Auto-renew memberships, what to do when a transaction fails

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

I have the following set up, which is working:   A number of membership types which are set as "require auto-renew" and a duration of monthly.  The payment processor is Authorize.net.  So when someone joins as a member via the CiviContribute page associated with these auto-renew membership types, everything works as expected.

However, sometimes real-life is not neat and tidy: Someone joined as a member, and the first 6 months the credit card transactions were processed by Auth.net and the results sent to CiviCRM. So for the first 6 months the membership was extended by one month for each new transaction.    On month 7, the credit card failed.  As a result no contribution showed up in CiviCRM and the membership went into "expired" status.     At this point, the bookkeeper called/emailed the member and requested a new credit card to cover member dues for month 7 and beyond.  Once the bookkeeper has the new credit card, how can they re-activate the membership so as to not lose the continuity of the membership period?

[Traveler777]

Hi Sarah, did you find a solution for this?

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

No I did not.

[NASACT]

Isn't this just going into the back-end and clicking on the expired membership and selecting renew-credit card?

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

My understanding is that will only trigger a one-time credit card transaction.  It will not create a new "subscription" ie automated recurring payments with the payment processor.

Is this correct?

[CiviTeacher.com]

Sarah,

My workaround has been to 'cancel' (or create your own status such as 'replaced' or other wording) the existing expired membership.  Then create a new membership with a recurring, and process the credit card again.

After the new membership has been created, manually set the 'member since' to the appropriate date.

Not perfect but it works.

Stoob

[Eileen]

On month 7, the credit card failed.  As a result no contribution showed up in CiviCRM and the membership went into "expired" status.

The correct behaviour here is a bit disputed - I'm of the camp that says a contribution should be created but the status should be 'failed'

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

Stoob -

I am not able to implement your work-around, as I ran into 2 roadblocks. 


a) First, after I click "edit" on the expired membership, the edit screen does not allow me to change the status. ( I cannot even click the "status override" box.)

b) I cannot find a way to create a new, auto-recurring membership in the back-office area.

[NASACT]

Just some more thoughts on this but if it is paid by CC then is there even a way to do this currently?  It would imply that the CC be stored for future usage?  That would be a PCI-compliance issue all to it's own.  Not sure there is a solution that requires CC storage.  Would there be a way to set this up for the CC processor to store and so forth?  Seems like that is the side that needs to store the CC info else CC has to be encrypted from my understanding.  Could a dev tell us if a CC is even stored in the first place or if CC recurring is even possible and if so is there a specific processor that must be used?

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

The credit card # is not stored in the database.   The scenario I am working on, there is no need to store the credit card number anyhow.  The situation that I am running into is that a member joined online and created an auto-renewing monthly membership via credit card.  For the first 9 months the card was processed successfully.  After 10 months, the card failed which put the membership status as expired.    At this point, the office staff/bookkeeper called the person and asked for a new credit card, so that the membership can be continued.

(In any case, it would not have helped to have the old credit card stored because the old credit card is the one failing.)

Not sure how PCI compliance is involved here.  In any case, I am using Authorize.net, which stores the card on their system so they can handle automated scheduled payments.  PayPal works in a similar fashion.

[NASACT]

Hmm, and a manual transaction using the same card and Authorize.net works?  And I am also assuming the CC hasn't changed or expired correct?  So just to be clear the payment just failed to process based on the auto-renew system in Civi? Sorry just trying to be clear and hopefully provide some form of help.

[Eileen]

From testing yesterday, the 'renew credit card' link allows you to renew by making a payment, not a new recurring payment subscription.

This just seems to be the limit of the originally funded specification & I guess those of us who have an interest will hopefully find a way to extend it (I'm currently trying to find out what my customer's level of interest is)

[SarahG (FountainTribe)]

NASACT -

The reason the card failed is because of an issue with the card itself. CiviCRM is not causing the failure.    I am not trying to avoid the failure, as cards can start failing for a variety of reasons beyond the non-profit's control. ( such as person has spent more than their credit limit, card was stolen and then replaced by the bank, etc. )

What I am trying to get a handle on is: How the bookkeeping staff should react after they have called their member and received a new card number to cover an auto-recurring membership.

If the same situation occurred with an automated contribution set up in CiviCRM, there is no issue. The bookkeeper can simply click "Submit a credit card Contribution" on the contact's contribution record, and then set up a new automated recurring credit card contribution.   The fly-in-the-ointment in the case of auto-recurring membership, is there does not seem to be any way to create a brand-new auto-recurring membership in the back-office.

[NASACT]

I scoured for a solution for you and it appears that this is just not possible like you said.  And to no avail about going in to current membership item and trying to update payment info either from what I saw. Looks like it needs to a feature request. 

The Submit Credit Card Membership button within the individual/organisation screen is not any help to you in this instance?

[CiviTeacher.com]

Sarah, I enter the database via PHP My Admin to edit memberships in these cases.  It works ok.  I am using 3.4.8 and Paypal Pro.  Supposedly in future versions, 4.1 or 4.2 there will be a more robust feature set for editing auto-renewing memberships if Paypal pro is the processor.