Understanding membership renewals

Once a patient joins a membership, Glovora manages the recurring billing and benefit cycles automatically. This article explains exactly what happens at each renewal, what the system does when a payment fails, and how to read a patient's membership status in the CRM.

How the billing cycle works

Every membership plan has a Billing cycle (months) setting — the number of months between each payment. The default is 1, which means monthly billing. A quarterly plan would be set to 3.

The renewal date is calculated from the date the patient originally joined. If a patient joins on the 15th of the month, their membership renews on the 15th of every subsequent month. This anchor date stays fixed for the lifetime of the membership.

Example: A patient joins on 8th March. On a monthly plan, their next payments fall on 8th April, 8th May, 8th June, and so on. If they join a quarterly plan, their next payment falls on 8th June.

Renewals happen at midnight in your clinic's local time on the renewal date — not at midnight UTC. This means a patient's renewal always aligns with the calendar day they expect, regardless of time zone.

tip

Because the renewal date is fixed to the join date, patients who join mid-month will always be charged mid-month. There is no option to standardise all members to the 1st of the month in the current version of Glovora. If consistent billing dates matter to your clinic, encourage patients to sign up at the start of the month.

What happens on the renewal date

On each renewal date, Glovora's background system automatically:

1. Detects that the period boundary has been crossed. The system checks the current date against the patient's join date and billing cycle to confirm a new period has started.
2. Resets the patient's included treatment credits. A new allowance for the period is issued. The patient's credit counter resets so they can use their included treatments again in the new period.
3. Handles any unused credits from the previous period. What happens to leftover credits depends on the rollover policy set on the plan (see below).
4. Checks for a birthday unlock, if that setting is enabled on the plan. If it is the patient's birth month, their included treatment credit for the year is released automatically.

The payment itself is processed by Stripe on the same date. If the payment succeeds, the new period begins as normal. If it fails, see the section below.

How included treatment credits reset

Included treatment credits do not simply overwrite the previous balance. Glovora uses a running ledger to track every credit granted and every credit used across the patient's membership history. The current available balance is always calculated from that ledger — not from a single stored number.

When the renewal date arrives, the system adds a new credit allowance to the ledger for the new period. The patient's available credits update immediately.

Rollover policy

What happens to credits the patient did not use in the previous period depends on the rollover policy set on the membership plan:

• None — unused credits from the previous period expire. The patient starts the new period with only their fresh allowance. For example, if a patient did not use their monthly facial credit in March, they cannot carry it into April.
• Carryover — all unused credits from every previous period are added to the new period's allowance. A patient who missed two months of facials would have three credits available at the start of the third month.
• Max carryover — unused credits carry over up to a set maximum. Credits beyond that limit are lost.

warning

The rollover policy is a plan-level setting configured when the membership is created or edited. It is not visible to patients in the app — they see only how many credits they currently have available. If your plan uses a "None" rollover policy, make sure you communicate clearly to patients that unused included treatments expire at the end of each month. Unexpected expiry is a common source of patient complaints.

What happens if a payment fails

When a patient's renewal payment fails, Glovora does not immediately cancel or suspend their membership. The process follows Stripe's retry cycle:

1. The payment fails. Stripe attempts to charge the patient's saved card on the renewal date and does not succeed.
2. Stripe retries automatically. Stripe attempts the payment again over the following days according to its retry schedule — typically three or four attempts spread over one to two weeks. The exact timing depends on your Stripe account settings.
3. During the retry period, the membership remains active. The patient keeps access to their member pricing and included treatments while Stripe is retrying. Glovora does not suspend the membership during this window.
4. If all retries fail, the membership is cancelled. Once Stripe has exhausted all retry attempts, it cancels the subscription. Glovora receives this notification and updates the membership status to Cancelled. The patient loses access to member benefits immediately.

No new treatment credits are issued for a billing period in which the payment ultimately failed. If the payment fails but is retried successfully later in the same period, credits are issued at that point.

warning

There is no application-level grace period in Glovora beyond what Stripe's retry cycle provides. Once Stripe cancels the subscription after failed retries, the membership ends. If a patient contacts you saying their membership has been cancelled unexpectedly, the most likely cause is a failed card payment. Ask them to check the payment card registered in the app and re-subscribe if needed.

tip

Encourage patients to keep their payment card details up to date in the app. An expired card is the most common cause of failed renewal payments. You can see a patient's membership status in their profile in the CRM — check this first if a patient says their benefits have stopped working.

How renewal status appears in the CRM

You can see the current state of a patient's membership by opening their profile in the CRM.

1. Click Client Profiles in the left-hand menu under Core.
2. Find the patient and click their name to open their profile.
3. Look for the Membership section within the profile panel.

What each field means

Status badge The membership status is shown as a coloured badge:

• Active (green) — the membership is running, payments are up to date, and the patient has full access to their benefits.
• Cancelling (amber) — the patient or a staff member has scheduled a cancellation. The membership is still active and the patient retains their benefits until the cancellation date. The badge will also show the message "Cancelling — active until [date]".
• None (grey) — the patient does not currently have an active membership, or their membership has ended.

Membership tier The name of the plan the patient is on — for example, Glow Monthly or Platinum Care.

Since [date] The date the patient originally joined the membership. This is the anchor date used to calculate every future renewal.

Next billing date The date of the patient's next scheduled payment. This field is visible in the membership section of the patient's profile. If a payment has recently failed, this date may have passed without renewal completing.

Cancelling — active until [date] This message appears when a cancellation has been scheduled. The date shown is the last day the membership will be active — usually the end of the current billing period. After that date, the status moves to None.

What staff can do from the patient profile

From the membership section of a patient's profile, staff can:

• Cancel the membership. This schedules the cancellation for the end of the current billing period rather than immediately. The patient keeps their benefits until that date.
• Refund a transaction if needed.

Staff cannot reinstate a cancelled membership from the patient profile. A patient whose membership has ended must re-subscribe through the app.

Common mistakes

Assuming a failed payment immediately cancels the membership. It does not. Stripe retries the payment multiple times before cancelling. During that retry window the membership stays active. If a patient tells you they are having payment issues, their benefits may still be working while Stripe is retrying. Check the Next billing date field in their profile to understand where they are in the cycle.

Expecting unused credits to carry over when the plan is set to "None" rollover. If the plan's rollover policy is set to None, unused included treatment credits expire at the end of each period. A patient who books in early January and does not use their February credit loses it when the March period starts. If patients regularly complain about losing credits, consider switching the plan to a carryover policy.

Cancelling a membership immediately instead of scheduling it. When staff click Cancel on a patient's membership from their profile, the cancellation is scheduled for the end of the current billing period — not applied instantly. The patient keeps their benefits until that period ends. Do not assume the membership has ended the moment you click Cancel. The status will show Cancelling with an active-until date until the period closes.

Misreading the Cancelling status as already cancelled. A badge reading Cancelling in amber means the membership is still running. The patient still has access to all their benefits, their discount at checkout, and their included treatments until the date shown. Only once the active-until date has passed does the status change to None and access end.

Not checking the patient profile when a member says their discount has stopped working. If a member says they are not receiving their discount at checkout, the most common causes are: their membership has moved to Cancelled after a failed payment, or their included treatment credit was already used this period. Open their profile in Client Profiles, check the status badge, and check the Next billing date to diagnose the issue quickly.