30 Aug
2022
30 Aug
'22
4:35 a.m.
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
<organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net> 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 -- organizers(a)lists.sharedweight.net
To unsubscribe send an email to organizers-leave(a)lists.sharedweight.net