Membership add-ons tend to pile up. A parking pass that made sense before the garage closed, a guest pass bundle from an old promotion, an “extra cardholder” option the board decided to fold into a higher level. Eventually someone asks for it to be taken out of the program so staff stop selling it and members stop seeing it online. That is usually when you find out “remove” can mean a few different things in Altru.
This guide sorts out those meanings, explains why a full delete is often not available, and covers the cleaner alternative: retiring the add-on so it stops being sold while your history stays intact.
First, decide which “remove” you actually need
Before you open the membership program, be clear about the goal. These are three separate jobs:
- Stop offering the add-on going forward. New joins, renewals, and upgrades should no longer include it as an option, at the desk or on the web.
- Take it off specific members who already have it. For example, a member bought a parking add-on by mistake and wants a refund.
- Erase it from the database entirely. As if it never existed.
The first two are routine. The third is the one that usually runs into a wall, and for good reason.
Why you often can’t simply delete it
Once an add-on has been sold, it is tied to revenue: payments, batches, and the membership transactions that recorded it. Like most financial systems, Altru generally protects records that other records depend on, so deleting something with sales history attached is either blocked or a bad idea even if it goes through. Deleting would leave old transactions pointing at nothing and make past reports harder to reconcile.
If the add-on was set up but never sold, deletion may be possible. Whether your version of Altru allows deleting a used add-on, or only an unused one, is something to confirm rather than assume. Try it in your sandbox first, or ask Blackbaud support how add-ons with existing transactions are handled before you touch production.
Retiring an add-on from the program
For most organizations, the right move is to stop the add-on from being sold rather than to erase it. Work through it in this order:
- Run a query first. Build a membership query that pulls active memberships carrying the add-on, plus a revenue query of recent sales of it. This tells you how many current members are affected and gives you a snapshot before anything changes. Export and save it.
- Edit the membership program. Open the program’s configuration and review the add-ons attached to it. Depending on how the add-on was set up, you may be able to remove it from the program, end its availability, or remove it from the specific levels that offered it. Changes here affect new transactions, not memberships already sold.
- Check every place it is sold. The add-on may also appear in daily sales and advance sales setups, membership web forms, and any group sales or order configurations. Removing it from the program does not guarantee every sales screen updates the way you expect, so test each one.
- Update pricing and descriptions. If the add-on’s value is being folded into a level, adjust that level’s price and benefit description at the same time so the change makes sense to members.
- Test a full transaction. Process a test join and a test renewal, both at the desk and through the web form, and confirm the add-on no longer appears. Void or clean up the test records afterward.
Members who already have the add-on
Retiring an add-on from the program does not strip it off existing memberships. You have to decide what those members get.
- Honor it until expiration. This is the simplest and most common choice. Members keep what they paid for, and the add-on drops off naturally when they renew under the new setup.
- Refund and remove. For a few individual cases, process the refund through your normal revenue workflow so the financials stay correct, then adjust the membership. Don’t just edit the membership record and skip the refund; the books will not match.
- Convert it. If the benefit is now included at a higher level, you might move affected members to that level at their next renewal. Plan how renewal notices will explain it.
Whatever you choose, add a note on the affected constituent records, or at least keep the query export, so anyone looking at an old membership later understands why it shows an add-on you no longer sell.
Things that commonly get missed
- Renewal communications. Renewal letters and emails built off smart fields or queries may still mention the add-on. Review the text and the query criteria.
- Membership cards and scanning. If the add-on controlled something at the door, like parking validation or guest admission, tell front-line staff when it ends and what to do with members whose cards still reference it.
- Reports. Revenue and membership reports filtered by add-on will keep showing historical totals. That’s correct, but warn finance so they don’t read a stable number as ongoing sales.
- Website copy. The membership page on your site likely lists the add-on separately from Altru. Update it the same day.
Quick answers
Will removing an add-on from the program change past transactions?
It shouldn’t. Program changes apply to new sales. Past memberships and their revenue keep the add-on as it was sold.
Can I hide an add-on online but keep selling it at the desk?
Often yes, because web forms and desk sales are configured separately, but confirm how your web form pulls add-on options before relying on it.
What if the delete option is simply unavailable?
That usually means the add-on is in use. Retire it from the program and sales screens instead, and ask Blackbaud support if you believe it was never sold.
