Quote:
Originally Posted by Muat
For the past two years, my team (3334) has done our finances through the school. All our fundraiser and sponsorship money goes into a club account at our school. When we purchase anything at anytime during the year we have to front the money ourselves and then turn in our receipts to be reimbursed by the school. This process is inconvenient and nobody likes fronting for stuff themselves so this year we are considering options for separating our finances from the school. We could open a bank account for the team, but then donations are not tax-deductible for sponsors, and becoming a 501(c)(3) non-profit sounds really complicated. Another thing to consider is that our team is completely student-run. We have technical mentors and a teacher that signs stuff for us, but we don't have any adults that want to take responsibility for the team as a whole.
My question to you is this: Where and how do you store your money, and how does the process for purchasing items work? Thanks.
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2815 has the weight of two rather large entities behind it: the school district and the University of South Carolina. District money takes the usual course--POs, cutting checks, etc. We generally don't run much through the district beyond our initial event registration.
At USC, things can go a little quicker. Funds in our account with the College of Engineering and Computing can be accessed through a state purchasing card (a glorified Visa card), which means we don't have to go out-of-pocket for larger orders like our bigger McMaster-Carr orders or our T-shirts. For smaller things like a late-night Lowe's run, we keep the receipt and submit it for reimbursement; last year, I would float the team these smaller amounts until the University repaid me. This meant I was out of pocket for a week or two (or longer if I forgot to submit them--my own fault), but I knew the funds were there, I had copies of the receipts, and USC worked pretty quickly to get a check cut.