Even if you haven't been using PatronManager's built-in membership feature, you may already be using Benefits, either by creating them manually or with custom automation that created the Benefit based on certain patron or donation criteria.

If you are using Benefits, that's great! PatronManager Memberships will continue to create Benefit records, this time automatically, whenever a patron purchases or renews their Membership. If you're already reporting on Benefits, your reports probably won't need to change.

If you're not yet using Benefits, no worries, just keep a slightly closer eye on the reporting section below, since you'll almost certainly be using different reports after you make the switch.

Here's how to tell if you're using Benefits already:

Some clients use Member Benefit records to award automatic discounts or early access to patrons who aren't, strictly speaking, members - for example, you may use Benefits to give a certain number of comp tickets to your staff members or artists.

This is completely fine; manually creating Benefit records for cases like this is normal, and it won't have any negative impact on your Membership functionality. You also don't need to "sell" a fake membership to grant these kinds of perks, you can always create a manual Benefit with an expiration date of your choosing.

We'd recommend creating a special Benefit Level (or Levels) for these kinds of things, e.g. "Staff Benefit", and giving that Benefit Level a large Rank number to keep it toward the bottom of your list.

If you've been tracking memberships manually, the option to become a member that's linked on your website and in other materials like email templates will need to be updated. It's a good idea to do an audit of where that option and link appears in your various materials, so that you can update them all to the right new place.

Unless you're already reporting on Member Benefit records, you'll almost certainly be using new reports to track members once you make the switch. And in that case, you'll probably need your old reports for a while longer, to help you find lapsing members to renew and so forth.

Of course, you could always create Member Benefit records manually to fill in the missing data, but depending on how many members you have and how far back you want the new reports to go, that could be a big project. If you have fewer than 100 current members, you may consider creating Benefit records to track their remaining membership - be sure to set the correct Benefit Level and expiration date if you go this route.

Or you may prefer to have a clean break, and clearly separate your old tracking method from the new PatronManager Memberships tracking. In that case, just make sure to keep those old reports handy for at least a year, until all your current members have renewed into the new automated Membership system.