Best practice for bank transfer subscribers

Hi
I'm looking for advice on the best way to manage bank transfer subscribers.
Our society has around 60 subscribers who pay by standing order direct to our bank account. These subscribers have their subscription renewed manually by an admin every year but now I've taken over their role I wonder if there's an easier way.
We have five plans but all these subscribers are signed up to the first or second. Do I need to create new plans just for these subscribers or is there a way to leave them in the existing plans?
I see in the 'Edit Subscription' page for each subscriber there are Autorenew Type and Autorecurring Type options but at the top of the page it does say "Don't touch things here, but do it from backend Community Builder User Management in Subscriptions tab please."
We would also like them to be receiving 'thank for renewing' emails each year. 
Thanks in advance
Stephen
 

Stripe supports various bank transfer payment methods. So that should allow you to completely automate collecting those if you provide it as an available payment method. Some of the bank transfers allow for recurring payments while others don't though. So they may still be required to renew manually, but they'd be able to do so entirely on their own without your intervention.

Normally what those users previously would have done is use the Offline payment method so it creates a valid basket in a pending status. You'd then pay that basket once the bank transfer came through from CBSubs > Baskets. Sounds like the previous admin was just manually editing the subscription which is not advised to do.

Thanks for replying.

While I'd love to have these subscribers manage their own subscriptions, many of them have been subscribers for decades, long before we even had a website. When the website was created and CB/CBSubs used for the new membership system, new accounts were created for all those with existing Standing Orders. Some of them don't even have email addresses, the majority have either never logged in or haven't for a very long time, they only subscribe for our printed journal. My guess is that attempting to get them to move to Stripe payment wouldn't be very successful.  

The automatic emailing isn't a problem, the majority renew on the same date, so I am happy doing that manually, but avoiding going into sixty accounts and manually renewing would be good. 

What would happen if in the 'Edit Subscription' page I changed Autorenew Type to 'Mandatory' and Autorecurring Type to 'Autorecurring with notifications'. 

Or should I just create two new 'free' plans for these subscribers with lifetime subscription and unsubscribe them manually if/when they cancel the standing order?

Thanks again

My guess is that attempting to get them to move to Stripe payment wouldn't be very successful.

Probably doesn't hurt to try. Maybe include something in the printed journal about the website and paying online.

What would happen if in the 'Edit Subscription' page I changed Autorenew Type to 'Mandatory' and Autorecurring Type to 'Autorecurring with notifications'.

It wouldn't do anything because no IPN from a payment provider would come through to pay the subscription so it'd just expire normally.

Or should I just create two new 'free' plans for these subscribers with lifetime subscription and unsubscribe them manually if/when they cancel the standing order?

Creating a lifetime plan and unsubscribing them manually if they miss payment would probably be the easiest approach.