Renewal notices and the anniversary invoice

Many Hong Kong membership and retainer contracts allow an annual price increase only after written notice — often thirty or sixty days before the anniversary. Billing teams, under pressure to run the renewal batch, apply the new rate because “that is what finance approved in the budget.”

In review, we match each stepped-up anniversary invoice to the notice log. Missing notices do not always mean the increase was wrong commercially; they mean you cannot defend the charge if a member asks. The remediation is usually twofold: credit the cohort that lacked notice, and refuse to release the next anniversary run until the notice dates are stamped in the same workbook as the invoice export.

A practical habit: treat the notice letter as a pre-condition in the renewal checklist, the same way you treat a signed order form for a new subscriber. Budget approval is not a substitute for the contractual notice trail.