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Membership Types


Membership types in Nimble AMS are the primary building blocks for your association's membership setup, and are vital for tracking membership history on a term-by-term basis for all past, present and future members. Each membership offering requires a separate membership type record, which controls all membership business rules and provides different dues options for staff to sell and constituents to purchase.

Staff can create and modify membership types as needed to support your specific needs. With membership types, you can customize your membership experience with:


  • Cash and accrual accounting methods
  • Income recognition assigned to different GL accounts based on the stage of membership (join income vs. renewal income), which also supports deferred income recognition

    Membership types also support complimentary or non-income related memberships. 

  • Various term length and pricing options within one membership type, based on stage (join or renew)

  • Grace period configuration
  • Re-instate period configuration
  • Community Hub join and renewal options
  • Proration of annual term membership types
  • Auto renew functionality that automatically renews and charges a stored credit card at the end of a member's term.

Membership Type Setup Variations

Each membership type must be configured to offer a primary membership product that can act as either:

  • The only available option for selection
    Or 
  • One of many primary options, acting more as subtypes for a given membership type

Ultimately, you can set membership types up either way, depending on your association's needs.

Grouped Membership Type Example

Given your association offers various membership options, you may prefer to offer fewer, grouped, membership types, each with several subtypes configured as primary products; rather than configuring a separate membership type for each specific offering.

Separate Membership Type Example

On the other hand, if your association offers multiple term options for your membership types, it's best to configure a separate membership type for each offering.

Customizing Additional Membership Options

Each membership type may also be set up to require other membership related products, unique to their stage (join or renewal). For example: a mandatory chapter dues cost may be included alongside a membership term, having it's income recognized to a separate GL account and/or financial entity.

Optional term-dependent membership related products may also be set up. For example: a "Roundtable Access" membership product may represent term-long preferred access to otherwise private personal networking opportunities.

Additionally, Donation products can be set up to display during membership join or renewal (or both).

In this section, you will find information and steps for membership type configuration, including join and renewal stage configuration.


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