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Help with payment options & details

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 01/19/11 10:20 AM Views: 1646 Replies: 4
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 10:20 AM

We have our 20-yr reunion coming up in August.
We(The Reunion Chair and myself, website Admin) had planned to have a Treasurer, and that we would utilize either the PayPal option (for dontaions) and/or the Class Creator payment plan. We had a couple classmates who were willing to be treasurers, set up and ready to open an account, but then they backed out, saying that they had concerns about having all the account info online, and giving out account info. They said that the bank encouraged them not to do this?
Can anyone tell me:
How much of the bank account info is visible in the admin section? (I want to be able to reassure them that it's all private, even to me and the Reunion Chair)
How much of what is submitted to Class Creator is visible to people who work there?
Will only accepting checks as payment affect our overall attendence?
What if a check "bounces"?
Do we need to worry about tax issues, and if so, how do we avoid that?
Any other tips or suggestions would be appreciated!

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM - Response #1

Good questions.

1) If you are using the ACH system (direct deposit) your account # is visible the first time you enter it. Next time you come back to the page most of it will be ****'d out. Any page in the system that sends sensitive information (bank account numbers, routing numbers, credit card #'s etc.) is full secured by Geotrust. Geotrust is one of the huge security providers on the Internet. Essentially what it means is as the data travels over the Internet it's all scrambled. The Class Creator system is further secured by Security Metrics, which means we are "PCI compliant" against hacking. At the bottom of the ClassCreator.com home page you can see our Geotrust Logo and our Security Metrics logo. Click the Security Metrics logo to see the date of our last full site scan and passing result. As a result of this type of security we've never had a single issue in our history.

2) All of it is available to some of the people here, but not all of it is available to all of the people here. It's kind of like Visa knowing what your Visa card # is. They know because they run the system. You use Visa anyway because you trust their internal procedures and people to not run off with your card # and use it. It's the same thing here. We've never had a financial issue in our history.

3) Accepting checks only is not likely to have a large impact on your reunion attendance. If people want to come and they can only mail in a check they probably will. Clearly it's more convenient for some people to use a credit card, but no I really don't think it's likely to affect your turnout very much. It's a lot more work for you though.

4) If somebody sends you a check that bounces you need to contact them to collect payment.

5) Collecting tax: At the top of this forum you'll see a search box. Type in the word "tax" and run your search. Several discussions have played out here regarding tax, non profit status, etc. You'll find a lot of great tips and advice from others there.


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Edited 01/19/11 11:07 AM
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:13 AM - Response #2

One issue I learned about accepting checks is that tend to be lost in the mail.

At the dinner, I had several people who claim to have mailed a check but we didn't include them in the head count for the catering.

The next reunion I did, I made sure that everyone must have a receipt in order to attend. This avoiding some of the confusing about payments.

Doing this online with online payment makes things so much easier for the planners and the site will keep track of those online payment for you which is one less thing you will have to deal with

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:27 PM - Response #3

Randall "Randy" Brown Turnage wrote:

One issue I learned about accepting checks is that tend to be lost in the mail.

At the dinner, I had several people who claim to have mailed a check but we didn't include them in the head count for the catering.

The next reunion I did, I made sure that everyone must have a receipt in order to attend. This avoiding some of the confusing about payments.

Doing this online with online payment makes things so much easier for the planners and the site will keep track of those online payment for you which is one less thing you will have to deal with


I agree with you...we had 1 lost check so far...out of 204 tickets sold. over 45% paid by credit card, 17% by check and 1% cash. I know that doesn't add up to 100% but people who didn't attend answered N/A that was 29%.

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Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 11:48 PM - Response #4

Jennifer Veith wrote:


We(The Reunion Chair and myself, website Admin) had planned to have a Treasurer, and that we would utilize either the PayPal option (for dontaions) and/or the Class Creator payment plan. We had a couple classmates who were willing to be treasurers, set up and ready to open an account, but then they backed out, saying that they had concerns about having all the account info online, and giving out account info. They said that the bank encouraged them not to do this?
Can anyone tell me:
How much of the bank account info is visible in the admin section? (I want to be able to reassure them that it's all private, even to me and the Reunion Chair)
How much of what is submitted to Class Creator is visible to people who work there?
Will only accepting checks as payment affect our overall attendence?
What if a check "bounces"?
Do we need to worry about tax issues, and if so, how do we avoid that?
Any other tips or suggestions would be appreciated!


We have a Treasurer and a Co...we want another signature on the account making 3...I am the Chair and Co-treasurer.
Only we see the bank info..actually..I don't even see it..our Treas does. The bank account information is not visible on the site to the public. Neither is your credit card information...CC reunion planner works just like any other online payment system. No fees for checks...if a check gets bounced the Treasurer tries to get the payment from the person..we announced a $10 bounced check fee. Why..paypal...they charge fees for collecting checks and credit cards...and you have to open an account with them.
CC has a great system for collecting money..and the reporting is awesome. CC charges 4.9% of the total ticket price, the cheapest rate for now..which is good..you build that into the ticket price. Instructions how to do that is in the Reunion Planner.
In the admin section., you choose who sees the Reunion Planner ticket sales. Just me and the Treas see that info.
Brad can address who sees the credit card info at CC. I have dealt with that person when I goofed on refunding a ticket. CC is not a credit card company..they have a credit company process the checks securely.
I know just having check sales would have affected our reunion last August...45% or more of our ticket sales were credit card.
Tax issues are none..unless you are a 501(3)c. Check out the thread on tax issues here on the forum..and consult a CPA.
With the automated money transfer at CC you get your money directly deposited into your checking account. I would never use any other system.
Your committee is being too paranoid and doesn't understand how online payment processing is handled.
I hope this helps..any questions..ask away!!
You can email me personally.

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