Electronic Funds Transfer??

[jjefferies]

This is a followup to a thread I started last July about how clubs collect their money. Finally my coach has seen the light. It's taken a while and a few reinforcements for him to start singing the right song. Michael Pacheco, of Sonoma Fencing, came up with the startling revelation that only five (5) clubs in the whole US use EFT (electronic funds transfer) which I find rather questionable.

An EFT service is one where a new member registers their credit card number and the service bills them, via credit card, monthly and forwards the money to the club minus a percentage, 2%-3%, for collecting.

So my question is who else uses such a service and which one? ASF International was recommended to us by EDEW.
http://www.asfinternational.com
Has anyone else had any experience with them? Their orientation is health clubs and beyond that we don't know much.

Any horror stories or warnings about what not to do??
thanks
J

[oiuyt]

I know FAP uses such a service, although they just recently had some issues with the provider they had been using (past tense, I believe). Certain classes of billables were apparently not being billed.

-B

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

I know FAP uses such a service, although they just recently had some issues with the provider they had been using (past tense, I believe). Certain classes of billables were apparently not being billed.
-B

That went way over my head. And that would definitely be true for my coach. Could you be a tiny bit more specific without giving away anything??
thanks

[LTranter]

Several of us at our club do automatic bill pay which automatically sends a check to the club once a month. Just about the same thing without the credit card option, but less confusing.

L

[oiuyt]

Originally Posted by jjefferies

That went way over my head. And that would definitely be true for my coach. Could you be a tiny bit more specific without giving away anything??
thanks

I'm not a member, so it didn't affect me directly and the bits I've heard may or may not be completely accurate. That said, here's my best understanding of what happened:

FAP charges both a monthly membership fee (billed in advance of each month) and fees for lessons and other variable services (billed one month in arrears).

The company they had hired for doing the billing changed something in their system. They continued to withdraw the regular monthly fees, but stopped charging people for the variable amounts. This state of affairs went on for in the neighborhood of six months before being sorted out (brought to FAP's attention by members, rather than the error being discovered by the vendor).

The resolution (as far as I know) is that people are getting a letter of apology (from the service provider? from FAP? from both?), and a bill for the previously unbilled amount (which, given it's 6 months worth in one lump sum could be a fairly good-sized chunk, I'd imagine).

Peach probably has considerably better information than I do (she belongs to FAP and was affected by the billing snafu -- I believe she briefly mentioned it in one of her blog posts) and can probably correct any inaccuracies or missing details/implications in the above.

I don't know who their provider is (was?).

-B

[jjefferies]

Ah, well. That's a cautionary tale of needing to keep an eye out. In our case I'm fairly sure we'd use the EFT for membership funds and not for the coaches' time in one on one lessons. Or I could be wrong. It's happened more often than I care to admit.

[KD5MDK]

It seems the obvious answer would be to have someone serving as club bookeeper who verified the money was coming in as it was supposed to. But I'm sure there are all sorts of real world reasons why that sort of thing doesn't go as smoothly as intended.

[jfarmer]

Originally Posted by jjefferies

Ah, well. That's a cautionary tale of needing to keep an eye out. In our case I'm fairly sure we'd use the EFT for membership funds and not for the coaches' time in one on one lessons. Or I could be wrong. It's happened more often than I care to admit.

How are you planning to schedule and allocate lesson slots and collect for them? I'm looking at selling individual lessons in 4 slip booklets and then have students sign up for time slots. If the slot is open, anyone can take a lesson (assuming they've paid for it). If seems to me that some sort of EFT would still be a good plan for collecting these funds...

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

It seems the obvious answer would be to have someone serving as club bookeeper who verified the money was coming in as it was supposed to. But I'm sure there are all sorts of real world reasons why that sort of thing doesn't go as smoothly as intended.

The EFT thing has some appeal in that it deals automatically with the nasty business of collecting monthly. The fencer/parent gets billed monthly and has to give a 30 day notice of quitting. Michael Pacheco up at Sonoma Fencing Academy recounted that he's seen where fencers will start to stop, not pay but still drop by once or twice in a month and then maybe once the next month and then just stop. The club is out two months of dues and no courtesy notice or explanation (feedback) as to why the fencer is quitting. He told us that with EFT you usually get notice and a chance at some feedback when the fencer is quitting. And you don't have to play old eagle eye about who's paid up and who's in arrears.

[jjefferies]

Originally Posted by jfarmer

How are you planning to schedule and allocate lesson slots and collect for them? I'm looking at selling individual lessons in 4 slip booklets and then have students sign up for time slots. If the slot is open, anyone can take a lesson (assuming they've paid for it). If seems to me that some sort of EFT would still be a good plan for collecting these funds...

Well we've been operating on a cash basis for lessons. Or at least that's how I pay. The EFT is strictly for club dues, a steady sort of thing. We've been looking at a two tier system, yearly up front dues versus a monthly payment via EFT. The former naturally gets a price break and we've been figuring in the EFT costs into the monthly bill for those who want to pay by the month.

[edew]

Originally Posted by oiuyt

I know FAP uses such a service, although they just recently had some issues with the provider they had been using (past tense, I believe). Certain classes of billables were apparently not being billed.

-B

FAP uses EFit Financial Service. I spoke with Lara and she said that she'll get rid of them in a heartbeat if there's an alternative option (ASF International?).

I like my ASF. Already, it's paying for itself (since there's no fixed cost to using ASF, it's definitely paying for itself). I have several fencers who are seldom attending fencers and so far, I've got my November, December, January and soon to be February payments.

All fencing clubs should go with one or the other.

[edew]

Originally Posted by LTranter

Several of us at our club do automatic bill pay which automatically sends a check to the club once a month. Just about the same thing without the credit card option, but less confusing.

L

The difference here is that you the customer can decide when to shut off the spigot. With EFTs, the club owner decides when to shut off the spigot. You, the customer, may give a 10-day or 20-day or 30-day notice, but it's up to the club owner to click on some buttons to stop the payment.

[edew]

Originally Posted by jjefferies

Well we've been operating on a cash basis for lessons. Or at least that's how I pay. The EFT is strictly for club dues, a steady sort of thing. We've been looking at a two tier system, yearly up front dues versus a monthly payment via EFT. The former naturally gets a price break and we've been figuring in the EFT costs into the monthly bill for those who want to pay by the month.

Don't charge differently (rate-wise) for monthly versus yearly. You only lose money if you're charging less for a yearly payment. Indeed, you lose even more than the discount you offer. It's better to have a constant cash flow coming in than a one-time lump sum. There's no additional work involved (and if the EFT is charging a percentage, that's the same percentage whether it's spread over 12 times a year or once at the beginning).

George Platt at GPS charges $80/month (say) and $250/quarter (3-months) which is a disincentive to go quarterly. I think he charges $1250/year (these are not actual numbers, but numbers complementary to the argument).