Members are always added inside a household, because every member belongs to one. Open the household first, then choose Add member.
The fields
First name and last name are required. Everything else is optional, so you can create a record now and fill in the rest when you know it.
Hebrew name is used for yahrzeit records and lifecycle occasions. Enter it however your community writes it.
Email matters more than most fields. It is the address yahrzeit reminders go to, so a member with no email will not receive them. If a person should be receiving reminders and is not, a missing email address is the most common reason.
Phone is this person’s own number.
Birth date and Hebrew birth date are both optional and independent. Fill in either, both, or neither.
Gender is optional free text.
Membership type is your own label for the kind of membership this person holds, for example Full, Associate, or Student. It is free text, so decide on your set of words and use them consistently. That consistency is what makes the field useful for filtering later.
Role in the household is one of Adult, Child, or Dependent adult. This is a family role, not a job title.
Role in the household is not decorative if you use the Fair Share dues model. Fair Share brackets count the active adults in a household, so a person recorded as a Child does not count toward the bracket. If a household’s suggested dues amount looks wrong, check the roles first.
Status
A new member starts as Active. You will change this over time as people’s involvement changes. See Member status for what each status means and what it affects.
Moving someone between households
People move: a young adult sets up their own household, a couple marries and combines two records. Edit the member and change the household they belong to. Their history travels with them.
If moving someone would leave their old household empty, decide what to do with the empty household. An empty household counts as inactive and will still appear in your directory until you remove it. 