We began accepting payments by card about a year before Covid reared its ugly head. We use bluetooth reader and “PayPal Here” for processing. Four board members have the app on their phones, so a couple of us are always there. As a non profit I believe that PayPal waives the per-transaction fee but there is still a processing fee based on the amount charged. Only a small percentage of our dancers use a card. We have recently started looking into Venmo.
We pay our band a minimum per musician up to 5 players. If we take in more than the payout, the excess is split between band, caller and organization. Since we restarted we have not had an excess. (Although we are approaching pre-pandemic attendance ) We have always kept a cash reserve on hand in case there were not enough dancers to meet the minimum payout. Since we restarted our series, we doubled that amount to cover both a lower attendance and electronic payments. Our first few months back we also had a shortage of bands willing to come out, which actually worked in our favor. We used recorded music every other week which allowed us to build up a small cash reserve. Fortunately we are once again able to have live music at all our dances. Sent from my iPhone > On Aug 29, 2022, at 9:21 PM, jim saxe via Organizers > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Thanks for all the informative responses so far. > > In my query at the top of this thread, I wrote: > >> (For example, if a dance series [starts] having a very high percentage of >> dancers paying electronically, then paying performers in cash at the end of >> the evening may become problematic.) > > Another situation where accepting electronic admission payments might > interact with staff pay procedures is the case where the organization uses a > staff pay formula that depends on door receipts (though perhaps with a > guaranteed minimum). In this case, the dance manager must know the door > receipts in time to pay the staff. If an electronic payment platform can't > report its total receipts for an event on the spot (e.g., because of delays > for payments to clear or for periodic reports to be generated), that could be > a problem. [See question marked "***" below.] Also, if an organization has, > say, an English dance and a contra dance in different cities on the same > evening, admission payments to the two events by cash or check won't > magically get jumbled up with each other, but electronic payments might > unless the platform provides support for separate accounts (preferably > without a lot of extra cost). Our local dance managers currently do accept > payments of membership dues at dances, and > they have to know about keeping those separate from admission payments. If > electronic payment platforms don't make that any easier, I'd hope they at > least wouldn't make it any harder. > > I welcome comments from those in the know about how any of the popular > electronic payment platforms address (or fail to address) any of the issues > above. And of course I welcome additional comments on any other issues > relevant to accepting electronic payments at dances. > > *** Is there anyone here who's involved with--or who knows of--a dance series > where starting to accept electronic payments has resulted in a change of > procedure such that performers are no longer paid on the date of the event > (either because information to compute the correct pay may not be available > or because adequate cash may not be available), and where they instead get > mailed a check some time later? If so, how has that change been received by > musicians and callers (either local or touring)? Is anyone here involved > with--or aware of--a dance series that has historically paid performers some > time after the date of the event for reasons unrelated to electronic > admission payments? > > Thanks again. > > --Jim > > > _______________________________________________ > Organizers mailing list -- [email protected] > To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] _______________________________________________ Organizers mailing list -- [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected]
