Starting membership period from approval and not registration

Will this then set the sub start date from approval rather than registration?

The subscription start date is always from date of payment.

How would I use an Auto Action to update the start date and end dates relative to the approval date?

eg : Registration and payment was on 01/Jan/25 but approval was on 20/Jan/25. Approval would then reset the start date to 20/Jan and the expiry date to +365 days.

Thanks

Are you using auto recurring payments? If so then modifying the subscription is impossible as the recurring billing has already been established at the payment processor. If using manual renewals then yes this is absolutely doable as you'd be free to modify the dates however you like.

I would still recommend not doing this though. I would configure the plans to accept payment after approval. So once they're approved then on their first login they'll be asked to pay. This would resolve your date issue and also resolve the issue of users having to pay before they're even approved to join the site.

Yes we have recurring payments and unfortunately the client wants payment before approval to prevent chasing payments. This is what's causing the problem.

Then there is unfortunately no solution for this. Modifying a recurring subscription will not work. They will be billed earlier than expected if you modify the dates. I would push for the client to stop accepting payments before approval as it doesn't make sense given their needs.