club_cafe: Due Collection

iras1 on

>>I am the Treasurer for my Investment Club and I was
wondering how other groups are collecting their monthly
dues. Currently, I am having each memeber mail me the check
and I consolidate them to send into our broker. It's a
total pain and I'm often hounding people to get their dues
in on time.

>>What I'd like to do is automate the system so that everyone
directly transfers their money into a paypal account or some
online bank. This would allow people to pay with credit
cards too. However, the problem is that our brokerage only
allows wire transfers or check payments.

>>Is there anyone who is doing something similar and might
have some recommendations?

We're not doing this, but I know other clubs have done this successfully. Assign each member a number from 01 to the number of members. Have each member send his/her check directly to the broker in the amount of $xx.yy, where xx is the amount of their contribution and yy is their member number. When you review the broker statement you can immediately tell which member's check is which since they will all differ in the last two digits. Make sure your bylaws read something like..."all deposits received by the broker by [date of the month] will be considered made timely. Deposits received after [date of the month] will be credited to the partner's account the following month."

Ira Smilovitz

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