JCUMSA Financial Report - March 2021
By Eric Smith
Foreword
Hey everyone, welcome to the third installment of the JCUMSA Financial Report. Sorry it’s slightly late – the past month has been exciting, but busy! If you would like to read the previous reports, click here;
Terms of Use and Website Policy Updates
One of the main changes I’ve made over the past month is formalising the Terms of Use page for the JCUMSA website. This page lists (1) the general expectations of appropriate use on our website, (2) our commitment to data privacy, and (3) our refunds policy. My objective here was to make clear to you what data we take through the website, how we store it in accordance with data privacy laws, and how you can best contact us if you are concerned we are not meeting our standards.
Notable changes to the Refunds Policy include a written formalisation of the requirement of individuals to attempt to re-sell their tickets to another student for at least (7) days and the addition of a provision of a strict “no-refunds policy” once ticket sales have closed to an event, as venues are unable to accommodate for changes like this after they have been given final numbers, meaning if we were to refund people in these circumstances we would be running at a loss. Refunds will only be processed for “reasonable circumstances” as listed in the Refunds Policy. This does not include refunds for change of mind.
Also, a provision has been added to allow for a (1) day (decreased from the (7) days normally) period for attempted re-selling in the case of an event with limited tickets, as in these cases should a product sell out, a refund may allow another person to buy that ticket and thus expedience may be necessary to maximise event turnout.
JCUMSA ANZ Merchant Account Access
I finally was able to get in touch with our merchant ANZ account which means I now have access to automate refunding through our payment gateway! This is great news, as it means I will no longer have to manually bank transfer (requiring 2-to-sign authorisation with the President) the funds into people’s accounts.
I was also able to speak with an ANZ customer service representative to finally find out the exact cost of our Merchant account in terms of our transaction fees to compare it with Square. It turned out to be slightly cheaper than I was anticipating and much cheaper than Square. This has meant that I’m more hesitant to entirely switch to Square from ANZ eGate. This is especially the case now that I’ve figured out how to automate refunding through the ANZ eGate Merchant service, which was the main benefit of switching to Square.
After careful assessment, having both systems operational is the best way forward. Using Square as our in-person EFTPOS system to process transactions for small physical items like merchandise and GOLD memberships while leaving ANZ eGate (our existing JCUMSA website transaction service) to process all our ticketed events and most store orders is likely to work most efficiently for us rather than switching entirely to one service or the other.
Final Budget Execution
The final budget was finally executed by a unanimous vote on the 29/3/21 after revisions were made clarifying how to interpret the budget and how much JCUMSA has allocated towards events. This is the final copy which will be used to guide our financial planning for the year.
Conclusion
That’s it for now – as usual, if you have any feedback for me at all, or you just want to have a chat – you can contact me via email here. See you next month!
