A member calls to say their card shows expired, but they renewed last month. You look them up and they’re right: the payment is in Altru. It just landed on a different constituent record. Maybe a spouse renewed under their own name, maybe the online form created a new record because the email didn’t match, or maybe the renewal was taken somewhere outside Altru and keyed in later against the wrong person.
The result is the same in every case. One record shows a lapsed membership with years of history. Another record shows a brand-new membership with no history at all. Fixing it well means deciding which record should own the membership going forward, then cleaning up the other one without double-counting revenue.
First, figure out which situation you have
The right fix depends on why the renewal ended up in the wrong place. Before you change anything, open both records side by side and answer three questions.
- Are these two records the same person? Same name with a slightly different email, an old address, a maiden name, a typo. If yes, you have a duplicate, and the long-term fix is a merge.
- Are they different people in the same household? One spouse renewed under their own record, so the new membership names them as the primary member instead of the other.
- Was the renewal taken outside Altru (a partner site, an event platform, a paper form, a separate POS) and entered by hand afterward? Then the question is whether it was entered against the right record and whether it was entered as a renewal or as a new join.
When the two records are duplicates
This is the most common cause, especially when renewals come in through a web form that matches on email. The cleanest outcome is one constituent with one continuous membership history.
Altru has a constituent merge process for duplicates. What is less obvious is exactly how it treats two memberships in the same program when the records are combined: whether both terms carry over, whether one is kept active, and how the membership history displays afterward. Behavior can vary depending on your configuration, so test a merge on a pair of practice records first, ideally in a sandbox if you have one, or confirm with Blackbaud support before merging a real member.
A safe sequence for one record pair:
- Note the details of both memberships: program, level, start and expiration dates, transaction date, and the revenue tied to the new one.
- Decide which constituent record survives. Usually it’s the older one with the longer giving and visit history.
- Merge the duplicate into the surviving record.
- Check the result. The surviving record should show an active membership with the expiration date the member paid for, and the payment should still appear exactly once.
- If the membership came through the merge as a separate or lapsed entry, correct it on the surviving record and add a note explaining what happened and why.
Don’t try to fix duplicates by deleting the newer membership and re-entering it on the old record. That tends to orphan or duplicate the revenue, and it makes reconciliation harder for whoever handles your batches and finance reports.
When a household member renewed under their own record
If both people are real, separate constituents, you probably don’t want a merge. The question becomes who should be the primary member. Look at what your membership program allows for changing or swapping members on an existing membership. If you can add or reassign members on the new membership so the long-time member is primary, that is usually less disruptive than voiding and re-entering.
If your setup doesn’t make that straightforward, it may be acceptable to leave the membership where it is, add the other person as a member on it, and note the history on both records. What matters most is that the member’s card, benefits, and renewal notices go to the right people. Confirm that the household relationship between the two records is set correctly so future renewals are easier to match.
When the renewal was taken in another system
Renewals collected outside Altru need to be entered as renewals of the existing membership, on the record that already holds it. If whoever keys them in searches by name and picks the first match, or creates a new constituent when the search comes up empty, you get exactly this problem.
- Look up the original record before entering anything, using more than one field (lookup ID, email, address, phone).
- Process it as a renewal so the term follows your program’s renewal rules, rather than as a new join.
- Make sure the payment is recorded once. If the outside system’s money also comes into Altru through a separate deposit or batch, coordinate with whoever reconciles so the same dollars aren’t counted twice.
If a renewal has already been entered as a new membership on the wrong record, treat it like the duplicate case above: fix the constituent first, then confirm the membership dates and revenue on the record that remains.
Find the others before members find them for you
Where there’s one misplaced renewal, there are usually more. Two queries help:
- Constituents with a lapsed membership who also share an email address, phone, or address with a constituent holding an active membership in the same program.
- New memberships created in the last few months for constituents whose record was also created in that same window. Some of those are genuine new members; some are returning members who ended up on a fresh record.
Work the list on a regular schedule, and log what caused each one. If most trace back to the web form, the fix is upstream: better matching on online transactions and a reminder to members to use the email they joined with. If most trace back to manual entry, a short lookup checklist for staff will save you more time than any cleanup.
Quick answers
Can I just change the expiration date on the old record and delete the new membership?
It’s tempting, but it can disconnect the membership from the payment that paid for it. Keep the transaction intact and fix the constituent records around it.
Will the member lose their “member since” date?
Not if the surviving record keeps the original membership history. That is the main reason to merge into the older record rather than the newer one.
