Start Date Calculation Not Working :(

Discussion in 'aMember Pro v.4' started by tarynike, Nov 12, 2013.

  1. tarynike

    tarynike Member

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    Hi,
    I have Start Date Calculation on my products set to Fixed Date of 1/1/14. However, everyone that subscribes is being set at the date they paid being the first day of their year long subscription period. Why isn't this working? I have a hundred or so of these going through in the next week and need to please figure this out ASAP.

    I also am not being allowed to change the dates manually - getting a datetime_construct error. I've found another post on this one that it looks like I need to upgrade, so that part may be a non-issue at this point. I'm just afraid to upgrade in the middle of the sign-ups in case something goes wrong.

    Thanks!
  2. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    1. Do you have recurring products? Start date calculation will not be applied to recurring subscriptions.
    2. Yes this will be fixed with upgrade.
  3. tarynike

    tarynike Member

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    Yes, the products are recurring, however the Start Date I'm trying to effect is for the first subscription of all the renewals - will it still not work?

    How do I get the correct start date? What happened is that all the members were imported and payments/invoices didn't come through as recurring. To them, they are renewing this year - they expire 12/31/13. However, to aMember, this "renewal" is a new subscription that when paid for through aMember, is going in correctly as Recurring Active. The huge problem I'm having is that the new subscription is going in with a year-long date starting with the date they make their payment. I need their start dates to be 1/1/14 since they currently expire 12/31/13. Is there not a way to do this?

    Alternatively, is there a way to do a mass change on everyone to have all their invoices have the correct subscription time frame, or will I have to go in and change each one individually?

    Thanks!
  4. tarynike

    tarynike Member

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    Oh dear! I'm hoping someone can chime in with some much needed help.

    I upgraded and now I can indeed change the dates just fine for members Access. However, this is apparently not going to solve my problem, as the associated invoice still says that the wrong next rebill date.
    My members need to have their memberships start on 1/1/14 - setting a Fixed Start date isn't working. When they make their payment, it's setting them as Recurring Active, but starting the membership as of the date of their payment, which is wrong. I can change the Access dates to be 1/1/14 - 12/31/14, but that's not changing the Invoice info, and I don't see anywhere to change that.

    We're just using PayPal Business, so I'll be using aMember's Expiration email notification to send out an email a certain number of days prior to their expiration with a prompt to login and renew their membership. Is this actually driven by their Access dates, not their Recurring Active Invoice dates?

    If our renewals are driven by the Access dates, which I can change to be correct, what effect will the Recurring Active Invoice dates being wrong have on things?

    Thanks!
  5. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    This can't be done without customization.
    If you use paypal and your subscriptions are recurring, this doesn't matter what access dates you will set. Subscription will be billed by paypal and will be billed based on user's purchase date. What could be done is a customization which will setup trial period for the difference between today's date and 1/1/14.
    So when user will signup, he will have first payment = $0 and second payment will be processed at 1/1/14 for full yearly amount.
  6. tarynike

    tarynike Member

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    Hmmm - so, my client does not have recurring/subscription billing set up with PayPal - the only "recurring" that's happening is through aMember. So, since that's the case, even though the members Invoice/Payment says 11/2013 - 11/2014, if their Access for the subscription says 1/2014 - 1/2015, will they get the Expiration email through aMember based on the January to January time frame?
  7. alexander

    alexander Administrator Staff Member

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    Not sure I've understood what do you mean. aMember will not handle recurring payments if you use paypal Website Payments Standart. If you have Rebill Times set to "Rebill Second price until cancelled" amember will create recurring subscription for user on signup. Then user will be re-billed by paypal, and paypal will use schedule which was setup initially.
    So for example if user signup today for annual subscription, next time paypal will re-bill user at November 14 next year. aMember will not re-bill user itself. It just waits for an IPN notification from paypal and extends/deletes user's access when necessary.
    Yes this is correct.
  8. tarynike

    tarynike Member

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    May 1, 2013
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    I'm so sorry - it isn't making sense to me that their Subscription runs from January to January, but if they pay/renew say in November, then they'll renew every November instead?

    From what I understand, the type of PayPal account they have doesn't handle rebills, just accepts payments. So if that's indeed true, if I understand correctly, they won't be rebilled, they'll just get the expiration email from aMember?

    Thanks!

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