Different subscriber/subscription export options and numbers that don't add up

I want to tidy up expired subscriptions and subscribers by deleting expired subscribers/subscriptions so I've been looking at the various export options to understand which ones will be deleted and to take an archive of them, but I don't understand the numbers of Active, Expired, etc they give me.

I can see five ways to export data to a spreadsheet. The numbers each give for the various states of membership are:

            Total    Active    Pending    Expired    Cancelled-Refund Pending    Cancelled-Refunded    Total Cancelled    Total
1 Export Expired Subscribers    Dashboard|Subscriptions Tab|Export Expired Subscribers    304                            304
2 Export Subscribers    Dashboard|Export Subscribers Icon    781                            781
3 Export Subscriptions    Dashboard|Subscriptions Tab|Export    781                            781
4 Export Excel Subscriptions    Dashboard|Subscriptions Icon|Subscriptions|Export Excel    781    224    13    540        4    4    781
5 Subscribers Report    Dashboard|Report Tab|Download CSV    582    226    13    341    2        2    582

See attached screenshot of this spreadsheet in case the formatting makes it difficult to read above.

I have 'Subscription Renewal Behavior' set to 'Create New Subscription' in the configuration.

So, some questions:

A) 2 and 3 seem to create the same spreadsheet, despite one being subscribers and the other subscriptions. I don't understand why these are the same: shouldn't there be more subscriptions than subscribers?

B ) There seems to be a difference in the way Cancelled subscriptions are counted in 3 and 4. Is there a reason for this?

C) Why are the Active numbers in Export Excel Subscriptions and Subscribers Report different by two? Is this something to do with the way Cancelled are counted?

D) The Export Expired Subscribers gives 304 expired subscribers, so why does the Subscribers Report say 341 are Expired? Shouldn't they be the same?

E) I'm not sure why the number of Expired in Export Excel Subscriptions (540) and Subscribers Report (341) are different by 199 - is this because there ARE multiple subscriptions per subscriber?

I may have a few other questions but any help with understanding these numbers may clarify a lot for me!

Thanks.

Hi Alan

I think It would be better if I explain the meaning of the two terms: Subscriber and Subscriptions:

1. Subscriber is a user on your site, who subscribed for at least one subscription plan on your site.

2. Subscription is just a subscription record. When someone subscribe/renew for a plan on your site, a subscription record will be created.

So as you can see, a subscriber, in theory, can have multiple subscription records on your site. I don't really know exactly what you are trying to do here, but I think you should focus on Subscriptions records only. All other info (subscribers, report...) are mostly used for statistic purpose. Most of the time, you should work directly with Subscriptions data.

Thanks, Tuan.

I do understand the terms subscriber and subscription - my concern is that the numbers don't match!

I can ignore the issue with the Cancelled categories as there are just four of them and I'll ignore all the reports and exports and just work with the Subscriptions screen as you recommend.

I want to delete expired subscriptions/subscribers but I wanted to export the ones about to be deleted to a spreadsheet as an archive record before I delete them. I had thought the 'Export Expired Subscribers' feature would do that, but I'll ignore that and just export them from the Subscribers screen before deleting.

I asked you a few months ago about deleting joomla users so I now know I will have to delete these separately after I've deleted the Membership Pro subscriptions - that's another reason I need the spreadsheet of those deleted. Or is there a way of identifying the joomla users that are no longer subscribers in Membership Pro?

Hi Alan

Export Expired Subscribers should give you list of the subscribers which their subscriptions have been expired. I think that's what you need in this case. Could you please use it and let me know if there is anything wrong with that data?

Tuan