Join Date vs. Subscription Start Date

[John Pozadzides]

As far as I can tell, the system doesn't allow seperate Join and Subscription start dates. This would be a great addition for the following reason:

I just had to add 100 members of our organization to our new installation of IPB. We plan on using the system to handle membership dues via the subscription manager.

When I entered the members into the system and did a "Manually Add Transaction", it asked me for the expires date. What I really need to be able to enter are two totally different dates:

[*]The date the person became a member of the organization: Join Date [*]The date of the member's last subscription payment: Subscription Start

When an administrator enters members manually it displays that date as the member's "joined" date in all of the member's posts. Administrators need the ability to change the member join date to back date it. Member's might join at a fee level and later upgrade to a paid subscription. Administrators need to be able to see both the original join date and the subscription start date. If an administrator needs to enter a cash payment for a subscription it's much easier to enter the date the payment was received and let the system figure out the expiration date based on the subscription term length. This would also ensure that if a subscription length was changed in the subscription manager it would recalculate all of the expired members accurately.

Why this is important:

Incidentally, the join and subscription start dates should be editable by the administrator when performing a "Edit Member Profile". Thanks, John

[John Pozadzides]

Almost forgot... Another important reason to enter the subscription start date rather than the end date is:

• If a member is already late in paying dues (subscription) the system won't allow you to input a prior date.
• This means that you have to enter an incorrect future expiration date, which throws off all of the tracking once the member becomes current.