A chapter dues product sets what a member pays to join a chapter. You can use one catch-all product for every membership package, set different prices for specific packages, and prorate dues by month when members join partway through the year. This article explains how to create, edit, deactivate, and delete dues products for a chapter. To turn on chapters for your account, see Chapters, Sections, and Add-Ons.
Where to Find It
In the Membership & Committees Console, go to Chapters › Search, open the chapter, and select the Dues Products tab. Select Create Dues Product to add a product, or use the edit or delete icon in the product row.
To set up revenue splits for chapter dues, select the green money icon on the product row to open the financial configuration. Then use the Revenue Splits section near the bottom of that form. The G/L account you choose there controls the account used for posted transactions and the chapter’s mapping in downstream accounting exports.
Settings
| Setting | Options | Default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Select a package: | An active membership package, or blank | Blank | Leave this blank when the product should be the catch-all dues product. Rhythm charges it when a member joins the chapter through any package that does not have its own product. Choose a package when that package needs its own chapter dues price. |
| Name / ID / business unit | Locked | Generated from the chapter and package names | Rhythm regenerates these values whenever you change the package. |
| Price | Currency amount | — | This is the chapter dues amount for the selected package, or for every package when the product is the catch-all. |
| Dues Proration | Switch | Off | Turn this on to show the twelve monthly proration settings below. |
| January: … December: | A percentage per month | Blank | A member who joins in that month pays this percentage of the price, after all other pricing calculations. |
| How should we apply this dues proration? | New Members, Existing Members, Both | Both | New Members applies proration only to someone with no membership, or whose membership was terminated. Existing Members applies it only to someone with an active, unterminated membership. Both applies it to everyone. If your account already has chapter dues proration configured, the Change Affiliation process applies that same proration when a chapter is added there. |
Membership orders do not use configurable product descriptions the way online store products do. A chapter dues line on an invoice always shows only the dues product’s name.
Tip
You do not need a separate dues product for every membership package. One catch-all product, including one priced at $0, covers every package that does not have its own product and applies to any organization membership that includes the chapter. Create a package-specific product only when that package needs a different price. Keeping the number of chapter dues products low also protects performance. An account with a very large number of them, including old imported or inactive $0 products nobody has cleaned up, can make chapter selection and other chapter-related membership flows slow or fail to load. If your account has thousands of chapter dues products, review the older or inactive ones for cleanup even before you delete anything.
Warning
Rhythm does not stop you from creating a second catch-all product, or a second product for the same package, on one chapter. When duplicates exist for the same package, Rhythm does not guarantee which product gets quoted and charged, so avoid creating duplicates. Because the product’s name is generated from the chapter and package, two products that would generate an identical name, such as two catch-all products on the same chapter, can fail to save with a generic “a record with this name already exists” error. If you see that error, choose a package for the product, which regenerates its name, instead of leaving it as a second catch-all.
Dependencies and Precedence
- When Rhythm prices a chapter for a member, it looks first for a dues product that names the member’s package. If none exists, it uses the catch-all product.
- Editing a dues product replaces it entirely, and changing its package also renames it to match.
- A dues product must be marked active before Rhythm quotes and charges it. If a product is saved with no active status at all, Rhythm treats it as active, so leave the flag alone when you want the product to keep working.
- A chapter needs at least one dues product price, even $0, before it can be added to an invoice. Without a price, the chapter does not appear as a choice in Adjust Invoice and does not appear on a billing-run invoice. Configure a price first, and then the chapter becomes available to add.
- A dues product’s price is what Rhythm charges in both the Console and the Portal. If members see the wrong chapter dues amount in the Portal, correct the price on the dues product here instead of looking for a separate Portal-side override.
- A dues product can have its own purchasing-eligibility criteria tied to a contact or profile field answer. If a member’s answer does not match what the product requires, Rhythm does not let them add that chapter.
Change Impact and How to Revert
- To stop charging for a dues product without deleting it, make it inactive. The chapter stays available to join, but Rhythm quotes it at zero and no longer reports it as having dues once it has no active dues product left. Reactivate the product to restore the earlier behavior.
- Deleting a dues product is permanent. If it was the chapter’s last dues product, deleting it also clears any block that prevented the chapter from being deleted for that reason. Avoid deleting a dues product that has already been used in a purchase, even if Rhythm allows it, because that has been seen to cause downstream financial-posting problems.
- The console's mass delete function does not support chapter dues products. Removing a large number of them at once is not self-service; contact Support for bulk cleanup.
- If a batch is blocked because a chapter dues product it referenced was deleted, recreating a dues product with the exact same ID and assigning it a revenue product has been seen to let the batch post again. Treat this as a fallback, not a routine step.
- If a chapter’s parent record is deleted while a dues product still exists under it, that product can become orphaned. It may still appear in Chapter Dues Product queries, but you can no longer inactivate, edit, or delete it through the console because its financial configuration is no longer reachable. Contact Support for cleanup in that case.
Permissions
Creating and editing chapter dues products are Membership administrator actions in the Console. Deleting a dues product also requires the delete permission for chapter dues products. Without that permission, the delete icon on the chapter’s 360 page is disabled and shows an “Access Denied” tooltip. Ask the person who manages security roles for your Rhythm account to update your access.
Validation and Errors
| What you see | Meaning and what to do |
|---|---|
| The delete icon is disabled with "Access Denied" | You do not have permission to delete chapter dues products. Ask an administrator for access, or edit the product and make it inactive instead. |
| The chapter is quoted zero for a package you expected to be priced | No active dues product names that package, and there is no active catch-all product. Add or reactivate one. |
| An affiliation change completes, but the expected chapter membership never appears | Check the Chapter Join or Change form configuration before assuming the chapter dues product setup is the problem. A misconfigured form can be the cause even when pricing and activation look correct. |