How to choose a banking and financial management system for your nonprofit club

Managing finances is not easy, especially for nonprofit organizations such as fraternities, sororities, and student clubs and associations with fewer resources and experience than your typical business. Here’s a guide on what to consider when choosing a banking and financial management platform for your nonprofit.

What’s different about nonprofit banking?

Nonprofit organizations have their own unique circumstances that make their banking and nonprofit needs different from standard businesses.

Take, for example, treasurer handovers.

Each year, a club usually elects a new treasurer, requiring them to update their main point of contact at the bank. Often, the outgoing and incoming treasurer will have to physically go to the bank to change the name under the account. Going through this bureaucratic process every year wastes time and is definitely not a convenient way to manage club funds.

Nonprofit membership clubs also constantly need to collect and transfer funds from club members and national organizations. Managing all of these various payments also gets tricky for nonprofit clubs. Requesting payments, keeping track of payment statuses, and transferring funds from various accounts can start feeling like a full-time job. Most people join a club to make a difference and create meaningful relationships, not to work as full-time accountants.

What is the best financial management system for a nonprofit membership club?

Several companies, such as Omegafi, Greekbill, and Bill Highway, that have been around for years offer great solutions for nonprofit financial management. However, these companies focus mainly on solutions for dues collection and tax reporting and don’t encompass club banking.

For starters, it means less visibility and more work. When you have your member management system separated from your banking system, both need to be monitored separately and there isn’t one source of truth that shows you the full picture of all of your club money.

Furthermore, it also means that you’ll constantly have to be wiring money between your collection platform to your bank account and then finally to your national chapter’s bank account. That’s a lot of funds in constant movement — not the most ideal setup.

At Crowded, we understand that nonprofit clubs need an all-encompassing and accessible solution that let them access all of their club finances with one login, in one place.

Crowded offers much more than a payment collection solution

We created Crowded to be a one-stop-shop for everything club finance related. With our app, nonprofit membership clubs, such as fraternities, sororities, or student clubs and associations, can take care of everything in one place — banking, payments, expenses, reporting, and communication.

First, a club opens a free Crowded banking account where they can manage all of their club funds on our mobile app. Then, each club member downloads the Crowded app on their phone so that they can receive payment requests from their club treasurer for things such as dues, formals, events, or anything else that might come up.

Once members download the Crowded app, the treasurer can view all club members from the treasurer portal. Now, a treasurer can view and manage all things finance and club related in one place.

Treasurers can choose to send any type of payment request, such as dues payments, to all of their club members or to a select group of members. Afterward, payment statuses automatically get updated so that the treasurer can track and send payment reminders to members via push notification. Members can pay using credit, debit, or an ACH transfer — the treasurer can even create a payment link to be sent out to a non-member who would like to pay on behalf of a member.

Crowded also makes controlling club expenses more organized with our virtual Visa® debit cards. Treasurers can issue virtual cards to club members with allocated club funds for any type of expense. This feature entirely eliminates the need to have members submit receipts for reimbursements and gives the treasurer total control over the club’s budget and spending — it’s a serious game changer.

We have several other features such as budget calculators, automated 990 reports, and member fund requests that make club finances stress-free, accessible, and easy to manage.

Want to learn more? Click here!

Originally published at https://www.bankingcrowded.com on September 8, 2022.