Approving and rejecting member applications

Overview

When a prospective member submits an application through your public join page, a pending member record is created and you receive a notification. You review and action each application from Members by filtering to the Pending tab. Approving or rejecting an application sends an email to the applicant automatically.

Approving an application

1. Go to Members and open the Pending tab.
2. Click the applicant's name to open their record.
3. Review their details, then click Approve application.

What happens next depends on the membership type:

Free membership

The member is activated immediately (status → active). A $0 invoice is recorded for your accounts. The member receives an activation email. If they don't already have a StatsCentral account, a portal access invitation is sent at the same time so they can set up their login.

Paid membership (adult member)

The member moves to approved status and receives an email with a checkout link where they can complete payment through Stripe. Once payment succeeds, their status updates to active and the member portal is unlocked.

Paid membership (child with a guardian linked)

The payment email goes to the guardian rather than the applicant. The guardian completes checkout on behalf of the child.

Policy acceptance required (Player or Parent/Guardian member types)

If the applicant's member type is Player or Parent/Guardian, they must accept your club's safeguarding policy before accessing the portal. The system generates a policy acceptance token and sends the applicant a policy-and-payment email (or policy-only email for free memberships). The member cannot activate until they accept the policy.

Rejecting an application

1. Open the pending member's record.
2. Click Reject application.
3. Optionally enter a rejection reason — this is stored internally and not shown to the applicant in the email.
4. Confirm.

The member's status changes to rejected and they receive a rejection notification email. The rejected_at timestamp is recorded.

Rejection cooldown

After rejection, the applicant must wait before they can submit a new application through your public join page. The cooldown is set in Club Settings → Profile → Rejection cooldown (days) and defaults to 7 days.

The cooldown applies only to applications submitted via the public join page. Admins can still invite or manually create a member record for a rejected applicant at any time.

To allow immediate re-application, set the cooldown to 0.

Edge cases / gotchas

• Approving a non-pending member is a no-op. If you try to approve a member who is no longer pending (e.g. they were already approved by another admin), the action redirects without making any changes.
• Members without an email address. The member is approved and their status updates, but no email is sent. Portal invitations also cannot be issued without an email — send portal access manually once an email is added.
• Members who already have a StatsCentral account. On approval of a free membership, a portal invitation is not sent because the member can already log in with their existing account.
• Changing your mind after approval. There is no "un-approve" button. If you approved in error, contact the member directly and manually update their status via the edit form, or suspend/archive the record.