The single most common question organisations ask is what happens when a
membership reaches its end date. The answer depends on how the membership fee was
set up, and on how that particular member paid.
Recurring or one-time
A membership fee is configured either as a recurring subscription or as a
one-time payment, and this is a property of the fee, not of the member.
Recurring means the member’s card is charged automatically at the end of each
period. The member stays active without doing anything, and stops only when the
subscription is cancelled or the payment fails.
One-time means the member pays for a period and, when that period ends, the
membership lapses unless they pay again. Nothing is charged automatically.
The period length is set on the fee, so a fee can run monthly, quarterly, yearly,
or any number of months you choose.
Two members on the same fee can be in different states. Someone whose payment was
recorded manually, for example a bank transfer entered by an administrator, is on
a one-time payment even if the fee also supports subscriptions. That is the usual
reason a member you expected to renew automatically did not.
Moving a member from one-time to recurring
There is no switch on the member’s profile that converts a past one-time payment
into a subscription. What creates a subscription is the member completing a
card payment against a fee configured as recurring.
Check the fee
Confirm the fee itself is configured as a recurring subscription. If it is
not, no member paying it will ever renew automatically.
Ask the member to pay through the platform
A subscription is created when they pay by card through Orgo. A payment you
record by hand does not create one, because there is no card on file to
charge next time.
Seeing who is on a subscription
Fees → Subscriptions lists every active recurring subscription with the
member, the product, the amount, the frequency, when it charges next, and the
card it will charge.
This is the fastest way to answer “is this member set to renew automatically?”,
which is usually the real question behind a renewal query.
Stopping an automatic renewal
Members who no longer want to be charged should cancel from their own profile,
where they can also update an expired card and view their billing history.
Administrators can stop a subscription on a member’s behalf, which is the right
course when someone has asked you by email and cannot find the setting.
Cancelling stops future charges. It does not refund what has already been paid,
and it does not end the current period early: the member stays active until the
period they have paid for runs out.
Reminders before expiry
Orgo sends automatic emails to members whose membership is approaching its end
date. You control the wording.
Settings → Emails & Notifications → Email Templates → Fees &
Membership.
Editing these templates is worth doing before a renewal season rather than
during one, because the reminders are often a member’s only prompt to act.
Trial periods and grace periods
Orgo does not currently have a built-in trial period, nor an automatic grace
period that keeps a lapsed member active for a fixed number of days after expiry.
Organisations that need this today handle it manually, usually by recording a
payment covering the trial window so the member is active for that period, or by
extending the end date on the membership.
We are aware this is a common request. If it matters to your organisation, tell
support so it can be weighted properly. 
