Who's authorized to deposit funds? It specifies who bank statements should go through but not funds. What should a department do if they receive check funds via mail?

Financial Services Feedback comments from Mill staff involved in scheduling, running and collecting for workshops, seminars, classes, and one-time paid events.

The following comments are from Mill staff. We have struggled to find a good solution to solve our collection problems when we advertise events. All events we compete with send a link to register and pay. This is a big detriment to our ability to host paid events as a self-support entity due to college payment limitations. We would like the ability to have our paying clients make payment via credit card when registering, which is collected by the college and allocated to the appropriate index/department hosting the event. All our competitors and other hosted programs easily manage their events this way. Our systems are not conducive to our self-support payment needs. The comments are specific to 3rd party payment processors and our needs to have an option, managed by the college.

Comment 1: Being able to bring in sponsorships in an easy way through the system or SLCC has been a big issue. I know they’ve been developing and revamping policies around that as well.

The problem that I’ve had with the current system is that you cannot download a report that is easy to work with that shows the name, ticket purchased, number of tickets, etc. You have to run a couple of different reports and do not have a mechanism you can use to contact those who have purchased tickets. Sending group emails out of outlook to registrants (especially if the number of recipients is over 30) sometimes gets blocked by email servers. Having a tool that allows us to contact registrants would be extremely helpful as well as making sure it works with accounting systems so the funds go into the right index (which we all know is another huge animal to tackle separate from a ticketing system).

Comment 2: I would like for us to have a registration system that:

1. Allows for reminder emails to be created and scheduled to go out (as many system emails as an event needs). In the past, for example, before moving to the current TouchNet system, I would typically send between 5 - 9 reminder emails over a few weeks leading up to all of our events. The prior systems we used (RegOnline, EventBrite) allowed us to send prepared emails to all the registrants who had registered within the that platform’s messaging system.

It is currently too unworkable to do more than one or two reminder emails. And, when we do, we get to copy and paste into Outlook all the participants again (including recent registrations), to make sure we email the event reminder to all registrants who are registered up to that point.

2. Provides the ability to have different price points, or various tiers, for tickets for a single event. Currently, for us to offer various price options for one of our events, we would have to create multiple event listings for the same day/event. We tried doing that once for Cash Flow is King, and it was messy to administer and to market (since we had to have more than one link in our marketing material).

Comment 3: I think the main problem is how we handle and collect payments. I believe Stripe could be really helpful for us because it makes it easy to set up events, track who signed up, and see who has paid. It’s a great tool for organizing and tracking, and it would definitely make our lives easier. Plus, with Stripe, you don’t have to create a full store you can just build any event quickly, which saves a lot of time.

However, for us to use Stripe, we would need to have an account to receive the payments. The issue is that the funds need to be placed somewhere, and I personally don’t feel comfortable managing that account externally. It’s not that I can’t, but it just becomes sticky. I think the NSAR team is doing a great job managing payments right now, and I would prefer they continue to oversee this process.

So, while Stripe, PayPal, and Eventbrite would definitely help with organizing events, tracking payments, and client management, I believe the school should be the one to oversee the funds. My vote would be to have an internal school account for Stripe for this purpose. Having an outside account without school oversight could create complications, and I wouldn’t want to be responsible for that.

Comment 4:

1. We have a paid Eventbrite account that is seriously underutilized. It is capable of handling registrations, emailing registrants and sending automatic messages. The only issue has been collecting payments – however, we could make a 2-step process. First, have them register on Eventbrite. Second, have Eventbrite’s automatic registration email provide them a link to payment. This doesn’t solve all the issues but it would probably be the best use of the tools we already have.

2. Stripe Payment/PayPal or other payment platforms are nice, however, we would still have to use Evenbrite’s payment system in order to collect payments for events. So we would really need Eventbrite and another payment platform to handle sponsorships or other kinds of payments that aren’t ticket sales. Or we would still have to do a 2-step process like I described above.

3. In my opinion, I think the College should have a college-wide Eventbrite and PayPal account that is handled by NSAR or accounting (whoever is best). That way we aren’t duplicating resources and we don’t have to manage money on behalf of a State Institution. I know that Eventbrite is a needed platform for many other departments in the school as well, we are just one of the few departments that need to collect payments.

If I understand correct 4. Procedures, A. General Guidelines, 5. Reconciliation indicates that external scholarship fund reconciliation should be performed by the controller's office, and not a department that handles the cash receipting, such as B Office of the Bursar, and disbursing functions such as Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships. If so, I support it. If not, please reconsider. I feel like it would be the case even with current phrasing. Why is it not currently in place?