Association Management Software: What Is Fully-Featured?   by Adam Broetje

Association and membership managers need to find a management system that can fill all their needs with regard to automating the membership process. Harnessing Internet technology can help grow their association's numbers and increase member satisfaction. But what features indicate a 'fully-featured' system?

Less work, work less.

The bottom line determination of an association management software package is whether or not it saves you, the manager, time and work. There are three primary areas of automation that a software package should offer: payment processing, communication, member details modification.

Membership managers can spend countless hours processing payments by hand. A bad situation is when you process checks and credit cards by hand. A worse situation is when you don't accept credit cards at all. A high-quality, fully featured software package will allow you to process both checks and cards online, in real time. Or allow you to print a report and run the credit cards at your discretion. The time and effort saved by collecting and processing payment information online is usually well worth the price of admission for most managers.

But payments are only part of the story. When a member joins your organization, they want to be assured that they have successfully joined and are welcome to the community. Or, in the case of a renewal, members need to be reminded to pay their dues, and then to be notified that the payment was successful. A fully-featured association management software package will help to improve communication with members through the use of automated and time-sensitive emails. These can be set to send based on actions taken by the member, or time periods specified by the manager. Generating a sense of community starts with good communication.

The final piece of the fully-featured puzzle is allowing members to update their information in real time. This is a spectacular time saver for association managers, as it allows members to update contact and payment information 24 hours a day. Because members take responsibility for their own information, they know it is correct. And because this task is taken off the shoulders of the manager, you can be sure to save a lot of time and effort.

Switching to an association management software system will save you time and effort in the key areas of time savings, growth, and satisfaction, as well as countless others which add up substantially. There is no time like the present to take advantage of this technology.

About the Author

Adam Broetje is the manager of RegOnline's membership database software department.