Pause memberships in Venue Manager and online accounts (beta)

Give members a way to step away without cancelling. When a guest can't use their membership temporarily because of travel, illness, or a busy season, pausing it keeps them in your member base and stops their billing until they're ready to return.

This guide shows you how to schedule a pause in Venue Manager, make changes to a scheduled pause, and resume a membership early. It also shows how you can enable members to pause (and resume) their own memberships in their online account.

Allow members to pause their memberships in online accounts

When members can pause directly from their online account, there's no staff time needed, and giving members the option to step away temporarily rather than cancel keeps more of them in your membership program long-term.

Guest self-management is configured at the product level. Once enabled, members can initiate and manage pauses from their online account.

When a member pauses their membership:

• The pause is scheduled for a duration up to the pause limit.
• The membership pause will take effect from the start of the next payment period so that the member will be able to use all of their benefits they have paid for that period.
• The membership automatically resumes at the end of the pause with no staff action needed.
• If the member wants to return early, they can resume from their online account before the pause period ends. If they do this, their billing restarts immediately and shifts their new billing date to this date.
• If a member is signed in during online checkout and they add an item that is part of a paused membership, they'll be prompted to redeem a membership benefit. At that point, they can choose to resume their paused membership directly from checkout.

If a member resumes early, the originally scheduled pause still counts toward their total pause limit for the year.

Configure member self-management for a membership product

From Venue Manager:

1. Go to Products and select the membership product you want to update.
2. Scroll to Additional options and select Configure guest ability to self-manage membership via online accounts. Select the self-management options you want to allow members:
   • Guest can upgrade
   • Guest can cancel
   • Guest can pause membership
   • Guest can resume membership
3. In the Pause Limits field, enter the maximum total pause duration you want to allow within a 12-month period. This field shows in the unit which relates to the billing cycle eg. days / weeks / months.
4. Select Save.
5. Repeat for each membership product you want to enable self-management on.

What members see in their online account

Once self-management is configured, members will see a Pause option in their online account next to their membership.

• While active: the member sees a Pause option.
• While pending pause: the member sees the Remove pause option to cancel their scheduled pause.
• While paused: the member sees a Resume option.
• If the pause period ends without the member resuming: the membership resumes automatically.
• During online checkout: if the member's membership is paused and they add a linked item to their cart, they can choose to resume their paused membership at the redemption step.

Schedule a membership pause in Venue Manager

A paused membership puts billing and redemption on hold for a set period. When the pause ends, the membership automatically resumes and billing restarts from the next scheduled billing date. If you wish to resume the membership earlier than the scheduled pause end date, you can resume the membership immediately.

A membership moves through two states when a pause is scheduled:

• Pending pause: the pause is scheduled but hasn't started yet. The membership is fully active, and the member can redeem all their benefits as normal.
• Paused: the pause has started. Redemption of membership benefits is blocked until the membership resumes.

Pauses always start on the member's next billing date, so the member gets full value from everything they've already paid for before the pause begins.

Three automated emails notify members at key points: when a pause is scheduled (pending pause), when the pause starts, and when the membership resumes. No manual follow-up is needed with the guest.

Pause duration options

Before you start

To schedule a pause and to resume a membership, you need the following user role permissions. These permissions are enabled by default in the Administrator and Manager roles, and can be enabled in custom roles.

• Can pause membership: required to schedule or edit a pause.
• Can resume membership: required to manually resume a paused membership before the scheduled end date.

Schedule a membership pause

From Venue Manager:

1. Open the booking for the membership you want to pause.
2. Select Pause membership.
3. Review the confirmation banner. If the booking contains multiple memberships, all will be paused together. Note the pause start date, which is automatically set to the member's next billing date.
4. Select the pause duration from the dropdown.
5. Add a note if needed, then select Confirm.

The membership status updates to Pending pause and an entry appears in the Activity Center.

Edit a scheduled pause

If the pause hasn't started yet, you can change the duration. From Venue Manager:

1. Open the booking for the membership.
2. Select Edit pause.
3. Update the pause duration.
4. Select Confirm.

The membership remains in Pending pause status with the updated duration.

Cancel a scheduled pause

If a member changes their mind before the pause starts, you can cancel it. From Venue Manager:

1. Open the booking for the membership.
2. Select Cancel pause.
3. Confirm the cancellation.

The membership returns to active status and the scheduled pause is removed.

Resume a paused membership early

If a member wants to come back before the pause period ends, you can resume their membership manually. From Venue Manager:

1. Open the booking for the membership.
2. Select Resume membership.
3. Confirm.

The membership reactivates immediately and billing resumes from the next scheduled billing date.

FAQs