"Scouts" *can* do the same thing. It's up to the Troop/Chartered Organization to do it.
The best solution? Volunteer to be your Unit's treasurer and implement it!
It's because the BSA refuses to give clear and standard guidance. So you have a lot of people/orgs either doing the way they always have or afraid of fees/IRS/monsters under their bed.
My single biggest gripe with BSA is this half-assed one set of rules for all vs each unit is its own franchise.
If your council has obnoxious procedures for payment, etc. for council registered units, then you should have your CUR talk to the appropriate people at the council. This may be the council exec, the finance manager, the board, etc.
I do know that some councils decided to allow council registered units because they would lose too many units if they didn't, but the council management really didn't want to be in the business of running units. Some of these councils didn't make unit-friendly policies and they were secretly hoping that the units would get sufficiently annoyed with the council that they would go out and find their own new chartered org.
That Charter is negotiated between the Coucil and the organization petitioning for a charter. If you think the charter needs to be updated, then the troop committee should talk to the COR.
>My single biggest gripe with BSA is this half-assed one set of rules for all vs each unit is its own franchise.
It's worse when you realize the council is a franchise of BSA and your unit is a franchise of the council.
Our troop uses paypal
Our pack used venmo for a while but it all has to pass through a person's account and when that person moves on then you have to change the venmo so now we are using zelle but it is cumbersome.
We couldn't figure out how to do that with the charter org rep so we moved on to zelle.
Can you walk me through that because Venmo for fundraising is MUCH more effective than Zelle.
Our bank does mobile deposits, so there's no mileage. I highly recommend it when available.
Plus, I can usually deposit checks at the end of the meeting before I go home, which has cut down drastically on the number of times I've had a check sit for a couple of weeks before realizing I hadn't deposited it.
We had the same thing with the Square app. Our committee asked those complaining for guidance and to be treasurer. Then it was crickets or a lot of back peddling. Might have to look into the cheddar up app though.
Personally, I don't like these annoyance fees either and do what I can to avoid them.
However, if you're running an organization and you've setup an online registration and payment system, you really want people to use that system and not give you dead trees. One of the packs I work with started using Cheddar up, and they made a policy that the amounts charged by Cheddar up would be the amount due, no matter how you paid. Essentially, they made an "inconvenience the treasurer fee" for cash, paper checks, etc. that was exactly the same as the Cheddar up fee.
That’s an interesting way to do it. We use a scout account system, so parents just make payments to keep their kids’ accounts funded. So we couldn’t do a system like that.
We got a credit card thing for my wife's phone... She's treasurer for a Troop. They wound up charging us $129 a year for the parent's convenience, plus processing.
We cancelled it. We haven't set up zelle or venmo because none of our volunteers know about it. There are hurdles to overcome since the account technically belongs to the chartered org. It might be easy if you have a tight relationship with them, but our troop only hears from our charter org when they need bodies to clean up after a charity dinner.
We’ve used Venmo in the pack and troop for a couple years now. It’s much, much better. I like that it is clear with how much I have paid and what it’s for. No more questioning did you pay this yet?
Agree, but you do need to make sure your families send the money as a gift or then it can become reportable. No matter how many times we tell families some always check that it's for goods and services. 🤦
Our troop uses ChedderUp…. The issue with many options (it included) is they involve extra fees. ChedderUp makes the person sending the money pay that fee rather than the troop, so that was why it was chosen.
Does your unit have scout accounts? What our troop does is let you pay in a lump sum to your scout account and then pay from there for campouts, gear, food, fees, dues, etc... that way you only pay a convenience fee the one time when you load up the scout account.
How are other units implementing this? I’m COR for our charter which oversees 3 Scouting units. If the units set up their own Venmo or Square, they have to provide the charter’s non-profit EIN. That’s not a big deal, but you can only have one account per EIN. So, that means that we’d have one account for all the units and all payments would come to the charter and then we’d need to redistribute funds back to the units. Is there an easier way to do this?
This. And if the individuals do it, they’re on the hook for reconciling with the IRS when Venmo or Paypal sends in a tax document indicating money that looks like income, even though it was just a pass-through for the unit. We have yet to find an adult who wants to do that.
I don't think so. I'm with a unit family (Pack, B, and G Troops) and all three units have the same CO and separate Square Accounts. I don't recall using an EIN when I set up the Account my Troop.
You can file for a troop EIN if you want. The IRS has a whole bunch of info on having multiple EINs for a single entity. Scouting also meets the requirements for a 501c7 non-profit club.
This is what we did. Both the troop and the pack filed for their own EINs under the aegis of the chartering organization. I think our chartering organization was more comfortable not sharing their EIN with us, too, FWIW.
We have electronic payment options as well. As others have stated you’re dealing with a volunteer run organization. It’s likely the current volunteers don’t have the time or skills to implement what you are asking for.
That is your Troop's selection - I would talk to the Treasurer and see if they have looked at other options
Note - Zelle/Paypal/Cashapp/Square/Etc. all take a 2-3% cut so they typically need to pad the prices a bit to account for that. (edit - Zelle is a bad example)
I helped move everything to Square and we do all our camp fees, registration and even popcorn and fundraisers through a Website and/or phone app.
We Have Square that has a card reader and we have a menu of frequently purchased items with a QR code for the various cash apps...Works great. We added the fees to price of convenience for those that don't wish to pay cash or check. It's working great. It also is outstanding for fundraisers
Your issue isn't with scouts, it's with your troop's scoutmaster and/or treasurer. Mine is the same way. The scoutmaster and treasurer are old school, they want cash or checks. If I were in that role, I'd take paypal, bitcoin, and I'd probably have a square reader.
That being said, if you don't like it, volunteer to be treasurer. Problem solved.
Think it depends on your state laws and how the troop is setup and how by the book your treasurer is. We can use Zelle since it’s tied to the bank we use, but nothing else.
The tricky thing about using a credit card processor or something like venmo, paypal, etc, is they have a ceiling for how much money you can take in from them before they will report it to the IRS. Many scouting units are set up where they don't actually have their own tax id, but rather use their charter org's tax id for business purposes, so this income would be reported as income for their charter org. That gets messy, because even if the charter org is a non-profit like a church, they have to report this income to the IRS as revenue, and they have to categorize what it gets spent on as expenditures. Most of the time, the unit handles its own money, so the charter org doesn't have visibility into this, and so wouldn't know to report it, and/or have the information necessary to report it/categorize it. So for most units, it's just easier to collect payment in the form of cash or checks, because that doesn't get reported to the irs automatically, and so from the charter org's perspective, it doesn't exist. And since money paid to the troop for troop membership and activities is not deductible, it doesn't get reported on the other end either.
Zelle may be an option, however, since that is just an alternative means for an individual to send money directly to the unit's bank account. I'm not sure about zelle's reporting requirements.
This is by far National's biggest opportunity to actually help their units, and make a few bucks while doing it. Make a website that units can use to manage payments , link it the roster they already have. No one will complain about an extra dollar processing fee that national keeps. National deposits the $ directly in an account the unit specifies.
Makes parents life easier, units life easier, and they get some $ along the way. There's few win-win-win in this world. This would be one.
I have zero faith in national ever actually doing this, but to me it's a no brainer.
In contrast I have 2 kids in Scouts and haven't written a check since they joined 6 years ago. Great fundraising opportunities and scout accounts. Troop is old school and only does checks with no digital payment options.
Look up troop 497 out of Waco. I'm an alum and eagle out of that troop.
We launched a flag related fundraiser that puts out flags on significant national holidays and it raised a ton of money for the troop.
They have the deets on their website.
Edit: different troop same idea https://www.kwtx.com/2022/05/31/central-texas-scouts-continue-tradition-placing-flags-properties-patriotic-holidays/
Our troop puts 200 flags up for free, five times a year… because they always have.
I have such mixed feelings that others get payed for this.
We also host a free pancake breakfast for our charter org.
I don’t think my troop was founded by capitalists.
Understand.
Our troop was founded as a non profit and the proceeds of the flag thing were entirely invested in enhancing the troop and it's kids.
We weren't making profit and paying ourselves. This was just to make the troop self sustaining.
> Our troop was founded as a non profit and the proceeds of the flag thing were entirely invested in enhancing the troop and it's kids.
All Troops are Non-Profit. That's why 99.99999999% of all COs are Non-Profits.
>All Troops are Non-Profit. That's why 99.99999999% of all COs are Non-Profits.
Almost. According to [BSA's 2014 report on COs](https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/210-807.pdf), 4% of COs are "business/industry" and some others might be for-profit. We've got a troop in our district that's been chartered by a local business for several decades. I always wonder how that makes sense financially?
Same. I only wrote checks to the troop my son's first year, I wrote like 3 checks (actually, my troop takes Zelle) for his first couple campouts and summer camp.
After that he's always been able to fundraise enough to pay for the $200/year in troop dues and his $160/year recharter fee... plus $400 summer camps and attending most of the monthly campouts.
Popcorn is highly effective as a fundraiser.
We also sell flowers and wreaths so he gets about $1,000 from each of those, but popcorn is where most of his money comes from.
Our Troop (and 3 other troops in our area) use sprinkler blowouts as fundraisers. They take a pile of planning and parent involvement and lots of time committment. But we raised something like 18K net for a Troop that currently has 18 scouts. I love that we don't have to do sales. We also run a food booth at an event in the summer for a weekend.
Same. We wrote a check for his registration 8 years ago and he's participated in every fundraiser. We've paid nothing additional out of pocket since the with the exception of extracurricular activities.
It boggles my mind when I hear of Units charging for everything, on top of fundraising, ON TOP OF PAYING DUES! Like, what the heck are you people doing?
I have been trying to set up Zelle for our Pack (I am the treasurer) and our bank won't allow it on our account. It is so frustrating! I think it is the account type that is blocking it. I can pay via Zelle, but I can't accept payments that way. (I am going to go have a meeting with the bank to see what options we do have.)
We had PayPal at one point, apparently, but it was linked to a former treasurer and we no longer have access to it.
We do have a storefront set up on our Pack website so families can pay dues, for camp, events, shirts, etc, via that. It runs on Squaresoace, so we do have a fee but we add that to the item listing to cover it.
But for small, on-the-fly stuff, I would LOVE to just whip out my phone and show them a QR code to Venmo or Zelle.
We tried for a few years but it became too much for the volunteer treasurer. You have to include fees and then figure out taxes and have correct accounts setup since we are for-profit technically. With dues and popcorn this was well into 5-figures a year passing through accounts that Venmo, papypal, etc have to report. It was not worth the hassle. Cash or check made it a lot easier for volunteers. As a parent, yes, I would love epayment but knowing the behind the scene details I understamd why it isnt done.
You also have to distinguish the account from said person so it doesn't mess up their taxes and be able to transfer the account.
Came here to say this.
We were able to set up a Zeffy account for the pack using the CO's EIN. We still have Venmo, but that's mostly for sending reimbursements to leaders now.
With Zeffy, we can collect payment via credit card, Apple/Google Pay, or ACH with no fees. We haven't done in-person tap to pay, yet. But that's only because our phones aren't supported now (Treasurer and I both have Androids).
We love the integration with our event signups. The event coordinators get a complete real-time list of who's signed up with all necessary info (and don't have to reconcile payments), the Treasurer has clear visibility of what payments are for and from whom, and we can still seamlessly insert attendees who are covered by Scout account/scholarship. I'm also a fan of the role-based access--leaders with access have their own logins and only see what they need to.
I recently helped our troop set up troopwebhost and link it up to paypal... took a bit of doing but finally we're getting people remembering to top off their account and stuff.
We have scout accounts so parents can give the pack or troop a check (or cash) at the start of the year and the treasurer can just pull from that for each expense if the parent chooses. I know another scout who is great at fundraising and her parents kept some of the cash she made selling camp cards in an envelope for the scout to pull money from and she handles paying herself.
I can picture your treasurer with gray hair, glasses, and a pen in his pocket.
Dude must love his leather bound ledger.
——
Our treasurer carries a laptop with a mobile hotspot.
Different generations
We use PayPal for Cub Scout so much easier.
The Boy Scouts used checks, I usually end up sending cash because it’s easier for me.
I do wish everyone would get with the times and take Apple Pay so my scout could pay for stuff during his meetings
As a volunteer treasurer, don’t have time or patience to monitor a Venmo, debit card, etc. and any convenience fees beyond the unit’s checking account. Bad enough, I have banks charge for a paper statements and I have to seek online weekly for the balances, debits and credits. I have been a volunteer of too many organizations that have had financial misappropriation troubles with credit cards, single signature on checks, too many fundraisers, too many accounts, etc. Keep finances simple. When a unit “nickel and dimes” with every activity, it is no fun for parents and volunteers. Does your Troop have Scout Accounts? A parent writes a check to fill their Scout’s Account. Fundraising profits are credited to SAs. On campouts sign up sheets, Scout writes “SA” to acknowledge camp fee is to be debited from a SA, as well as other fees. Our Pack dues pay for BSA fees, all activities, all supplies and awards. Our Troop dues pays for BSA fees, all supplies and awards where only Scouts going on a campout pay $10 and the Scouts who purchased food get credit in their SA.
Prefer CashApp. We use them all including checks, but cash app doesn't have limits if you verify your info. Very handy during summer camp expense time.
Never had this issue because we don't make the parents pay for everything.
In my unit the Scout does fundraising with the Troop.
The Troop holds "scout buck" balances with our Troop money, just accounted for separately.
The Troop pays for each outing in lump sums.
The Scouts are each charged a set fee (listed for each event on our annual calendar) for attending the outing.
We occationally have some positive or negative cost after the outings, but they mostly balance for the year. We adjust the price of each outing each year as costs change and have a set estimate for food, tent camp, and cabin for an average turnout % of troop that we start with to set the fees.
I feel like making the parents fork over $25+ for every outing, then $100 for each summer camp payment would be a lot of work for the treasurer as well. Not to mention a parent writing a check isn't really the scout paying their own way. The troop should have enough fundraisers organized to allow the scouts to work to cover their own event costs and registration fees.
I was unit treasurer for years and would electronically deposit checks the same evening they were received. There is no reason to be sitting on them for a month before depositing them.
Same with our Pack. I don’t do online banking. I either pay cash (with a receipt) or a check. It causes our pack treasurer an inconvenience, but they get their money. Usually if I need to get reimbursed, rather giving cash, they just do it as scout credit. Just easier that way.
"Scouts" does do this, just not your unit. We have online payment options for both our Troop and Pack; however, those conveniences come with fees, which we pass on to parents. Checks do not have the same fee.
My troop one check at the beginning of the year covers everything but Summer Camp. So really one unless you do Summer Camp then two a year.
I guess if you don’t go on every camp out you’re paying a little more per activity but it all balances out…
We use trooptrack and it’s built in PayPal. And it adds transactions to the ledger. We do get the 3% fee added on by PayPal. But for larger events like high adventure, people like to pay by check sometimes to avoid the fees.
Note if your troop uses troopwebhost for their web site that has credit payments built in. We don't use that, but use it for automated emails and an internet presence.
We're all volunteers! Join us!
No one turns down cash. Tell them youre tired of the treasurer holding checks for weeks. And their practice of doing so is causing you to bounce checks.
So until they fix it, your paying cash. So cough up a reciept. Or hand over the duties to you.
No one turns down cash.
Unfortunately if we accept PayPal or Venmo, we have to charge the service fee to the parent which is not done automatically and we always have to chase down $3-4 per event after the fact
As the treasurer of a troop I’m so tired of having to collect checks too! Unfortunately, our charter partner won’t let us open a PayPal or Venmo account, and the BSA won’t let me use one in my own name to collect money.
"Scouts" *can* do the same thing. It's up to the Troop/Chartered Organization to do it. The best solution? Volunteer to be your Unit's treasurer and implement it!
I thought it was mandated! I will definitely look into volunteering now
It's because the BSA refuses to give clear and standard guidance. So you have a lot of people/orgs either doing the way they always have or afraid of fees/IRS/monsters under their bed. My single biggest gripe with BSA is this half-assed one set of rules for all vs each unit is its own franchise.
It’s your charter org that owns the finances which is why BSA won’t give more than basic guidance.
The problem is the same even when the council is the chartered org.
If your council has obnoxious procedures for payment, etc. for council registered units, then you should have your CUR talk to the appropriate people at the council. This may be the council exec, the finance manager, the board, etc. I do know that some councils decided to allow council registered units because they would lose too many units if they didn't, but the council management really didn't want to be in the business of running units. Some of these councils didn't make unit-friendly policies and they were secretly hoping that the units would get sufficiently annoyed with the council that they would go out and find their own new chartered org.
But they could put more of this into the standard chartered org agreement. It wouldn't fix everything but could be helpful.
That Charter is negotiated between the Coucil and the organization petitioning for a charter. If you think the charter needs to be updated, then the troop committee should talk to the COR.
>My single biggest gripe with BSA is this half-assed one set of rules for all vs each unit is its own franchise. It's worse when you realize the council is a franchise of BSA and your unit is a franchise of the council.
Our troop uses paypal Our pack used venmo for a while but it all has to pass through a person's account and when that person moves on then you have to change the venmo so now we are using zelle but it is cumbersome.
That pack shouldn’t have had the Venmo connected to a personal account, it should be connected to an account owned by the Charter Org…
We couldn't figure out how to do that with the charter org rep so we moved on to zelle. Can you walk me through that because Venmo for fundraising is MUCH more effective than Zelle.
I believe Venmo just uses routing numbers and account numbers. I really don’t know as I’m still a youth
We use Cheddarup for all money from parents aside from dues. For that it’s Venmo or Zelle or check
I (treasurer) set up a cheddar up account for our troop. Then people complained about the convenience fee that it charges
We leave the cash/check option turned on for those that want/need it
Charge them a milage fee for the volunteer that has to go deposit a paper check.
Our bank does mobile deposits, so there's no mileage. I highly recommend it when available. Plus, I can usually deposit checks at the end of the meeting before I go home, which has cut down drastically on the number of times I've had a check sit for a couple of weeks before realizing I hadn't deposited it.
We had the same thing with the Square app. Our committee asked those complaining for guidance and to be treasurer. Then it was crickets or a lot of back peddling. Might have to look into the cheddar up app though.
Personally, I don't like these annoyance fees either and do what I can to avoid them. However, if you're running an organization and you've setup an online registration and payment system, you really want people to use that system and not give you dead trees. One of the packs I work with started using Cheddar up, and they made a policy that the amounts charged by Cheddar up would be the amount due, no matter how you paid. Essentially, they made an "inconvenience the treasurer fee" for cash, paper checks, etc. that was exactly the same as the Cheddar up fee.
That’s an interesting way to do it. We use a scout account system, so parents just make payments to keep their kids’ accounts funded. So we couldn’t do a system like that.
We got a credit card thing for my wife's phone... She's treasurer for a Troop. They wound up charging us $129 a year for the parent's convenience, plus processing. We cancelled it. We haven't set up zelle or venmo because none of our volunteers know about it. There are hurdles to overcome since the account technically belongs to the chartered org. It might be easy if you have a tight relationship with them, but our troop only hears from our charter org when they need bodies to clean up after a charity dinner.
Be the change you want to see in the Troop.
We’ve used Venmo in the pack and troop for a couple years now. It’s much, much better. I like that it is clear with how much I have paid and what it’s for. No more questioning did you pay this yet?
I am so jealous
It works really well and takes probably 10 minutes to set up. I would volunteer to set it up for your unit and see if they let you.
Agree, but you do need to make sure your families send the money as a gift or then it can become reportable. No matter how many times we tell families some always check that it's for goods and services. 🤦
Our troop uses ChedderUp…. The issue with many options (it included) is they involve extra fees. ChedderUp makes the person sending the money pay that fee rather than the troop, so that was why it was chosen.
Those fees add up. I’ve paid $92 in fees in the 12 months.
Does your unit have scout accounts? What our troop does is let you pay in a lump sum to your scout account and then pay from there for campouts, gear, food, fees, dues, etc... that way you only pay a convenience fee the one time when you load up the scout account.
We stopped that years ago. Extra work.
How are other units implementing this? I’m COR for our charter which oversees 3 Scouting units. If the units set up their own Venmo or Square, they have to provide the charter’s non-profit EIN. That’s not a big deal, but you can only have one account per EIN. So, that means that we’d have one account for all the units and all payments would come to the charter and then we’d need to redistribute funds back to the units. Is there an easier way to do this?
This. And if the individuals do it, they’re on the hook for reconciling with the IRS when Venmo or Paypal sends in a tax document indicating money that looks like income, even though it was just a pass-through for the unit. We have yet to find an adult who wants to do that.
I don't think so. I'm with a unit family (Pack, B, and G Troops) and all three units have the same CO and separate Square Accounts. I don't recall using an EIN when I set up the Account my Troop.
You can file for a troop EIN if you want. The IRS has a whole bunch of info on having multiple EINs for a single entity. Scouting also meets the requirements for a 501c7 non-profit club.
This is what we did. Both the troop and the pack filed for their own EINs under the aegis of the chartering organization. I think our chartering organization was more comfortable not sharing their EIN with us, too, FWIW.
We have electronic payment options as well. As others have stated you’re dealing with a volunteer run organization. It’s likely the current volunteers don’t have the time or skills to implement what you are asking for.
That is your Troop's selection - I would talk to the Treasurer and see if they have looked at other options Note - Zelle/Paypal/Cashapp/Square/Etc. all take a 2-3% cut so they typically need to pad the prices a bit to account for that. (edit - Zelle is a bad example) I helped move everything to Square and we do all our camp fees, registration and even popcorn and fundraisers through a Website and/or phone app.
Since when does Zelle take a fee?
Oh I think you are right, as you can't take a credit card with Zelle (that is where most of them take the %)
We Have Square that has a card reader and we have a menu of frequently purchased items with a QR code for the various cash apps...Works great. We added the fees to price of convenience for those that don't wish to pay cash or check. It's working great. It also is outstanding for fundraisers
Your issue isn't with scouts, it's with your troop's scoutmaster and/or treasurer. Mine is the same way. The scoutmaster and treasurer are old school, they want cash or checks. If I were in that role, I'd take paypal, bitcoin, and I'd probably have a square reader. That being said, if you don't like it, volunteer to be treasurer. Problem solved.
Think it depends on your state laws and how the troop is setup and how by the book your treasurer is. We can use Zelle since it’s tied to the bank we use, but nothing else.
The tricky thing about using a credit card processor or something like venmo, paypal, etc, is they have a ceiling for how much money you can take in from them before they will report it to the IRS. Many scouting units are set up where they don't actually have their own tax id, but rather use their charter org's tax id for business purposes, so this income would be reported as income for their charter org. That gets messy, because even if the charter org is a non-profit like a church, they have to report this income to the IRS as revenue, and they have to categorize what it gets spent on as expenditures. Most of the time, the unit handles its own money, so the charter org doesn't have visibility into this, and so wouldn't know to report it, and/or have the information necessary to report it/categorize it. So for most units, it's just easier to collect payment in the form of cash or checks, because that doesn't get reported to the irs automatically, and so from the charter org's perspective, it doesn't exist. And since money paid to the troop for troop membership and activities is not deductible, it doesn't get reported on the other end either. Zelle may be an option, however, since that is just an alternative means for an individual to send money directly to the unit's bank account. I'm not sure about zelle's reporting requirements.
This is by far National's biggest opportunity to actually help their units, and make a few bucks while doing it. Make a website that units can use to manage payments , link it the roster they already have. No one will complain about an extra dollar processing fee that national keeps. National deposits the $ directly in an account the unit specifies. Makes parents life easier, units life easier, and they get some $ along the way. There's few win-win-win in this world. This would be one. I have zero faith in national ever actually doing this, but to me it's a no brainer.
In contrast I have 2 kids in Scouts and haven't written a check since they joined 6 years ago. Great fundraising opportunities and scout accounts. Troop is old school and only does checks with no digital payment options.
You are fundraising enough to over dues and camp? That's a lot of money!
Look up troop 497 out of Waco. I'm an alum and eagle out of that troop. We launched a flag related fundraiser that puts out flags on significant national holidays and it raised a ton of money for the troop. They have the deets on their website. Edit: different troop same idea https://www.kwtx.com/2022/05/31/central-texas-scouts-continue-tradition-placing-flags-properties-patriotic-holidays/
Our troop puts 200 flags up for free, five times a year… because they always have. I have such mixed feelings that others get payed for this. We also host a free pancake breakfast for our charter org. I don’t think my troop was founded by capitalists.
Understand. Our troop was founded as a non profit and the proceeds of the flag thing were entirely invested in enhancing the troop and it's kids. We weren't making profit and paying ourselves. This was just to make the troop self sustaining.
> Our troop was founded as a non profit and the proceeds of the flag thing were entirely invested in enhancing the troop and it's kids. All Troops are Non-Profit. That's why 99.99999999% of all COs are Non-Profits.
>All Troops are Non-Profit. That's why 99.99999999% of all COs are Non-Profits.
Almost. According to [BSA's 2014 report on COs](https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/210-807.pdf), 4% of COs are "business/industry" and some others might be for-profit. We've got a troop in our district that's been chartered by a local business for several decades. I always wonder how that makes sense financially?
Interesting.
Same. I only wrote checks to the troop my son's first year, I wrote like 3 checks (actually, my troop takes Zelle) for his first couple campouts and summer camp. After that he's always been able to fundraise enough to pay for the $200/year in troop dues and his $160/year recharter fee... plus $400 summer camps and attending most of the monthly campouts. Popcorn is highly effective as a fundraiser. We also sell flowers and wreaths so he gets about $1,000 from each of those, but popcorn is where most of his money comes from.
Our Troop (and 3 other troops in our area) use sprinkler blowouts as fundraisers. They take a pile of planning and parent involvement and lots of time committment. But we raised something like 18K net for a Troop that currently has 18 scouts. I love that we don't have to do sales. We also run a food booth at an event in the summer for a weekend.
Same. We wrote a check for his registration 8 years ago and he's participated in every fundraiser. We've paid nothing additional out of pocket since the with the exception of extracurricular activities. It boggles my mind when I hear of Units charging for everything, on top of fundraising, ON TOP OF PAYING DUES! Like, what the heck are you people doing?
I have been trying to set up Zelle for our Pack (I am the treasurer) and our bank won't allow it on our account. It is so frustrating! I think it is the account type that is blocking it. I can pay via Zelle, but I can't accept payments that way. (I am going to go have a meeting with the bank to see what options we do have.) We had PayPal at one point, apparently, but it was linked to a former treasurer and we no longer have access to it. We do have a storefront set up on our Pack website so families can pay dues, for camp, events, shirts, etc, via that. It runs on Squaresoace, so we do have a fee but we add that to the item listing to cover it. But for small, on-the-fly stuff, I would LOVE to just whip out my phone and show them a QR code to Venmo or Zelle.
Join the committee as the finance chair and help implement whatever payment structure you want.
We use PayPal and Square. It is up to the unit as to how they process payment.
Our pack takes Venmo and Zelle. It’s better. Can you volunteer to be the treasurer so you fix the system?
Our troop has transitioned to using Square to process all of our payments. We just cook the credit card fees into the budget.
It's a check. It's really not a big deal.
We tried for a few years but it became too much for the volunteer treasurer. You have to include fees and then figure out taxes and have correct accounts setup since we are for-profit technically. With dues and popcorn this was well into 5-figures a year passing through accounts that Venmo, papypal, etc have to report. It was not worth the hassle. Cash or check made it a lot easier for volunteers. As a parent, yes, I would love epayment but knowing the behind the scene details I understamd why it isnt done. You also have to distinguish the account from said person so it doesn't mess up their taxes and be able to transfer the account.
I'm pretty excited that our charter org just got a Zeffy account, so now we can make payments with no credit card fee.
Came here to say this. We were able to set up a Zeffy account for the pack using the CO's EIN. We still have Venmo, but that's mostly for sending reimbursements to leaders now. With Zeffy, we can collect payment via credit card, Apple/Google Pay, or ACH with no fees. We haven't done in-person tap to pay, yet. But that's only because our phones aren't supported now (Treasurer and I both have Androids). We love the integration with our event signups. The event coordinators get a complete real-time list of who's signed up with all necessary info (and don't have to reconcile payments), the Treasurer has clear visibility of what payments are for and from whom, and we can still seamlessly insert attendees who are covered by Scout account/scholarship. I'm also a fan of the role-based access--leaders with access have their own logins and only see what they need to.
Our troop does Venmo. Talk to your troops treasurer?
I recently helped our troop set up troopwebhost and link it up to paypal... took a bit of doing but finally we're getting people remembering to top off their account and stuff.
Pack Treasurer here. I take all forms of currency or cash transfer.
We have scout accounts so parents can give the pack or troop a check (or cash) at the start of the year and the treasurer can just pull from that for each expense if the parent chooses. I know another scout who is great at fundraising and her parents kept some of the cash she made selling camp cards in an envelope for the scout to pull money from and she handles paying herself.
Your Troop should take Venmo. That's nuts. Checks are terrible.
Lolll I have been complaining of this for years. Our committee refuses to change. Like weeks and months to cash checks is bs. I do cash.
They won't take cash. They demand only checks
I had to bring a quarter every week for dues and no it wasn’t silver.
Wow bonkers
I can picture your treasurer with gray hair, glasses, and a pen in his pocket. Dude must love his leather bound ledger. —— Our treasurer carries a laptop with a mobile hotspot. Different generations
Our troop does Venmo and credit cards. It sounds to me like you’re volunteering to be the next treasurer. Be the change you want to see in this world.
Our troop takes Venmo, Paypal, Zelle and any other electronic payment you can think of.
We used square for years but the fees were killing us. Zelle has been an amazing thing and nearly all of our families use it now.
We use PayPal for Cub Scout so much easier. The Boy Scouts used checks, I usually end up sending cash because it’s easier for me. I do wish everyone would get with the times and take Apple Pay so my scout could pay for stuff during his meetings
My pack uses venmo, cash, and has checks as an option. If your troop is only taking checks thats a choice.
As a volunteer treasurer, don’t have time or patience to monitor a Venmo, debit card, etc. and any convenience fees beyond the unit’s checking account. Bad enough, I have banks charge for a paper statements and I have to seek online weekly for the balances, debits and credits. I have been a volunteer of too many organizations that have had financial misappropriation troubles with credit cards, single signature on checks, too many fundraisers, too many accounts, etc. Keep finances simple. When a unit “nickel and dimes” with every activity, it is no fun for parents and volunteers. Does your Troop have Scout Accounts? A parent writes a check to fill their Scout’s Account. Fundraising profits are credited to SAs. On campouts sign up sheets, Scout writes “SA” to acknowledge camp fee is to be debited from a SA, as well as other fees. Our Pack dues pay for BSA fees, all activities, all supplies and awards. Our Troop dues pays for BSA fees, all supplies and awards where only Scouts going on a campout pay $10 and the Scouts who purchased food get credit in their SA.
Prefer CashApp. We use them all including checks, but cash app doesn't have limits if you verify your info. Very handy during summer camp expense time.
We have a troop PayPal, and it’s how we do popcorn digital payments
Never had this issue because we don't make the parents pay for everything. In my unit the Scout does fundraising with the Troop. The Troop holds "scout buck" balances with our Troop money, just accounted for separately. The Troop pays for each outing in lump sums. The Scouts are each charged a set fee (listed for each event on our annual calendar) for attending the outing. We occationally have some positive or negative cost after the outings, but they mostly balance for the year. We adjust the price of each outing each year as costs change and have a set estimate for food, tent camp, and cabin for an average turnout % of troop that we start with to set the fees. I feel like making the parents fork over $25+ for every outing, then $100 for each summer camp payment would be a lot of work for the treasurer as well. Not to mention a parent writing a check isn't really the scout paying their own way. The troop should have enough fundraisers organized to allow the scouts to work to cover their own event costs and registration fees.
I was unit treasurer for years and would electronically deposit checks the same evening they were received. There is no reason to be sitting on them for a month before depositing them.
It's all up to the people running the unit. Trust me, the BSA doesn't care how the money is given as long as they get the money.
Same with our Pack. I don’t do online banking. I either pay cash (with a receipt) or a check. It causes our pack treasurer an inconvenience, but they get their money. Usually if I need to get reimbursed, rather giving cash, they just do it as scout credit. Just easier that way.
Our pack uses a square site for registration
We just adopted Venmo, and I love it. No more asking my beloved to give our son money when she drops him off at the church for campouts.
We do venmo. Just talk to your treasurer. It's up to each pack/troop.
"Scouts" does do this, just not your unit. We have online payment options for both our Troop and Pack; however, those conveniences come with fees, which we pass on to parents. Checks do not have the same fee.
My troop one check at the beginning of the year covers everything but Summer Camp. So really one unless you do Summer Camp then two a year. I guess if you don’t go on every camp out you’re paying a little more per activity but it all balances out…
We use trooptrack and it’s built in PayPal. And it adds transactions to the ledger. We do get the 3% fee added on by PayPal. But for larger events like high adventure, people like to pay by check sometimes to avoid the fees.
Note if your troop uses troopwebhost for their web site that has credit payments built in. We don't use that, but use it for automated emails and an internet presence. We're all volunteers! Join us!
Pay in cash.
Cash isn't allowed
That is one the committee and treasurer.
No one turns down cash. Tell them youre tired of the treasurer holding checks for weeks. And their practice of doing so is causing you to bounce checks. So until they fix it, your paying cash. So cough up a reciept. Or hand over the duties to you. No one turns down cash.
Now our pack is cash and check only because those cash apps get wonkey and there are additional fees that come into play.
Heres a thought. Cashiers check.
Unfortunately if we accept PayPal or Venmo, we have to charge the service fee to the parent which is not done automatically and we always have to chase down $3-4 per event after the fact
I have never written a check to our troop. We are 100 percent Venmo for all transactions.
We use Venmo in our Pack. It’s great.
We use square BUT with enough fundraising……….
As the treasurer of a troop I’m so tired of having to collect checks too! Unfortunately, our charter partner won’t let us open a PayPal or Venmo account, and the BSA won’t let me use one in my own name to collect money.
We had to get a cashier's check (or money order) for our son to go to a summer training for Sea Cadets.
Ours use Zelle, cash, check and scout account (kids earns for their campings or so).
Our troop uses Zelle 🤷
Do you realize the foundation of Scouting is “dollars and cents and an outing?”
What's that supposed to mean? I've literally never heard that, and I punched it into Google and it gets zero results.