The four
Active. Paid up, or not yet due. The normal state.
Lapsed. Owes money past the point your organization treats as still current. They have not left and you have not thrown them out. They are behind.
Suspended. You have suspended them. A decision your organization made, for a reason that is nothing to do with money.
Cancelled. The membership is over.
What lapsed still gets
This is the part people get wrong, so it is worth being exact.
A lapsed member keeps their directory listing, keeps their community access, is still invoiced, and can still be charged by autopay if they have a card on file.
That is on purpose. A lapsed member is a member you want back, and the cheapest way to lose them permanently is to lock them out of the thing they were paying for on the day they got behind. Access ends at cancelled, not at lapsed.
Nobody can set lapsed by hand
There is no control anywhere in Sembr, for any staff role, that writes lapsed onto a member. Not in the form, not in the API.
Lapsing is a consequence of a qualifying debt, evaluated by Sembr on its own schedule. The reason is that a status somebody can type is a status that drifts: two admins with different ideas about how late is late, and a roster that no longer means anything. Ours means one thing, always, and it is checkable against the invoices.
Getting reinstated
Three things reinstate a member, and all three are automatic.
- They pay what they owe. Paying the dues invoice reinstates them.
- You write the invoice off. A written-off invoice never lapses anybody, and writing one off reinstates the member it was against.
- You void the invoice. Same.
The point is that the status follows the money in every direction, not just downward. If you forgive a debt, the member stops being lapsed for it, and you do not have to remember to go and fix the roster afterwards.
Reinstatement always records why. It is a required field, not an optional note. A year later, when someone asks why this member was reinstated in March, the answer is on the record.
Suspended and cancelled
These two are yours. Sembr will never move a member into or out of either one on its own, because they represent a decision your organization made and no automatic rule should be able to make it for you.