ACACIAconnect Financial Features

Dues Processing & Merchant Account -

There have been a few points of confusion related to this service during fall 2011. This post will clear up those points.

This aspect of the service is different from the others in that the rest of the features are available for free through your chapter’s affiliation with Acacia International Fraternity, whereas there are some costs involved with the Dues Processing Service. Here is a link to ChapterSpot page regarding finances.

Here is a video that demonstrates how to Link Your Chapter Bank Account to ACACIAconnect.

Please note:

  1. this part of the service is NOT mandatory or required - if your chapter is using a service that you are happy with, you can continue to use that service, or you may consider using this service
  2. your chapter CAN use the other features of ACACIAconnect without using the Dues Processing service

ACACIA Fraternity Headquarters recommends that your chapter:

  • weigh all reasonable & expedient options and choose what works best for your members
  • at least setup the Merchant Account to link to chapter bank account & setup a donation goal that your alumni members or parents can support

Regarding Credit Card Processing

Here is a pdf that outlines the costs for processing payments via credit card.

In an email from Joe McMenamon, Director of Business Operations, he informed me of the following points:

“Our Credit Card Processing fees are very straight forward. For chapters that collect payments online there will be a set 3.89% and $0.35 fee removed from each payment collected. These fees include the Visa/MasterCard fees and Corduro’s card processing fees so there are no extra fees other then what is listed below (on the pdf link above).

In addition to the per transaction fees there are a few per occurrence fees listed below. The $25 fee for each chargeback and ACH Reject fee usually draws the most questions. These occur infrequently, but we recommend that these fees be passed through to the member in these occurrences. Please let me know if you have any further questions.”

In addition, there are a few other points to be clarified:

1) Confusion about a fee that Joe McMenamon mentioned at ALA.

  • He did NOT say that Acacia Chapters would have the 35 cent per transaction fee waived
  • He DID say the $5.00 per month fee for using Dues Payment service would be waived.
  • Joe wanted me to reiterate that "if you sign up for the Dues Payment service, even if you don't use it, your chapter will not get charged the $5 per month fee."

2) ChapterSpot encourages you to setup your Merchant Account, even if you're not using the Dues Payment service for all of your financial transactions. Here is a list of benefits to completing the Merchant Application and linking it to a chapter bank account:

  • collections for merchandise can be facilitated by the Merchant Account (i.e. tshirts, hoodies, anything that the chapter orders on behalf of its members)
  • ability to use the Donation Goal function to collect donations from alumni or parents for any fundraising drives
  • If you do use the Dues Payment feature, you are eliminating the relevance of the following excuses for members not getting their dues paid:
  • "I don't have my checkbook so I can't make payment...", or "My parents are paying for me so I don't know when they will cut the check...", or "I would pay but I don't know how much I owe..."

3) ChapterSpot does want to make you aware of one difference from some of the competing services that are available:

  • if you use the Dues Payment feature on ACACIAconnect to track or document a payment made via check or cash (as opposed to using the online payment feature at ACACIAconnect), the chapter keeps 100% of those payments; in other words: if a member doesn't use the credit card processing system to make the payment, then neither the member or the chapter pays the credit card processing or transaction fee; a chapter member with Finance Admin controls simply updates the amount of dues still owed for that member
  • this is different from some of their competition, in that if you collect cash or check (even without using the online payment option), some services charge you a fee regardless

Link to ChapterSpot page regarding finances: https://www.chapterspot.com/finances.htm

ACACIAconnectPatrick McGovernComment