Collections Procedures

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.  Only authorized missionary, 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.

Payments by the Participants

See also intern and missionary payments for LT. 

All participants no matter the total of their program fee (even if it's free- example $0 for third year returning LTers), will still have to pay their application fee ($25, $50, $75 depending on the date they apply).  Application fees are calculated on the date they are paid (not the date they being filling out their application).  Application fees change to the next fee amount at midnight eastern standard time on the day written on the event set up form.  

Participants can not make payments for their fees until they have been accepted into the program.  In order for your participant to be accepted and able to make a payment or to participant in any LT activities your participant will need to have at minimum signed the agreement page on the online application, uploaded their medical liabilitiy releave waiver as well as their medical disclosure form. 

Any changes to specific participant fees (ex. refunds, adding late fees, etc.) can only be approved by the director or finance administrator. 

Acceptable forms of payments by the participants. 

• Credit card payment online
• Credit card payment over phone through Summer Programs Coordinator, at the Reliant office
• Personal check written to Reliant from the participant 
• Money order from the participant 
• Online banking- send your e-check to Reliant at 11002 Lake Hart Dr. Suite 100, Orlando, FL 32832.  Please make sure that you write the name of your summer program and your name in the memo line of the check. And notifiy Judi Major (judi.major@reliant.org) to let her know to look for it.

OR...

• Personal check written to Reliant from parent with same last name as the participant (Reliant will credit the check to the participant’s record, not the parent’s)
• Check from the participant’s church clearly stating whom payment is for.  If payment is for multiple people there must be a note included with the check that states each participant’s name and the amount to credit each participant.
  
  

All money collected onsite should be documented on the Ledger Sheet.  (Some summer programs may use a google doc.)

You have access on mygcm (review Event Registration Site Instructions) to export the data for each student into an excel file to see the balances due for each collection date.  It also may be helpful to keep a file on your own to keep track of collection payments given by students.  But, you will still need to access mygcm to view participant payments made by by credit card and e-check.  

• 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 Reliant office promptly, within 3 business days of receiving them.  This will help to avoid problems of checks being returned to Reliant marked non sufficient funds.
•  You may want to provide an immediate "receipt" for the participant 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 

• Make sure name and address of account holder are printed legibly on the check (many students open new accounts and use starter checks with no name or address on them, and we can’t read the signature)
• ALL checks must be clearly marked with the participants name that it should be credited to.
• You can NOT write a check that was written to you over to Reliant (payable to Reliant).  Reliant can only receive checks written directly to them for auditing purposes. 
• We would strongly prefer only one check per collection payment.  
  
  

  Ensure that each check or money order received has the following information printed legibly on it:

  • Participant’s name – printed legibly
  • Address
  • Amount – numeric amount should match written amount
  • Check or money order number associated with the payment.  (please assign unique numbers to starter checks, write it on the check and in the ledger sheet)
  • Date
  • Signature
  
  
  
• Students raising financial support on their own (are required to fill out the FINANCIAL INTEGRITY FORM) must have their donors make their checks payable to the student, not to Reliant, and donor checks must be given directly to the student.  See Why are LT fees not tax deductible? for details. 
• The program participant will always need to pay Reliant with a check or money order written from the participant or from a parent with the same last name with the exception of accepting a work paycheck written over to Reliant). 
• All other checks received by the participants from the donors need to be deposited into the participant's account and a new check must be written to Reliant from the participant. We will not allow students to sign over to Reliant a donor’s check written to them (PAY TO THE ORDER OF RELIANT on the back) because that check from the donor to the participant is not tax deductible. 
• If a student receives a check from a supporter/donor written directly to Reliant they will need to return the check to the donor and ask them to rewrite the check payable to the student. 
• We will also NOT allow a student to sign over their paycheck to Reliant.  (*In the past this was allowed, but due to new auditing rules we can no longer accept any checks (including paychecks) that have not be written out directly to Reliant. 
  
  

Cash Payments

• Never collect cash if at all possible.
• If participants have cash they should go purchase a money order (usually costs between $3-$5 at your local grocery store, convenience store or bank) for the exact amount needed and use that in place of cash.
• If cash must be collected from students (as sometimes is the special case of our remote summer programs that lack access to banks and stores) then the administrator will need to go buy a money order on behalf of the student(s) that could only give cash and it should be written to Reliant for that total amount of cash collected from all the individuals.  A note must be attached to that money order detailing the names and amounts for each participant.  Please mark the memo line as “cash payments received”.  These payments will be entered as a cash payment in each of the participants’ records.
• How do I fill out the money order?  If the participant has purchased it, it should be written to Reliant and signed by the participant.  If the LT finance administrator is buying a money order for multiple participant payments, it should be written out to Reliant and then the LT finance administrator should sign the money order and attach the detailed note of names and amounts. 
• All cash received must be submitted to the Reliant Gift Processing Department using the guidelines written above. Do not deposit it into your petty cash. 
  
  

Over payments/ Unpaid fees

Participants may choose to pay the pre-determined amount for the fee due date or they may pay more than is required for that due date. 

It is the responsibility of the summer program’s leadership (not Reliant) to work with the participants who can not pay their program fees on time.  The policies may state that there is a late fee for late fee payments.  That late fee is enforced at the discretion of the program director and finance administrator.  You will need to notify the Reliant special events coordinator if you want to add a late fee to a participant.  This Payment Appeal Form can be used to help with participants who are requesting an extension for when their program fees are due.  This is for the summer program collections administrator to use and keep and not to be sent back to Reliant.  It is the responsibility of the program’s leadership to work with the students who have not paid their program fees.  We suggest assigning a missionary member to the participant to help give guidance and accountability to students needing financial help. 

Sometimes participants do not know that they have overpaid.  (It is common for participants to pay $5 extra because of the $695 fee and not realize it).  

They could however, request a refund for their over paid fees and then follow the directors below under donating towards payments for other participant program fees. 

• The only exceptions is if a church sends in payments to help the students in their church, payment amounts may be switched from an overpaid student to an underpaid one. The church needs to provide written confirmation that this is acceptable to them. 

As the program finance administrator, you may have participants who want to make over payments because they raised that money and since they signed the financial integrity form that said they can not keep money raised they may be wanting to donate that to the program.  Rather than the participant making an over payment read the donations/tithing info below.

Donations/Tithing 

Donating towards payments for other participant program fees.

If a participant wants to contribute to another participant 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 Reliant.  
    • 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 Reliant. 
    • Or they can anonymously get a money order written to Reliant on behalf of that student.

We cannot accept any form of payment from anyone other than from the participant with the outstanding fee or from 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 Reliant 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 Reliant 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/Tithing 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 Reliant (you cannot write a personal check from yourself to Reliant for donation money that you have collected from summer program participants).  

Also, attach to the separate ledger sheet created for donations (separate from program fee 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.