We had a silent auction at our Spring Gala...one of our sponsors (and parent of a student at our school) allowed us to process our credit cards through their account and cut us a check (minus transaction fees they are charged by the bank) back to PTO. It worked out well. We are actually going to have our treasurer research our account options this summer so we can have a credit card machine for use for all of our PTO events. Processing so many checks has been quite a burden on our treasurer. We hope that this will streamline our processes.
Look on the message boards for Credit Cards. I have been able to find good information on the boards.
We have local businesses that are families at our school. They have told us that to get a credit card machine, you need to have business each month and certain dollar amount or the fee is raised. I have never heard of renting the equipment & service for a function, but that is not to say it isn't possible. One woman that is very active with us also has a gift shop in town close to the school. She allows us to advertise that tickets can be purchased at her store so we have access to the machine. But that is only for the one event.
I'd love to see more details on this subject so I can pass this along to the new board coming on next year!
Making a positive difference one project at a time <img src=images/smilies/smile.gif>
We just had a Silent Auction and signed up for credit card processing with a local bank. They actually let us borrow the equipment and, because we are a non-profit, the only fees were 2.1% of the transaction plus 10 cents per transaction. The percent would have been lower, but we processed them manually and then called them in later because we were unsure whether we would have access to a phone line for the modem. I would suggest starting with the bank where your accounts are located. We feel it was well worth the expense. Good luck!
Has anyone run a school function where they accepted credit and debit cards? If so, can you point me to where I could find out how we'd go about getting this equipment (presumably this would be rented for a day or weekend), and what's involved with accepting these payment transactions?
