There are a few data scenarios to consider when integrating your customer and membership data between ACME and Raiser's Edge. Here are some common ones that may occur with member purchasing activity.


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Scenario: Memberships and numbers getting generated in multiple systems

When you are selling memberships via ACME and also selling memberships directly via your CRM, the system where the membership is first created will generate the membership number and other IDs. Because multiple systems are creating those IDs, different members will have different membership number structures. To minimize creating duplicate records, we recommend retaining the ID generated by the system in which the membership was first created.


Scenario: Member purchases a new membership instead of renewing

This is one of the most common scenarios! A lapsed member may opt to just purchase a new membership instead of verifying their existing one first. Perhaps they don't remember their ID, or they already know what they want to buy. When this happens, you have a few ways to handle the related data.


Option 1: Import the ACME data as-is

Since this is the most recent transaction activity for the member, you can just import the customer and membership records as new, and treat the new corresponding constituent record in Raiser's Edge as the current one. You may opt to merge the pre-existing constituent record into the new one to move all historical gifts and other details. Going forward, this new constituent and membership will be in sync with ACME.

SCENARIO: NEW MEMBERSHIP PURCHASED (INSTEAD OF RENEWAL) IN ACME RETAIN ACME DATA AS THE LATESTOption 2: Update the existing records, ignore new ACME data upon import processing

When importing the ACME data from the new membership sale, ImportOMatic may identify a match to an existing constituent record with a lapsed membership. You may choose to select this existing constituent instead of creating a new one from the ACME file. By renewing the existing membership, you are also choosing to ignore the new membership that was purchased. Once all existing record changes are made, these records are then sent back to ACME as updates to the existing Customer and Membership records that the member did not renew directly.


As a result, the new customer and membership that were created (when the member purchased new instead of renewing) become orphaned. You can choose to manually expire the new membership to prevent it from being verified to purchase discounted tickets.


Scenario: New Membership purchase by existing constituent


This scenario occurs when someone joins as a new member (yay!) in ACME, and they have an existing constituent record in Raiser's Edge. If you choose to import this new membership to a different constituent record, it causes a conflict on the round-trip, because ACME has already associated this new membership with the Customer record that was created with the initial purchase.


Recommendation: Import a new constituent record to Raiser's Edge to associate this new membership, and merge historical constituent data into the new record.