In addition to your individual members, you can keep records of organizational members (companies, families, teams) in your Raklet account, and import their sub-members under them.
Sub-member import works in two stages: first you import the parent (company or family) members, then you import the sub-members and link them to their parents.
Two Kinds of Link: Contact Link vs. Subscription Link
Before you prepare your file, it helps to know that a sub-member can be linked to a parent in two different ways, and each uses a different import field:
Associated Contact Member No links the sub-member's contact record to the parent's contact record. You fill it with the parent's Member No (for example 100000). This is what shows the sub-member under the company or family on their profile, and it is all you need for a plain organizational import.
Parent Membership Id links the sub-member's subscription to the parent's group membership subscription. You fill it with the parent subscription's ID (a long code such as 3f2a9c1e-…). Use it only if the parent has a Group Membership plan and you want the sub-member's subscription billed and managed under it.
These two fields are independent. Most organizational imports only need Associated Contact Member No. If you are not using Group Memberships, do not add a Parent Membership Id column to your file at all.
Make a copy of the template (File → Make a copy, or File → Download). It has a Read Me sheet and one sheet for each import:
1. Parent/Company Members: your companies or families, imported first.
2a. Sub Members: sub-members linked to their parent's contact record (most common).
2b. Sub Members (Group): sub-members whose subscriptions are linked to the parent's Group Membership subscription.
The column headers match the field names in Raklet, so each column maps to the field with the same name. Delete the yellow example rows before you import, and import one sheet at a time.
Before You Import: Protect Your Existing Contacts
Both stages of this import rely on Member No, so it is worth knowing how Raklet matches rows to contacts you already have:
Raklet matches a row to an existing contact by Raklet Id or Member No only, never by email. If a Member No in your file already belongs to another contact, that row updates the existing contact instead of creating a new one.
Before the import runs, Raklet shows a warning with how many rows match existing contacts, and lists the rows whose name or email is different from the contact they match. Check this list and confirm only if those updates are what you want.
If every row in your file is a new person (for example a first import of companies or sub-members), turn on Create new contacts only. Rows whose Member No or Raklet Id already exists are then rejected with an error, and no existing contact is changed.
Leave Create new contacts only off when you re-import rows on purpose to fix or update them (see Rules and Troubleshooting below).
Every change an import makes to an existing contact is recorded in that contact's change history, so you can see what was updated and when.
Import the Parent (Company) Members
Use the 1. Parent/Company Members sheet of the template, with one row per company or family. Give each parent a unique Member No; you will use it in Step 3 to link sub-members. Set the Type column to Company for organizations. For a family or a person who heads a group, leave the type as Member; the parent does not have to be a Company.
If the parents should also have a subscription (for example a Group Membership plan), add the plan columns to the same sheet: Plan Id or Plan Name, and optionally Subscription Start Date and Subscription End Date (YYYY-MM-DD). See How to Bulk Import Your Members to a Membership Plan for details.
Example:
Member No | Type | Name | Plan Name | |
100000 | Company | Coca Cola | Corporate Group Plan | |
200000 | Company | Pfizer | Corporate Group Plan |
Go to Contacts and click Import Contacts.
Upload or paste your sheet, tick "First row contains column names", and match the columns:
Your member number column → Member No
Your type column → Membership Type (values must be Company for organizations, or Member for families and group heads)
Company name → Corporate Name
Plan columns, if any → Plan Id / Plan Name / Subscription Start Date / Subscription End Date
Don't forget the other columns such as email, phone and address.
If these are all new parents, turn on Create new contacts only before you start the import, so a Member No that is already in use cannot overwrite an existing contact.
Get the Parent Subscription IDs (Only for Group Memberships)
Skip this step if you only want to show sub-members under their company or family and are not linking subscriptions.
If the parents have a Group Membership subscription and you want the sub-members' subscriptions attached to it, you need each parent subscription's ID:
Go to Membership → Subscriptions and filter for the parent plan.
Click Export. The exported file includes an Id column (the subscription ID) and a MemberNo column (the parent's member number).
Copy each parent's subscription Id into the sub-member sheet next to the matching parent Member No.
You can also find the ID on the parent's contact profile, in the Membership section, by opening the subscription.
Import the Sub-Members
Use the 2a. Sub Members sheet of the template (or 2b. Sub Members (Group) if you are linking subscriptions), with one row per sub-member. Set Type to SubMember (written exactly like that, one word, capital S and M) and put the parent's Member No in the Associated Contact Member No column.
Without subscription linking (most common):
Member No | Type | Associated Contact Member No | First Name | |
100001 | SubMember | 100000 | Dennis | |
100002 | SubMember | 100000 | Walter | |
200001 | SubMember | 200000 | Mary |
Add any other columns you need, such as Last Name, phone and address.
With subscription linking (Group Memberships), add the Parent Membership Id from Step 2 and the sub-member's plan. The plan column is required: without Plan Name or Plan Id, no subscription is created and Parent Membership Id is ignored.
Member No | Type | Associated Contact Member No | Parent Membership Id | Plan Name |
100001 | SubMember | 100000 | 3f2a9c1e… | Corporate Group Plan |
100002 | SubMember | 100000 | 3f2a9c1e… | Corporate Group Plan |
Keep the name and email columns from the table above in the same sheet; they are left out here only to keep the example readable.
Which plan to use for the sub-member:
Fixed Price parent plans: use the parent's own plan (in the example above, the parent's Corporate Group Plan). Other plans are not accepted for a Fixed Price parent.
Charge Per Sub Member parent plans: use the parent's plan or one of the sub-member plans allowed in the parent plan's Group Membership settings (for example Family - Spouse, Family - Children).
Type the plan name exactly as it appears on your Plans page (or use Plan Id). If the name does not match an existing plan, Raklet creates a new plan with that name and the row is not linked.
What happens to a linked sub-member's subscription:
It is created as Active (or Scheduled if it starts later) and is billed on the parent. The sub-member gets no invoice, debt or payment reminder of their own, so it never shows as Past Due.
It is listed under the parent's subscription on the parent's Group Membership card and counts toward the parent's seats.
Fixed Price: the sub-member is included in the parent's fixed price. The import respects the plan's maximum number of sub-members.
Charge Per Sub Member: the parent's next scheduled payment is increased by the sub-member plan's fee.
The subscription ends when the parent's subscription ends, unless you give the sub-member a Subscription End Date in the file. If the parent's subscription is Scheduled, the sub-member starts on the parent's start date.
Payment columns such as Subscription Payment Date are ignored for linked sub-members, because the parent pays.
The Type column is required. If it is missing, or the value is not exactly SubMember, Raklet ignores both Associated Contact Member No and Parent Membership Id and imports the row as a regular contact, without any warning.
Import this sheet the same way as in Step 1 and match the columns:
Sub-member's own number → Member No
Type column → Membership Type (values must be SubMember)
Parent's member number → Associated Contact Member No
Parent subscription ID (only if linking subscriptions) → Parent Membership Id
Sub-member's plan (required if linking subscriptions) → Plan Id or Plan Name
As in Step 1, turn on Create new contacts only if all the sub-members are new, and check the warning about rows that match existing contacts before you confirm.
After both imports, you can filter your company members and sub-members in the Contacts section, and sub-members appear under their parent on the contact profile. On a sub-member's Membership tab, the Parent Member field shows who they belong to, whether the parent is a Company or a Member such as a family head. You can also use this field to change a sub-member's parent by hand.
Rules and Troubleshooting
Contact link (Associated Contact Member No)
If the parent Member No is not found, the sub-member is still imported, but without a parent. You will see a "Parent Member Not Found" warning. Fix the number and re-import the row using the sub-member's Raklet Id or Member No to update it. Keep Create new contacts only off for this re-import, otherwise the row is rejected because the contact already exists.
If the column is left empty for a SubMember row, you get the same kind of warning and the contact is imported without a parent.
For a single sub-member, you can also set or fix the parent from the Parent Member field on their Membership tab instead of re-importing.
Subscription link (Parent Membership Id)
Only add this column when you are linking subscriptions. If the column exists in your file, every SubMember row must have a value in it; an empty cell is an error and the row is not imported.
The value must be a subscription ID, not a member number. A member number here causes a "Format Error" and the row is not imported.
The parent subscription must be Active, Past Due or Scheduled, must not be cancelled or deleted, and must itself be a top-level (parent) subscription. Its plan must have Group Membership turned on.
The sub-member's plan must be allowed for the parent (see "Which plan to use" above) and must have the same membership fee interval and renewal interval as the parent's plan (for example both yearly). Otherwise the row is not imported.
For Fixed Price parents with a maximum number of sub-members, rows beyond the limit are not imported and show "Maximum group member limit (N) reached". Re-importing a sub-member who is already under that parent does not count against the limit.
The subscription link is applied only to a subscription created by this import, so the row must also include Plan Id or Plan Name. Without a plan column, no subscription is created and Parent Membership Id is ignored.
If the sub-member already has an active subscription on that plan, the import only updates its dates and does not attach it to the parent. To link an existing subscription, open the parent's Group Membership card and use Add Sub Member → Existing Member instead (see How to Add or Remove Sub-Members as an Admin?).
Rows that fail these checks are not imported at all, neither the contact nor the subscription, so you can fix the file and import those rows again safely.
Type column
The value must be exactly SubMember. "Sub Member", "submember" or "Submember" are not recognized, and the row is imported as a regular member with no parent link.
Member No already in use
If a row was rejected with Create new contacts only turned on, its Member No or Raklet Id already belongs to an existing contact. Give the new person an unused Member No, or turn the option off if you meant to update that contact.
If an import updated a contact by mistake, open that contact's change history to see which fields were changed.