Membership Renewal Reminder: Outlook

 How do you remember to pay your yearly membership fees for a genealogical society or subscription fees for genealogical websites?
The following is the steps to add a reminder within MS Outlook. 

1.		In Outlook Calendar click on the day you want to pay your membership/subscription fee. I chose in the morning to give myself lots of time to make the payment.
2.		Type in the description for the appointment. I have added my reminder to pay Alberta Genealogical Society (AGS).
3.		Press Enter. The appointment will look something like the following.
4.		With the appointment still selected, indicated by the white square at the top and bottom of the appointment along the top and bottom, look at the Appointment Series Tab of the Ribbon. We need to add a category, make it a recurrence so that it appears every year and add a reminder. Click on Categorize. The following menu appears with a list of all categories you have identified for appointments, emails, tasks, etc.
5.		If you have coloured squares with a coloured name beside it then you need to define some categories. Pick a colour for the society you have created the reminder for. For AGS I use a dark green. (Green for trees.)
6.		Recurrence will allow you to set this reminder to appear in your calendar year after year. You will not have to put this appointment in each year. Click on the Recurrence icon (two arrows forming a circle) in the Options section of the Calendar Tools Appointment Series tab. The following window appears. The options below are the defaults.
7.		We want this to remind us early year on December 31st with no end date. To have Outlook do this, set it up as the following.
8.		Click OK.
9.		Now we need a reminder just in case we need to budget for this fee, or that we want to pay it early.
10.		Click inside the Reminder: box in the Options section of the Appointment Series tab. The following window appears.
11.		Click on when you want the reminder. The longest available is 2 weeks.
12.		Click the Save & Close icon in the Actions section of the Appointments Series tab to save the changes we have made to the appointment.

Question? What if you need a month notice to budget? Then create an appointment a month before as a reminder.