How to be the beSDT Chapter Vice President of

FinanceKayla Bogad, Delta Eta Vice President of

Finance 2014, 2015

Table of Contents Duties of the Vice President of Finance

o Setting the Budgeto GreekBillo Wells Fargo

Check book Credit Card

o New Members Quantum Leap Pins

o Chapter Expenseso Fineso Communication with the National Office

Monthly financial statements Taxes Invoices

o Ordering Supplies Ritual and SDT items from national office

o Inactive and Disaffiliation Appendices

o Appendix A – Budgets Spring 2014 Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Fall 2015 Blank Copy Budget

o Appendix B – New Member Forms GreekBill National Fees Sheet New Member Financial Obligation Sample Promissory Note

o Appendix C – Finance Blank Copy Monthly Financial Statement 2015-2016 School Year Monthly Financial Statement 2014-2015 School Year Monthly Financial Statement Spring 2014 School Year Monthly Financial Statement

o Appendix D – Semester Chapter Rostero Appendix E – Inactive Status Request Formo Appendix F – Request for Deactivationo Appendix G – Request for Dismissalo Appendix H – Membership Contracto Appendix I - Fines

IntroductionThis manual will teach you everything you need to know about being the ultimate and beSDT Chapter Vice President of Finance. It seems intimidating, being responsible for the inflow and outflow of money through the sorority. I will not lie it can be sometimes. But if you manage your time and follow this guide, your term will go smoothly and as fluidly as possible. Always remember that there are some things that will be out of your control, but the most important key is communication.

The key to succeeding in this position is mastering iterative planning. Iterative planning is deliberately adjusting plans at short intervals to reflect new information. This is how every SDT chapter in the country operates. You will see this later on in this packet. Master this concept and you will be very successful.

You have been elected into this position. Your sisters believe in you. For the remainder of your term, you are in charge of all things financial. If you have any questions, your predecessor is a good person to ask. If your predecessor is unavailable, the next best person is your advisor. When in doubt, do not hesitate to ask. It is always better to ask. The national office is always a great resource for you. The women in the office are helpful and respond to emails and voicemails quickly. You have a support system. You are not alone. This is a major responsibility but also a learning experience.

At the end of your term, you will update this file and pass it on to the next Vice President of Finance. As a newly revitalized chapter it is important to make the transition process as smooth and easy as possible.

Good luck!

Setting the BudgetBefore the beginning of each semester, it is your duty to come up with a proposed budget. This needs to be approved by the local and national advisors as well as the national office. Setting the budget can be tricky. The template the national office requires you to use has you estimating your budget with how many new members you THINK the chapter will get during recruitment. IT is always better to underestimate and then have a surplus of money than to overestimate and end up severely cutting the budget.

To do this you will need to talk to the recruitment chairs about their goals for recruitment, look at past recruitments intake and make your best judgment call. It isn’t an exact science, but it will give you an approximation of the money you will have to work with for the year. YOU MUST ALWAYS UPDATE YOUR BUDGET AS NUMBERS CHANGE! This is so important; I HAD to put it in bold. If you do not keep updating the budget during the semester you will run into issues.

You should also be talking to other executive board members about their plans for the upcoming semester. You need to understand what they’re planning in order to help get them a budget that works. The largest budgets must always be Recruitment, Social and New Member. In that exact order. Recruitment needs the most money because as a chapter you need to impress the new members. It is like dating. If you don’t dress your best and put your best foot forward then you will not be attracting the partner you are hoping for.

But remember, you are in charge of the spending. If for some reason the Social Chair comes to you and says that she is going to spend her entire budget on semi-formal alone, which will only get you a small event space and one security guard, everything else is extra, you have the right to tell her no and to help her find other options. While the president is in charge of the chapter, you are in charge of the money. Be frugal when you can. If you can buy it in bulk and at the dollar store and save hundreds of dollars, then do it. If the New Member Educator needs to purchase items for the new member process and the only way you can get it is for $500 on amazon, but everyone will benefit from it, then it is your call. MAJOR PURCHASES NEED TO BE RUN PAST YOU BEFORE THEY ARE MADE. IF ANYONE MAKES PURCHASES AND SEEKS REIMBURSEMENT IT MUST BE APPROVED BY THAT EXECUTIVE CHAIR WOMAN BEFORE YOU REIMBURSE THEM. If an executive chairwoman goes over budget, you can tell her that she needs to pay out of pocket because she did not have permission to make all of those purchases, UNLESS YOU GAVE HER PERMISSION.

Here is another very important piece of information. If a budget is maxed out, but another budget is under budget and you still need to make purchases for the maxed out budget, you CAN re-allocate those funds. That is your job. But you need to make sure you made a note of it, or else you’ll create a mess.

Take a look at the 2014 and 2015 budgets under Appendix A. This will help you understand the logic behind it. Even though these budgets have already been

adjusted, you can use these as templates for future semesters. Your predecessor has already set the budget for your first semester in your term for you, however it is up to you to keep working on it.

The national office needs to receive the chapter budget by September 15 th for the fall and January 15th for the spring. DO NOT WAIT UNTIL THESE DATES TO EMAIL IT IN. Always send it in earlier. You send the budget, and all monetary related questions, to Cathy Lattimer at cathy@sigmadeltatau.com.

GreekBillAs you already know, Sigma Delta Tau uses GreekBill to collect dues, fines and other payments. It is already directly linked to the chapter bank account, so do not worry about transferring money or collecting money. That part is done for you. It is your responsibility to regularly check GreekBill, follow up with sisters on payment plans, inform people of late payments, setting fines et cetera.

Upon your installation as the Vice President of Finance, your predecessor will inform the GreekBill representative that you are the new sister in charge. This person will send you a welcome email with a bunch of tutorial videos on how to use GreekBill. WATCH THOSE VIDEOS. They are so incredibly helpful. From creating and adding payment plans (known as promissory notes, and from hereon out referred to as promissory notes) to changing the status of sisters who have graduated, those videos will explain it all.

The current Delta Eta GreekBill representative is Melinda Russell (Melinda@greekbill.com). Melinda can help you with everything GreekBill related, from sending people to collections to importing new members for you. Appendix B is the form to send to Melinda to import new members. You need only the highlighted and essential information. If new members give you more information, that’s great. But you need the important information in order to begin collecting money from them through GreekBill.

GreekBill is a service the chapter pays for. The chapter pays twice a year. This money is taken out of the money received through GreekBill. No use of credit cards or checks. It’s all taken care of. All you gave to do it check and make sure the chapter is being charged for the correct amount of people using the service through the Delta Eta Chapter.

Wells FargoDuring the last two weeks of the semester as an active sister or the first two weeks of the semester in your newly elected position, your predecessor will take you and the new president to the Wells Fargo with the old president to turn over the bank account.

The Delta Eta Chapter has a Checking Account and a Savings Account. The national office requires that each chapter have AT LEAST $1,500 in their savings account at ALL times. This is in case of emergencies, if something goes wrong with recruitment, if the chapter is fined by the national office, something is wrong with filing taxes, or more. There is currently $4,000 in the savings account. $600 is for when Katharine Kiser rejoins the sorority. That money will account for her dues for that semester when she comes back. The rest of the money is in case of emergency. If you have a surplus at the end of the semester, if it is a small amount (under $1,000) put it in the savings account. If it is a larger amount (over $1,000) use it towards purchasing items for recruitment for the coming semester.

The following positions have DIRECT access to the account:

Your Advisor The President of the Delta Eta Chapter The Vice President of Finance of the Delta Eta Chapter

The following positions receive credit cards for the bank account:

The President of the Delta Eta Chapter The Vice President of Finance of the Delta Eta Chapter

The following positions possess the checkbooks for the bank account:

The Vice President of Finance of the Delta Eta Chapter

You are responsible and liable.

New MembersFollowing recruitment, you are to attend the first two new member meetings. Yes the first two. You have a lot to discuss and USUALLY new members are missing from the first meeting. At the first meeting you meet the new members and you talk to them about money. BEING IN A SORORITY IS A FINANCIAL COMMITMENT. You can only help those who come to you expressing that they need assistance. If they go to the Vice President and say “I can’t afford the dues,” the Vice President is going to respond “I’m sorry to hear that. Contact the Vice President of Finance to see what she can do to help you.” IF THAT WOMAN DOES NOT CONTACT YOU THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO. Same goes for active members.

So, you are at this new member meeting, most of them have JUST arrived to CofC and are trying to learn how to be on their own. Remember, this is just as scary for them as it is for you. Just be honest with them.

At the new member meetings you need to a, get acquainted with the new members, b, get their contact information and have them fill out the GreekBill form, found in Appendix B, electronically or by hand (whatever works for you) and c, tell them there are options. Usually, the promissory note is going to be for four months. There will be several individuals who need special plans because the dues divided by four is a lot each month if they’re paying on their own, or

have financial issues. You can create custom plans for people, but then it gets really confusing when you need to collect dues by the 15th of every month. The national office requires that all dues be paid in full by the end of the semester. This is why promissory notes are usually for four months, to ensure that the money is received by the end of each semester. Sometimes, sisters simply cannot afford to pay in four months, but together you can make it work. But most importantly, you NEED that information in Appendix B. A Sample Promissory Note can be found in Appendix B.

New members are going to ask you “Why are dues so expensive?” or “What exactly am I (or my parents) paying for?” See the papers in Appendix B. The national office provides all of its chapters with information on how to explain it. Dues are payments which are made to cover national fees to be apart of our organization and cover local fees to cover chapter activities.. Dues are always more expensive the first semester because our pins are made with gold, pearls and a diamond.

Appendix B is very important for several reasons. The first being that, as stated earlier, there is a document in there which will make the setup of the new member GreekBill accounts WAY easier. Secondly, you need to inform the national office of the new member class. The way we do that is through Quantum Leap.

Quantum Leap is an organization through the National Office which houses all important documents and information each chapter may need, official logos if it is needed and of course how you give the new member information to the national office.

To access Quantum Leap, go to SigmaDeltaTau.org, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on “Chapter Toolbox.” This will direct you to a new page which introduces you to Quantum Leap. Click on “click here” and you will be redirected to https://app.qleapahead.com/Authenticate.aspx?ReturnUrl=/Default.aspx.

Now you are at the Quantum Leap login.

Username: DeltaEtaChapter@sdt.com

Password: deltaeta

Now you are in Quantum Leap. Under “Smart Data” you will find the new member form. Click on it and click on “Create New Member” and fill out the information for each new member. The good news is you have MOST of the information needed, because it’s in Appendix B already! The other information (initiation date, local dues and national dues) you already have because you are in charge of that information and it is already listed on the calendar. The badge type we order is vermeil. You set your budget for the new member pins for vermeil. DO NOT CHANGE THIS; IT TAKES MUCH LONGER TO GET THE PINS AND COSTS WAY MORE. After filling out the information for each sister individually, you click “save” and then once the page reloads you click “submit for approval.” This is because in a few minutes you will be printing out a sheet to

mail to the national office and they will double check to make sure your list matches the one online.

Once you have imported all of the new member information into the account, go back to the “Pending Members” page, click on the box next to each woman’s name, click “Print Badge Form.” Once you print the form, fill out the mailing address (97 Wentworth Annex, Charleston, SC 29424, OR your personal address, which ever you prefer) and mail that form with a check to the national office (714 Adams St, Carmel, IN 46032). In about two weeks, you will receive a package with all of the new member pins.

When ordering new member pins please remember that the LATEST you can order pins is 2 weeks before initiation. Try to order before that, do not wait until the last minute or else the pins will not arrive in time for initiation.

At some point during the new member process, usually within the first two weeks, you will need to meet with the president and the new member educator and sign the Membership Contract. This is usually done at a chapter meeting because at the beginning of each school year every active sister must sign a membership contract and it is usually the only time the three of you will be in the same room unless you are at an SDT or greek event. The Membership Contract can be found in Appendix H.

Chapter ExpensesBy now you should have learned that you are responsible for all of the money, inflow and outflow, for this organization. You need to keep close track of the money coming in (dues, donations to the chapter, donations to philanthropy, fines, et cetera) and the money going out (donations to philanthropy, national dues, other expenses) because you need to report all of that to the national office.

Get acquainted with Appendix C, the Monthly Financial Statement, because it will become your new best friend for the remainder of your term. Each excel file will cover one full academic school year. This means you will deal with two files, on half completed by your predecessor and one half completed by you. In Appendix C you will find the past two school years’ of Monthly Financial Statements for the national office. It is very straight forward, you type in your budget in the columns on the left, you type in the expected income at the top and then each month you fill in the money coming in from active sisters and new members and donations, then the expenses both to the national office and elsewhere. In this statement, it is not necessary to report WHERE the money went but HOW MUCH was spent. This becomes VERY useful when you need to file taxes.

Sometimes keeping track of everyone’s dues payments through GreekBill can get very complicated and confusing. Therefore, you have Appendix D, the chapter roster. This roster helps you keep track of who made payments when in

one simple location. This will also help you report how much TOTAL money came in during each month on the Monthly Financial Statement.

All funds raised for PCAA, JWI, and/or Women to Women International need to be mailed to the national office IMMEDIATELY after the event. As soon as you collect all funds, send a check made payable to the organization (i.e. PCAA) to the national office. They will then take all of the checks from all of the chapters and turn them in to the organization in one large donation.

When sisters purchase items for the chapter (i.e. brownie mix for a sisterhood event, craft supplies for recruitment workshop), they require reimbursement. The chapter policy is that they can only receive reimbursement for their purchases if they give you the receipt within two weeks of the event. For example, if you purchase $10 worth of crafting supplies for an event on October 1st, you will get reimbursed if the VP of Finance receives the receipt within the two weeks before OR the two weeks after the event. When in comes to reimbursement, if a sister is making the purchase and she is NOT in charge of the event, please remember to check with the chairwoman that this sister has permission to make this purchase for the event. These two policies help to eliminate issues regarding reimbursement and chapter funds.

Reimbursement can come in two forms. First is writing the sister a check with the chapter checkbook. Second is taking the amount off of the sisters dues payment. Usually, with amounts under $50, the first option is more appropriate and will be what the sister wants. If the sister is purchasing sisterhood items at Costco for the entire semester and in total it cost her $120, AND IT IS WITHIN HER BUDGET, then she may request that that amount be taken out of her dues payment.

FinesThis is a very touchy and difficult topic. There was a wide debate on whether or not fines should be included in the bylaws, what are we fining for, et cetera. There are specific fines for mandatory events. They can be found in our bylaws, in Appendix I or pasted below.

Taken from Article IV Requirements for Obtaining Membership Section B Membership Selection item j Voting

Fines

o If at any point during description, pro-con-pro, or discussion a sister is cross-firing or talking extensively or repetitively, the Standards Board will raise her hand and say, “Stop” and the sister who is speaking will automatically stop talking. If she does not stop immediately she will be fined 25 cents per word.

o Talking during Membership Selection: $1 per occurrence

o Any curse word will incur a $1 fine.

o These things may not be said during Membership Selection: nice, cute, or sweet. Each word will incur a $1 fine.

o There shall not be any religious slurs or degradation, or any mention of religion/race/sexual orientation. A sister will be fined $1 per word and will only be given one warning. If it happens again, she automatically loses her vote and her voice and must sit separately from the chapter but may not leave. If she leaves she will be charged for missing that day of recruitment.

o When accumulated fines reach $4, a sister automatically loses her vote and her voice and must sit separately from the chapter but may not leave. If talking persists she will be charged as if she missed that day of recruitment entirely.

Taken from Article VI Violations Section D Fines

Fines

During a meeting

o Being late to a Chapter meeting: $1 for every minute until the fine reaches $10. Then the sister is charged for missing Chapter plus loses points for missing chapter.

o Missing a Chapter meeting: $10

o Cursing during a meeting: 25¢ per word

o Talking during a meeting: 25¢ per occurrence

Mandatory Recruitment Events

o Missing a recruitment workshop: $25 per day

o Missing a day of Spirit Week: $50 per day

o Being late for a day of Spirit Week: $1 for every minute until the fine reached $25

o Missing a day of Formal Recruitment: Panhellenic’s fine plus $100 per day

o Being late for a day of Formal Recruitment: $10 per 5 minutes late until the fine reached the fine for missing a day.

o Missing Bid Day: $50

o Missing a day of Informal Recruitment: $15 per day

Rituals

o Missing New Member Pinning $25

o Missing Initiation $50

Not attending the two required Panhellenic meetings: $4 per meeting

Missed Study Hours for 2 weeks: $10

Other fines must be presented for approval to the Standards Board 1 month before the event.

These are the fines set forth by the bylaws. Failure to pay an outstanding balance or on time will result in a fine at your discretion. Please remember to be reasonable. It does get frustrating at times, however you need to remain objective and fair.

Communication with the National OfficeThe Monthly Financial needs to be sent in to the national office at the end of the second week of each month. To make things easier, it is more convenient to take a tally the evening of the 15th of how much money came in and email the updated document to Cathy Lattimer (clattimer@sigmadeltatau.org). You are going to send Cathy an updated version again next month, so if you miss a payment or two it is not a big deal. The national office is just using this for tax purposes and to ensure that every chapter is financially stable.

The Delta Eta Chapter does not bring in more than $50,000 annually, this number is found by subtracting all national dues and philanthropy donations from the dues amount. Therefore, to file taxes, one must simply fill out a 990-N tax form with the IRS. The Employer Identification Number (EIN) for the Delta Eta Chapter of Sigma Delta Tau is 90-0154582. The 990-N form can be found at the following website http://www.irs.gov/Charities-&-Non-Profits/Annual-Electronic-Filing-Requirement-for-Small-Exempt-Organizations-Form-990-N-%28e-Postcard%29. The Delta Eta Chapter of Sigma Delta Tau filed to be reinstated as a not for profit organization in the Spring 2015. Directions to continue to file will be emailed out by Cathy Lattimer in April of every year. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out.

Once the Delta Eta Chapter begins making more than $50,000 there will be a new tax procedure. Until then, continue using this procedure.

Every couple of months you will receive an invoice from the national office. The invoices include fees for membership, new member booklets, ritual items, and more. When you receive these invoices be sure to pay them as soon as possible. The national office is accommodating and understanding if you are out of town for winter, spring and summer break. You can always call the national office and pay with a credit card. Usually mailing a check is the easiest.

There are several books of stamps as well as boxes of envelopes to mail checks to the national office in your Vice President of Finance box.

Inactive Sisters and Disaffiliation

It is important that if a sister expresses interest in going inactive or disaffiliating, you must tell the president and the advisor immediately. These situations are not to be laughed at and it is not your job to get this all done for the sister. It is always best to have the president, and sometimes the advisor, speak to the potentially outgoing sister to see if we can help her in anyway before she formally leaves us. However, you are usually involved in this process, but you do not initiate the process.

There are always going to be sisters in situations where they request inactive status or to disaffiliate. Inactive status is pretty simple. They go to the president and request the paperwork. They fill out the paperwork and then you, the vice president of finance, and the president sign the paperwork. The president then sends that and a letter of recommendation to the national office. Once the national office approves their status, you collect $37.50 to cover the national fee for an active sister. That is it. For your records, see Appendix E for the Inactive Status Request Form.

Disaffiliation can be more complicated. It is only complicated when a sister requests to disaffiliate and has an outstanding balance. You are only involved if the sister has an outstanding balance. If she does, then you need to create an exiting promissory note. The Sample Promissory Note can be found in Appendix B. For your reference, the Request for Deactivation is found in Appendix F.

In some cases, sisters may be dismissed from the chapter. This is very rare and usually has something to do with behavioral issues or significant neglect in paying dues and fines. You may not be involved in this process unless there is an outstanding balance, which you will need to create an exiting promissory note. The Sample Promissory Note can be found in Appendix B. For your reference, the Request for Dismissal is found in Appendix G.