Could you contact Midtown's Association to see what their costs are for online payment of membership and tour of homes tickets?

-- Dianne Olansky (olansky@mindspring.com), November 20, 2001

Answers

Have a look at this link for basic costs using Wells Fargo (that's who Midtown uses).

http://www.wellsfargo.com/biz/products/merchant/internet/need.jhtml

I'm going to investigate a little more and I'll post what I learn.

-- Terry Kearns (gradyproject@tk-jk.net), November 20, 2001.

The above link does represent what we might be looking for. There are many other options. For this cost/level of service, our webmaster would build a form. When the user fills out the form and presses submit, the data goes to Wells Fargo, who gives us a direct deposit once a month.

Towards to the higher end (higher cost), Wells Fargo builds the form on its website, we just link to it, and Wells Fargo direct deposits each day.

Not being a banker, I asked the dumb question: What is the "monthly discount rate?" Of course, that's Well's Fargo's cut for each transaction plus a fixed $.31 per transaction plus the fixed monthly fee.

I'll leave it to our financial committee to calculate how many new memberships and tour tickets we need to break even.

There may be other alternatives. There may be ways to work with a local business's existing merchant account. Finance committee?

-- Terry Kearns (gradyproject@tk-jk.net), November 20, 2001.

The service fees may be worth it if we in turn lower our annual membership mailer outlays to NOT SOLICIT those using the web sign-up process. We're paying $2500 this year for a membership mailer. Even better if a recurring annual email request makes for timely, consistent membership renewals.

One note: I'd make sure that MLPA is covered, if appropriate, by an insurance rider or separate policy (or we're a named insured on Wells Fargo's policy) if we start accepting member credit card info. to pay for MLPA stuff. COA, similar to CYA.

-- Norman McKay (hawkeyenorm@mindspring.com), November 27, 2001.