Membership payments run on renewal invoices. Before each member's Next Billing date, Run a Call creates the renewal invoice for you. Members on autopay are charged automatically. Everyone else gets the invoice by email with a link to pay online.
How renewal invoices are created
Every morning, Run a Call looks for active memberships whose Next Billing date is coming up and creates a renewal invoice for each one:
- It's created 14 days before the billing date by default. The owner can change this under Settings → Memberships → Send renewal invoice this many days early (1 to 60 days).
- The invoice has one line, such as Gold Maintenance Plan membership — Jul 2026 renewal (split into first-unit and additional-unit lines on per-unit plans), with your tax rate and payment terms, and it's due on the billing date.
- If the member is on autopay, the card is charged right away (see Autopay below).
- If autopay didn't charge it (the member isn't on autopay, there's no card, or the card was declined), the invoice is emailed to the member with a link to pay online. A member with no email address but a mobile number gets the pay link by text instead.
- If the member has neither an email address nor a mobile number, the invoice stays a draft and your office gets a notification, Renewal invoices ready to collect.
- When the renewal is paid, the membership rolls forward to its next billing date.
Paused, cancelled and expired memberships don't get renewal invoices, and plans set to Ends after their term stop invoicing at the end of the term.
Renewal invoices created before September 30, 2026 were left as drafts and weren't emailed. Send those yourself from the invoice, or collect them with Collect renewal.
The owner controls all of this with Create renewal invoices and email them to members under Settings → Memberships. Turning it off stops creating renewal invoices altogether. That also stops autopay charges, and a membership that passes its paid-through date without a paid renewal expires after the grace period, so only do this if your office collects every renewal with Collect renewal.
Collect a renewal yourself
On the membership page, click Collect renewal. The renewal invoice for the next billing date opens (it's created if it doesn't exist yet). From there, send it, charge a card on file, or record cash or a check. See Sending payment links and Collecting cash and other offline payments.
Collect renewal always raises the next period, and paying it moves the Next Billing date forward. The first period is billed at enrollment, the way you choose there: added to the job's invoice, on its own invoice, or later on the billing run. The first Next Billing date is one billing cycle after the start date (the start date itself with Bill later, and one-time plans bill on the start date). See Billing the first membership period.
Collect renewals at the tune-up visit
Some companies don't email renewal invoices at all. The tech collects the renewal in person, usually at the member's tune-up, together with whatever else they bill on that visit. Run a Call supports that with one switch.
Who can turn it on: the owner.
Turn on the switch
Go to Settings → Memberships and turn on Collect renewals at the tune-up visit. It's off unless you turn it on, and it applies to your whole company.
With the switch on:
- Renewal invoices are still created ahead of the billing date (14 days by default, or whatever you set in Send renewal invoice this many days early), but they stay as drafts. Nothing is emailed or texted to the member.
- Members on autopay are still charged automatically, the same as before.
- On the membership page, the draft renewal shows Waiting to be collected at the tune-up visit in the payment list.
The switch only affects renewal invoices created after you turn it on. Renewals that were already sent stay sent; collect those the usual way.
Collect the renewal on the job
When a member with a waiting renewal has a job, the job offers to bill the renewal on it:
- In the office: on the job page, click Collect renewal on this job next to the member's plan at the top. You need permission to edit invoices.
- In the field app: the tech opens the Membership row under This visit and taps Collect renewal on this visit. Techs can do this on jobs they're assigned to.
A confirmation, Collect renewal here?, tells you what's about to happen, for example: The $189.00 renewal due Nov 1, 2026 moves from INV-0412 onto this job's invoice, and INV-0412 is removed. The membership renews once this job's invoice is paid in full. Click Add renewal.
The renewal line lands on the job (or on the job's invoice if one is already open), and the separate draft renewal invoice is removed, so the member is never billed twice.
Get the job's invoice paid
Collect the job's invoice as usual: card, Tap to Pay, cash or check. When it's paid in full, the membership renews and its Next Billing date moves forward, just as if the renewal invoice had been paid. A partial payment doesn't renew it yet.
Until then, the membership page shows Billing on JOB-… in place of the payment status, with a link to the job.
The renewal line is priced from the plan. If you had changed the amount on the draft renewal invoice by hand, re-check the line on the job.
A few rules:
- The button only shows when the member has a draft renewal invoice that was never sent.
- It isn't offered on a cancelled job, a job for a different customer, or a job booked on a different membership.
- If the job's invoice was already sent, only people with full invoice permissions can add the renewal to it.
Autopay
For members with a saved card, autopay charges each renewal to that card, so nobody has to chase the payment.
Before you start: your company needs online card payments set up with Stripe, and the customer needs a card on file. See Keeping a customer's card on file.
Turn it on:
- At enrollment: in the Review step, switch on Autopay with Visa •••• 1234 (it only appears when the customer has a card on file).
- Later: on the membership page, click the pencil next to Autopay, then Turn on.
What happens:
- The card is charged when the renewal invoice is created (by default 14 days before the billing date), for the renewal amount plus your card fee if your account adds one.
- The invoice is marked paid and the membership rolls forward.
- If the saved card was removed, the customer's current default card is used instead.
- If the invoice is already part-paid when autopay tries the card (for example, the customer paid some of it by check), only what's left is charged.
If the charge is declined: the invoice stays unpaid, the card is flagged, and the member appears in the Card failed list on the Today tab until a charge goes through. The member is emailed the invoice with a pay link, so they can pay with another card. You can also call for a new card and collect the renewal. The unpaid invoice then follows the overdue reminders below.
The confirmation when you turn autopay on says the card is charged "on its due date". In practice the charge happens when the renewal invoice is created, which is 14 days before the billing date unless the owner changed that setting.
To turn autopay off, click the pencil next to Autopay and choose Turn off. Renewals then go back to invoices you collect.
When a renewal isn't paid
After the due date and a grace period (7 days by default), the membership counts as overdue. It shows under AR overdue on the Today tab, reminders go out automatically, and it can be paused if it stays unpaid. See Membership renewal settings and overdue reminders.
QuickBooks and reports
Renewal invoices and their payments sync to QuickBooks like any other invoice when sync is on. See How payments sync to QuickBooks Online. Monthly recurring revenue and renewals are on the Today and Insights tabs and in the Memberships report.