...

Summer Program Directors will decide how many payments, how much will be due, and when to schedule payments before the program begins on the Event Set Up form.  These dates and payment fees will then determine the balances due on mygcm.org under each student.  The collections administrator will be able to export data from mygcm.org to help with collection times.  Participants may choose to pay the pre-determined amount for each collection night or they may pay more.  It is the responsibility of the program’s leadership to work with the students who can not pay their program fees on time.  We suggest assigning a staff member to help give guidance with students needing financial help.

Collections Procedures

Only authorized staff, that are familiar with the Collections Policies and Procedures should handle the collection of any monies.  The Program Director and the person delegated responsibility as Collections Administrator (in the Event Set Up document) are ultimately responsible for ensuring these policies and procedures are followed.

All money collected onsite should be documented on the Ledger Sheet. 

• When sending in a group of checks after a collection, the checks must be accompanied by the ledger sheet. The total on the ledger MUST equal the total amount of checks/money orders sent in and must be filled out completely.   If this is not the case it will be sent back to the summer program.
• Any special instructions for a check or money order need to be attached to that check or money order.  For example, if a church sends a check for multiple participants be sure that attached to the check is a list of the participants and the amount to credit each participant.
• Please send another separate ledger sheet for any checks and income earned for something other than the payments towards each participant fees. (ex. Donations to the summer program that are not payments for participant’s fees (ex. Kroger fundraiser), income from renting out program housing, t-shirt sales, etc.)
• All checks received onsite should be mailed to the GCM office promptly, within 3 business days of receiving them.  This will help to avoid problems of checks being returned to GCM marked non sufficient funds.
• Receipts will be automatically sent out from the GCM office to the participant once payment has been put in to the system.  However, you may want to provide an immediate receipt at the time you receive a check from a participant.  If you choose to provide an immediate receipt at the time you receive a check, the receipt should include:

• •  Participant’s Name
  •  Issuing Church/Organization/Ministry (IE.  New Life Church or GCMC)
  •  Issuing Church/Organization Contact Information
  •  Event Name and/or Description
  •  Payment Amount and Method of Payment
  •  Check # or Money Order #
  •  Date payment is received
  •  Printed Name of Collections Person
  •  Signature of Collections Person

...

Personal check guidelines for participant payments being collected onsite:

...

If a student wants to contribute to another students fees they will need to write a check to the other student directly and that student will need to write a new check from their own account.   Or they can anonymously donate cash to the underpaid student who will then have to go get a money order with the cash or deposit it and write a check from their own account.  We cannot accept any form of payment from anyone other than the participant with the outstanding fee or their parent with the same name or their church.

Donations/Tithing 

Donating towards payments for other students program fees.

If a participant wants to contribute to another students fees they will either need to…

• • •  write a check to the other student directly and that other student will need to write a new check from their own account to GCM.  
    •  Or they can anonymously donate cash to the underpaid student who will then have to go get a money order with the cash or deposit it and write a check from their own account to GCM. 
    •  Or they can anonymously get a money order written to GCM on behalf of that student.

We cannot accept any form of payment from anyone other than the participant with the outstanding fee or their parent with the same name or from the participant’s church.

In the past, the summer program finance administrator in charge of collections has been allowed to write a check on behalf of students to GCM to help make payments when others who gave to help their payments have wanted to remain anonymous. This is no longer allowed.  The summer program finance administrator could however, go get a money order and send that money order to GCM on behalf of another student. If the summer program administrator has collected multiple donated payments for multiple participants they will need to send a list with the money order listing which participants the payments should go towards and how much.

Donating towards your summer program.

If your summer program participants wish to donate or tithe to your specific summer program they should write a separate check or money order that is clearly labeled with the purpose of donation/tithe from that participant to avoid possibleconfusion as a summer program payment.  Also, any checks/money orders that are donations or tithes need to be listed on a separate ledger sheet than the one that includes summer program payments.  These donations to the summer program itself will be considered charitable tax-deductible gifts.

If you are the administrator for collections, and participants are writing checks made payable to you personally or handing you cash to donate towards the summer program, you will need to go get a money order for the total amount you have collected to be given to GCM (you cannot write a personal check from yourself to GCM for donation money that you have collected from summer program participants).  

Also, attach to the separate ledger sheet created for donations (separate from program payments), the list of summer participants that gave donations on this money order and how much each of them gave. Their donations to the summer program will be considered charitable tax-deductible gifts

...

Collections Procedures

Only authorized staff, that are familiar with the Collections Policies and Procedures should handle the collection of any monies.  The Program Director and the person delegated responsibility as Collections Administrator (in the Event Set Up document) are ultimately responsible for ensuring these policies and procedures are followed.

All money collected onsite should be documented on the Ledger Sheet. 

...

.

...

...

...

• •  Participant’s Name
  •  Issuing Church/Organization/Ministry (IE.  New Life Church or GCMC)
  •  Issuing Church/Organization Contact Information
  •  Event Name and/or Description
  •  Payment Amount and Method of Payment
  •  Check # or Money Order #
  •  Date payment is received
  •  Printed Name of Collections Person
  •  Signature of Collections Person

...