. Note that this may not produce the same results as “Invoice All Members” because some member accounts may have no tags applied to them.
To send out billing to everyone who has registered for website access, select “Invoice All Members.”
To bill only specific individual members, select “Invoice Individual Members” and choose members from the “Invoiced Members” dropdown list, which appears when you activate the “Invoice Individual Members” option. Click in the “Invoiced Members” box and select one or more members from the dropdown menu of member names and e-mail addresses.
If you have activated the Households feature and want to send this invoice to all Household members whose Household Access Type is set to “Allow Dues,” select “Invoice All Households (One Payment Per Address).” The first Household Member who pays an invoice closes it out for their entire Household.
Activate the “Invoice Empty Households” checkbox to send invoices to addresses with no owner, with members who have not signed up for website access, or with members whose access type does not include Household dues.
Click on the “Select Applicable Household Labels” dropdown menu to open it and choose one or more Household Labels that you have applied to various Households. Only those Households with the selected Labels applied will receive invoices from a dues item set up this way.
Note that if you do not select any of these four invoicing options, your dues item will not bill anyone.

In the “Add Invoice Instructions” box, type or paste information about how you want your residents to pay, additional information about the dues item, or any other details you need to share.
Click on the “Calculate Invoice Schedule” button to see the invoicing and payment due dates for this dues item, along with the number of invoices it will generate, based on the options you have chosen above. The number shown is a clickable link to a list of those who will receive invoices. To see the actual payment schedule, click on the “Payment Schedule” link.
This button will reappear whenever you change an option that alters invoicing and payment-due schedules.
When you are happy with your “Dues & Fees” item setup, click on the “Save” button.
To exit the process without creating a “Dues & Fees” item, click on the “Cancel” button, press the “Esc” key, or click on the “X” in the top right corner of the window.
To go back to the previous tab of the “ADD NEW DUES TIER” window, click on the “Back” button.