Our team(1716) in the past has always used an “account” with the school, where they just pool our money into one of their accounts, and they tell us how much we have in it. This has granted us many problems, so our team is looking at options as far as opening a checking account for the team.
now, what I am asking you is, what your team does? do you have an account through your school? or a private bank account? please explain why you do one or the other!
Thank you
Kyle McGurk
Team 1716
The team formed a 501©(3) to manage the team expenses. The money needed for a program like this is way outside what the school could understand was necessary and was workable within the accelerated time frame we needed it.
Non-profit status opens lots of doors.
We have checking and credit cards in the non-profit name.
195 has used an account with the school for as long as I know. The one problem this presents is that it takes a while to get money from the account. As a result in the crunch of build we will charge everything to a sponsor’s credit card and then pay them back at the end of the season.
Our First few seasons we used an account through the school, but we began to run into a lot of problems with getting reimbursed in a timely manner. as a result, we have just switched to having a local foundation manage our money. they not only manage it, but will pay our bills, write thank-yous for donations (including the tax deduction information) and pay us interest on our money, all while making us a 501©(3). from what i understand about finances this is a pretty sweet deal.
We have several accounts. We have several through the college here(we are all college mentors), and we have one through the high school. We have no problems with paying for anything or getting $ when we need it. In fact its really nice because the college writes the checks and sends them to the places we need them, so we don’t have to worry about it.
In the past we had an unimaginable amount of money in a buisness partnership acount. The money was supposed to be set aside for the robotics team, but the superintendent felt otherwise. So instead of being well funded for the next 10 years, we find funds here and there.
Because of the feeling that funds were not managed well and the reasons stated by others we started a booster club in order to keep an eye on things. It is not the ideal situation, but it helps get things on a Saturday night, when the school credit card is nowhere to be found, and the robot ships Tuesday:ahh:
Our main funds are still handled by the school, and large donations go to them, but the smaller stuff like food and travel expenses can be handled by the booster club.
We’ve used an account through a school for some time, however more recently we’ve been finding out that it’s been problematic, particularly with some of the schools economic problems.
This year, the school itself put very little into funding our team, and money from our other sponsor was put into the school account (For various reasons unrelated to this discussion), however now because of the school districts financial issues, we have to put in a lengthy request and wait several weeks before we can use any of the teams own money, and requests can be denied (though we haven’t had a problem with this… yet). :ahh:
I’m beginning to like the idea of having a Non-Profit Organization team more and more.
Team 2228 used the school finance department for our first two years. This was the worst source of problems in operating the team. The school cut POs on Wednesdays only :eek: which was a killer during build season. Bills submitted for payment well in advance of due date were still late. One mentor fronted the cost of materials and it took 1 year for the school district to reimburse the legitimate expense. All our funds were team raised, no taxpayer dollars from the school making the reimbursement delay even more difficult to accept. The school district was great on support in all areas other than finance. Their financial system response times and our short build season needs just did not fit.
This past year we looked into creating our own 501c3 and were about to do so until we found a pre-existing 501c3 in our school district who wanted to partner with us on the financial side. They get community service in the educational area as they wished. The team gets an independent checking account and credit card so that we now can control our timely ability to purchase materials and pay our bills. We still operate within the school district on all other matters which is great for concerns such as insurance.
This approach saved us the legal fees associated with forming a 501c3. It also saves us the yearly cost of director’s insurance or having directors of the team 501c3 uninsured which would have been a concern.
Bottom line, school is happy and thrilled with the new model, 501c3 organization is happy, and our first year running finances this way was a great success.
Our team has had similar issues with just a “local school account” as we call it here in Hawaii with the school.
Issues such as timeliness of payments/reimbursements, inflexibilities in how payments are made, and the whole politics of it, made us look elsewhere.
We now have a 501c(3) account, a separate non-profit bank account (where we file general excise taxes-fundraisers only) in addition to our local school account.
All fundraising done by our team goes to the local school account to avoid taxes under the school account.
Any donation/grants/scholarships made to our team goes into our separate account. If the donor requires a 501c(3) account, then we have our partner foundation which accepts the proceeds on our behalf.
We found that it pretty much covers every scenario that our team has encountered over the years, and our team no longer has to play these politics games in trying to achieve our goals.
Team 1552 runs theirs through the school. This is done because the school thinks they need control of the team’s money despite not actually supporting the team in any way financially.
This is occasionally a very large pain because money is only given in $600 or less chunks. The only benefit is that when the government decides to audit us, they’re auditing the school and thus the district’s lawyers and accountants take care of it. We don’t have to do anything with respect to tax law and paperwork.
501c3 account since our rookie year. Its nice when there’s not hassle.
We started an Explorer Post for two reasons: to allow any student to join our organization, no matter which school they attend, and to avoid financial entanglements with schools. In my FRC background, we were limited in how we could spend our money (no team t-shirts, for example), even though the school didn’t give us a nickel. Working in conjunction with the Seattle Robotics Association (a 501©(3) educational charity) we have tax-exempt status, and complete freedom to spend our money on any legitimate purpose. It’s great, and we have terrific relationships with our partner schools, too. It’s a win/win deal.
For those who started the 503c3, did you just “go ahead” with setting up the account, or did you “run it by” the board of ed?
I think we have a very supportive BoE, but our district’s business manager reserves the right to redirect any donated money to wherever he thinks it should go. A 503c3 account is an “end run” around the problem, but I don’t want to appear to go behind the back of the board.
comments?
They have to know. Never get on the bad side of your school, from the BOE to the janitors. They are your friends.
Have the donations directed for team use.
We recently started a 501©(3) for Avon Robotics, so we can cover the UberBots under it, as well as some other teams that are in the process of forming, and any others that come along in the future. We have had an account with the school in the past, and I believe it still exists, but generally the more people you have to work through with your finances, the more delays and problems you will encounter. I would recommend your team try the 501©(3) route.
Like most teams we have to be at least a little creative when dealing with purchases during crunch time. One of the companies we work with allows us to make all purchaces through them. At the end of the build season they send me a bill which we pay out of our school account. This avoids any issues with time constraints.
I actually am I big fan of using our high school account for our purchases. First of all all money in and out is observed by the school accountant (and principle) which avoids any issues of responcibility. Also I have found if we are short some money the school can shift money from another account temporarily. This has been helpful when we are waiting for a donation that has not arrived yet. Finally I have found that our Board of Education is more inclined to give us money when the money is attached to our high school and not sent “out” of the school loop and into a seperate account.
Lakota Robotics has an activties account within the school. We have never had any problems. PO’s take 7 - 10 days to process, so what we do is setup blanket PO’s that are good for the entire school year. THis allows us to purchase anything and anytime during the year and the invoice goes to the school and is paid immediately. Very simple process.
I suggest getting away from your school if you can. Their built-in bureaucracy is never helpful, and they’re probably not paying you interest on your account. If it’s in your own account under a 503C, you can do a whole lot of things - including making it work FOR you if you have some sitting there for a couple months.
Jiimy, above is a perfect example. Why even go through the hassle of that - isn’t FIRST complicated enough as it is? Handle your own money. Get a paypal account linked to your team bank account so everything is instant-paid and withdrawn without having to worry about PO’s etc.
I know schools love having that money in their general fund, but the headaches we had getting to our own money is driving us away from our school. Lengthy payback times forcing us to keep things on our personal cards or pay them off ourselves - rejecting receipts because they don’t particularly like the format - it’s a bit crazy.
I have to thank the schools for where they do help - without them much of FIRST wouldn’t be possible - but this is one of those areas where you can do much better for yourselves by yourselves.
Ok it sounds like we are hearing a lot of familiar financial woes when working with a school financial system. Our team works through 4 accounts. 1) A district budget, where we have to use PO’s and deal with delays. 2) A school Boosters account - easier to get reimbursements, but they keep 10%. 3) The School ASB club account - better than the district, but lots more paperwork and rules. 4) Our local education foundation which was our best of all worlds until recently when we found out that there maybe some lack of paperwork being filed to keep their 503© status. So we’ve recently taken a hard look at starting our own 503© organization like some of you other teams have done.
Has anyone written up a white paper on what that entail, tips, good practices, etc?? I have searched CD-Media and could find anything.
I’m encouraged from what folks on CD are saying about their 503©, other folks I talk to in person seem to really discourage the notion, stating the paperwork and regulations are too demanding.
There is quite a bit of info on the NEMO site
http://www.firstnemo.org/resources.htm
There is a broken link to the subject. We try and get it fixed.
I’m encouraged from what folks on CD are saying about their 503(c), other folks I talk to in person seem to really discourage the notion, stating the paperwork and regulations are too demanding.
You don’t have to do it yourself. Don’t hesitate to ask a lawyer or accountant for donated help. Our accountant works for a link on the website.