Membership Start Date on Receipt is Wrong

[The Doctor]

In our organization we have fixed period memberships from January 1 to December 31 each year. The rollover date is November 1, so anyone who joins after that is joining for the next year.

But when someone joins during that period, their receipt says that their membership start date is January 1 prior to the date they joined. See the attached example. The person joined December 19, 2014, but the receipt says their membership started January 1, 2014 which is WRONG. Members are confused by this and it's not helpful from a record keeping standpoint.

How can I fix this please?

[petednz]

I have seen this too but it is 'how it is' currently.

When someone pays and joins in Nov, they are still in the membership cycle of that current year, hence the systems goes 'oh he joined in Nov Year 1, the membership cycle runs Jan to Dec, so his 'start date' is Jan Year 1, but you also want to apply a 'rollover' hence his end date is Dec Year 2'

Don't think the system can cope with a person having a membership with the start date 'in the future' so it can't be Jan Year 2, and anyway they are actually a member in Nov Year 1.

I think, like you, that it would be good if when a member joins in the rollover period, their

Join Date == Start Date

Not sure what might be involved but chances are we have discussed this in past and it was going to require more 'fixing' than anyone was ready to fund.

[The Doctor]

Thanks for the clarification.

Do you think it would be possible to at least change the email template for the receipt so that it doesn't show the start date? I have looked at those templates and I have no idea where to begin to edit them.

[petednz]

It would be in the Template
civicrm/admin/messageTemplates?reset=1
click on the tab for System Workflow Messages

eg for the Online Memb one on demo

http://d45.demo.civicrm.org/civicrm/admin/messageTemplates/add?action=update&id=41&reset=1

then i am guessing you need to see if you can sub

Code: [Select]

       <tr>
        <td {$labelStyle}>
         {ts}Membership Start Date{/ts}
        </td>
        <td {$valueStyle}>
         {$mem_start_date|crmDate}
        </td>
so it uses the Join Date ?? though on second thoughts that would only introduce confusion in subsequent years of membership perhaps

[The Doctor]

OK, so I could edit the Memberships - Receipt (on-line) system workflow template...

Could I just remove these lines?

Code: [Select]

   {if $mem_start_date}
       <tr>
        <td {$labelStyle}>
         {ts}Membership Start Date{/ts}
        </td>
        <td {$valueStyle}>
         {$mem_start_date|crmDate}
        </td>
       </tr>
      {/if}
I am seeing the start date referenced in other parts of the template, so I don't want to break anything. Are there other things I need to remove?

And if I do that, do I have to also do it every time I update CiviCRM?

Thanks for the help here.