[hackerspaces] Cash flow?

[B F]

"Gold Boolean"?  I like that.  Sounds like a good investment!  8^)

My makerspace is very fortunate -- we pay no rent.  Makes finances a
great deal simpler.

I want to chime in that under NO circumstances would I agree to an
automatic payment to a makerspace (or to most other entities).  I've
been forced to use automatic payment to pay for health insurance
because I was given no choice.  I allow CC companies to take minimum
payments by auto-payment because it saves ME lots of fees if I'm late
with a payment.  I don't like those, but I tolerate them.

I will NEVER use auto-payment when there's ANY alternative -- until
Congress passes laws to protect the consumer.

If somebody forges your check -- you have no liability.  You can pass
out blank checks on the street corner and you still have no liability!
 (Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration.)

If somebody steals your CC and you report it  you're liable for only
the first $50 of false charges.  (You MUST report it in writing,
remember!  The phone call is just an early alert for the CC to put a
hold on your account.  It takes a written letter to effect the
protections.)  And you can apply for reimbursement even for the $50 if
it should have been obvious to the CC company that you hadn't
authorized the charge.

Why is this?  Because there are specific legal remedies for forged
checks and for false use of CC's.

There are NO such remedies for false automatic payments, false use of
debit cards, and other "authorized" direct use of your CC's or bank
account.  There SHOULD be, but there aren't.  Once you "authorize" the
payment, you have no recourse.  (In the case of automatic minimum
payment on a CC, you MAY be able to limit the amount per month of such
a payment.)

Case in point:  A friend of a friend had opted for automatic payment
of his natural gas bill.  One month, his bill should have been
$160.00.  Somebody missed the decimal point and $16,000 was taken from
his bank -- draining his checking AND savings accounts, and resulting
in bounced checks and fees.

When he called the gas company, they acknowledged the error, but said
they had no way to cut him a check, and offered him a credit of
$16,000 -- money sufficient to pay his gas bill for the next decade or
so, of course with no interest to be paid on the yet-unused portion.

There was NO offer of reimbursement of fees and penalties, much less
making things right for all the bounced check fees his creditors had
suffered as a result of his drained accounts -- fees he ultimately
will be billed for.

The gas company is a regulated industry.  This poor sucker has
remedies through the BPU to get the overpayment back.  But if he wants
all the other fees he and his creditors suffered to be reimbursed,
he'll have to file a lawsuit -- there are NO other remedies.

And if this had been, say, a private oil company instead of a public
utility, a lawsuit would be the only remedy at all.  And if the oil
company happened to go bankrupt before he collected his money, too bad
-- he'd lose it all.

So if you think I'm going to open my bank account or CC to hackers I
only slightly know -- well, think again.  It won't happen.

OTOH, I WOULD pay months ahead if I were confident the makerspace
would remain open for that long and if I were given a discount for
doing so that exceeded the interest I'd earn by hanging onto it.

Since interest rates are scarcely 1% these days, that would not take
much of a discount.  If you monetize the hassle and uncertainty of
chasing down delinquent members, it might well be feasible to offer a
5% discount on a 6-month prepaid membership, and a 10% discount on a
12-month prepaid membership.

One more thing -- don't go the 501c3 route without doing some
significant research first.  Record keeping can be a killer,
especially for an all-volunteer group.  The best way to become 501c3
it is to have somebody else do it -- like by being under a parent
organization that is already 501c3.

Remember that the ONLY good reason for 501c3 status is that you expect
to receive SUBSTANTIAL contributions from people or corporations who
want the tax deduction.  If those aren't in the cards anyway, don't
bother.

Suggestions:  a number of makerspaces could get together as a single
corporation and hire a CPA to do the 501c3 paperwork for all of them.

BF