How to create Membership Types and Benefits

How to create Membership Types and Benefits

If you have a Membership program you likely have different levels of memberships such as Adult, Senior, Student and Family. Each Membership Type likely has a different fee associated with it. Your organization may also offer different benefits for each membership level. For example, an Adult Membership might cost $50, and receive benefits like free admission to events, a member magazine or newsletter, and a vote at your annual general meeting.

If your organization offers benefits for each level of membership, begin by defining your list of Membership Benefits. 

Membership Benefits

In your Sumac console, click Utilities, Customize Database and Field Values. Choose the Area: Memberships, then choose the Lookup List: Membership Benefits.



Click New to add a new Benefit and provide a brief description of the benefit such as 50% discount in gift store and click OK to save it. Continue this process until you've set up the entire list of all the member benefits your organization offers.


Membership Types 

Under the Field Values list, select Membership Types. Click New to add a new Membership Type and enter the name of the Membership Type, for example Adult.

  1. Note how many cards you issue for this Membership Type. If your organization does not have a limit, you can leave this at “0”
  2. Number of grace days after expiry allows you to define the number of grace days you will honour the benefits of this type of membership after the membership expires. For example, you may honour this type of membership for 30 days after the expiry date.
  3. You could also specify a date when this type of membership will no longer be available.
  4. You can pre-set a default start date, and expiry date for each type of membership. If a certain type of membership always expires on the same date this saves having to enter the expiry date into every membership record of that type. For example, perhaps this type of membership always begins on January 1, and always expires on December 31.
  5. If there are standard templates that you use for renewal or thank you messages, you can specify those templates here. That way Sumac will remember which template you want to use in those situations.
  6. You can also specify a mandatory donation amount in addition to the fee for this membership. For example, perhaps Adult Members are required to make a $20 donation when purchasing their membership. If you specify a mandatory donation amount here, Sumac will fill in this donation amount any time you add a membership of this type to your database.
  7. A membership can have up to two surcharges. You can choose the applicable surcharges from these drop-down menus.
  8. If you want users to be able to specify surcharges when they enter the membership record, click one, or both of the “Let user choose surcharge” check boxes.
  9. If you are integrating Sumac Memberships with your website, you can also indicate that a particular membership type should not be displayed for purchase or renewals occurring on your website.
  10. Finally, you'll notice that the Membership Benefits we defined earlier appear in the dialog window for defining the Membership Type. Put a check mark next to any benefit that applies to this Membership Type.


Click OK to save this Membership Type. Continue this process until you've defined all the Membership Types your organization offers