A member walks up to the admissions window, digs through their wallet, and realizes the card is at home, cracked, or went through the wash. The cashier is already in Altru’s daily sales screen with a line behind the member. What they want is a fresh card, printed right there, without leaving the transaction or calling someone from the membership office.
Whether that works smoothly depends on how your Altru setup handles card printing and on who has permission to do it. Below is how to think about it, what to test, and the workarounds organizations use when a desk-side reprint isn’t practical.
Where card printing usually lives in Altru
In most Altru setups, card printing hangs off the membership side of the system. Cards come from a card format tied to the membership program, and they get printed either when a membership is sold or later from the member’s record or a card printing process that the membership team runs in batches.
Daily sales and advance sales are built around selling: tickets, memberships, add-ons, payment. When a cashier sells a new membership or renewal at the register, the card can typically print as part of that sale if your program and printer are configured for it. A reprint is different, though. There’s no new sale, just an existing member who needs another copy, and that’s the part desk staff tend to get stuck on.
We’re not going to tell you there’s a specific button in the sales screen for this, because setups vary and we’d rather you confirm it in your own system. The easiest way: in a sandbox or test environment, look up an existing member from a daily sales or advance sales session and see what card options appear for a cashier-level user. Then compare that with what an administrator sees. If you can’t tell, Blackbaud support can say what your version and security roles allow.
Three things that usually decide whether it works
1. Security roles
Frontline staff often have rights to sell but not to open or edit constituent and membership records. That’s a reasonable default, but it also means they can’t reach wherever reprints live. Find out whether you can give a narrow permission (view the membership and print a card) without also letting them edit records or revenue. Test any role change with a real cashier login before you roll it out.
2. Printer and card format at each workstation
Reprints fail more often because of hardware than software. A card printer set up for one station won’t help at the second window. Make sure each register that’s expected to print cards has the right printer mapped and that the card format your program uses actually renders on it. Print a test card at every station at the start of the season.
3. Your reprint policy
Decide whether replacements are free, limited to one per term, or charged as a small fee. If you charge, the reprint becomes an actual sale, and it’s cleaner to handle it at the register with a “replacement card” item than as an off-the-books favor. If it’s free, decide whether you want to track how often it happens, for example with a note or an attribute on the membership.
Workarounds when the desk can’t reprint directly
If testing shows that cashiers can’t reprint from the sales screens, or you don’t want to widen their permissions, these approaches work:
- Admit now, mail later. Verify the member by name, address, or lookup in the sales screen, let them in, and log the request (a shared sheet or a constituent note). The membership team prints the replacements in their regular card batch and mails them.
- One “card station” login. Give a supervisor or a single workstation a role that can reach membership records and print cards. Cashiers send the member there or call the supervisor over. It keeps the permission in a few hands.
- Temporary paper pass. Some sites print a simple receipt or day pass showing the member’s name and expiration date, good until the real card arrives. Make sure your scanning and entry rules accept it.
- Stop needing the plastic. If staff can reliably find members by name or phone number at the desk, a forgotten card stops being a reason to reprint. Some organizations also move toward digital cards so members always have one on their phone.
Keep reprints from creating new problems
A few details to watch once reprints are happening regularly:
- Old cards still scan. If the replacement carries the same membership number or barcode, the lost card still works. That’s usually fine for a cracked card, but for a card reported stolen you may want a different approach. Check how your setup handles this before promising anything to a member.
- Wrong names on household cards. On household or dual memberships, confirm which member’s card you’re printing. Reprints are a good time to fix a misspelled name or add a second cardholder, but only staff with edit rights should make those changes.
- Expired members asking for a reprint. If the membership has lapsed, the right answer is a renewal at the register, not a reprint. Put that in your desk notes so cashiers don’t print a card with an old expiration date.
A short desk script
- Look up the member in the sales screen and confirm the membership is active.
- Confirm the name and which household member the card is for.
- If your station can reprint, print it and hand it over. If there’s a fee, ring it up first.
- If it can’t, admit the member and log the replacement for the membership team.
Put that next to the register. Seasonal staff will follow a four-step card more consistently than a training session from three months ago.
Quick answers
Can cashiers reprint a card without any membership permissions?
Probably not in most setups, but it depends on your security roles. Test with a cashier-level login in a sandbox before changing anything in production.
Should a reprint create a new membership transaction?
No. A reprint is just another copy of the existing card. Only charge through the register if your policy includes a replacement fee.
