When you renew a group subscription, it's quite likely that the membership of the group will change. Typically, you'll have contacted the bill-to customer to see which members of the group to drop and whom to add. You may also have changes in the number of copies you ship to each address or in the shipping methods.
If you need to make any of these changes, the 'Renewal' transaction creates a new subscription for the group that begins when the original subscription expires. This timing guarantees that the original members of the group receive all the issues to which they're entitled. (If you want to make changes to a group subscription and have those changes take effect immediately, use the 'Group change' transaction. This transaction creates a new subscription and cancels the original one. Click here for information on the 'Group change' transaction.)
If you just make address changes for one or more group members, QuickFill won't create a new subscription. As long as the number of members, the number of copies shipped to each member, and the shipping method(s) don't change, you can renew the subscription normally by adding a future order—a renewal—to the existing subscription.
Note: replacing a group member with a new one
In the Audit system, in order to guarantee that QuickFill will properly record ons and offs (additions to and removals from the qualified circulation list) do not replace a group member by changing their name and address to that of the new member you want to add. Instead, to replace a group member with a new one, delete the old member and then add the new one.
Two-party subscriptions are nothing more than a special case of group subscriptions where you have exactly one ship-to address. You handle renewals for these subscriptions in exactly the same way as for group subscriptions.
If you add another ship-to address, QuickFill creates a new group subscription. It marks the old one "Canceled and transferred," and the new one starts when the old one expires. If you want the new group member to receive issues before the old order expires, use the 'Group change' transaction instead. (Click here for information on the 'Group change' transaction.)
Sometimes one of the members of a group renews individually. (This usually occurs if you've set up your renewal series to send notices to the individual members if the bill-to customer hasn't responded after a certain number of notices.) In this case, the 'Renewal' transaction creates a single subscription for the individual who is renewing.
It also marks his or her group member record so that he or she won't be included again if the group eventually does renew. If the customer does want to be part of the group again, you have to add the customer to the group subscription, then cancel the individual subscription.
If you have a customer who has a single subscription, but would like a group subscription upon renewal, you must do the following:
make their current subscription a two-party by adding a bill-to, then,
renew the two-party subscription using the "Add ship-to" button to add any additional ship-tos.
Although the group renewal will look as if it's active, issues will not be sent out until the current subscription has expired.
How does QuickFill know when you're renewing a group subscription? When you enter an order number in the renewal order form, QuickFill checks to see if that order is a group subscription. If it is, a list of the group members will be displayed. To renew a group member as an individual, simply click on the member and then click on "Individual renewal."
Audit system note:
When a group or two-party subscription is renewed and the membership is changed, the renewal results in a new subscription. All of the members of the original subscription are reported as off's; the members of the new subscription are reported as on's. If a member of a group renews as an individual, the rest of the members are not reported as off's, only the individual is.
Click here for more information on how to handle two-party & group subscriptions.