Member management software for a federation or a network

Member management software for a federation or a network has little in common with a CRM. A CRM tracks prospects you want to convert; a network head office tracks members who are already there, who pay subscriptions, sit on committees, answer surveys and expect proof of what their membership buys them. The central piece of data is not the sales opportunity but membership itself, and how long it has lasted.

What a federation shares with a buying group

We come from buying-group software, and the first thing we noticed working with federative bodies was how many mechanics are identical under different names. A subscription based on payroll and a rebate based on declared revenue pose the same problem: a self-declared base, a tiered scale, pro-rata treatment, and a campaign to open, chase and close.

The divergence lies elsewhere. A buying group has one structuring third party — the supplier — on which most of its data depends. A federation has no such object: its complexity is internal, and concerns representation, mandates, colleges and the scope of what each member is entitled to see. Where a buying group has to trace amounts, a federative body has to trace standing: who was a paid-up member on the day of the vote, who sat in which capacity, who was informed of what.

The directory is a data model, not a list

This is where most generic tools give way. A member is not a row: it is a legal entity, one or more sites, individuals attached in distinct roles, and a membership with a start date, sometimes an end date, and often a resumption after a gap.

Subscriptions, calls for funds and arrears

The subscription is to a federation what the rebate is to a buying group: the most scrutinised calculation, the one that must be correct and explainable. Scales are rarely flat — they index on headcount, payroll, declared revenue or number of sites — which means a collection campaign has to run before anything can be invoiced.

1. 1

   Open the declaration campaign

   Each member declares the year's base — headcount at 31 December, payroll, revenue. Automatic reminders, plausibility checks against the previous year, and an approval status set by staff.

2. 2

   Apply the scale

   Tiers, floors, caps, reductions by college or seniority, pro-rata treatment for mid-year joiners. The scale is voted on: it must be versioned and dated, exactly like a supplier price list.

3. 3

   Issue the call for funds

   Calls generated, instalment plans where they exist, sending with proof of dispatch, export to accounting. Credit notes and corrections follow the same route as the calls, never an isolated manual fix.

4. 4

   Track arrears

   Graduated reminders and, above all, constitutional consequences: loss of voting rights, suspension of services, termination. These states must be computed, not held in a spreadsheet alongside the directory.

Mandates, committees and constitutional life

This is the area generic association tools handle worst, because it does not reduce to a contact record. A mandate links an individual, the organisation they represent, a body, a term and a means of appointment.

• External mandates: seats on industry bodies, joint committees and public commissions, with terms, renewals and substitutes.
• Internal committees and working groups: membership, convocations, agendas, minutes, actual attendance — which becomes a renewal criterion.
• Elections: electoral rolls computed as at a given date, colleges, quorum, proxies, and archived minutes.
• Segmented outbound communication: by section, by college, by qualification, with proof of dispatch where the information carries regulatory weight.
• Regulatory collection: mandatory surveys, statistical returns and sector indicators, with a response rate tracked as a measure of the network's health.

An employers' group adds one further layer, and it is the one closest to a buying group: seconding staff to members means splitting working time, recharging pro rata, and reconciling two views — the group's and each user company's. A franchise or retail network, meanwhile, meets the rebate mechanic in reverse: a royalty based on the outlet's declared revenue, with the same needs for collection, verification and justification.

What we do, and what we do not

MEKANO is a Lyon-based development studio building management software for buying groups and member networks: member directory and portal, self-declared data collection, scale-based calculation, document management with full-text search, reporting. We work at a fixed price, in batches of a few weeks, and the source code is handed over with its documentation. The most complete platform we have delivered runs the operations of a Lyon buying group of more than sixty member companies, on a Go, React and PostgreSQL stack.

What we do not do: replace an accounting system, a payroll system or an emailing tool that works. On those scopes, off-the-shelf products do it better and cheaper. Bespoke development is only justified where your organisation has rules nobody wrote for it — a subscription scale voted at a general meeting, a college structure that exists nowhere else, a regulatory return specific to your industry.