Financials

Payment Processing

• Every state is going to have different rules on this depending on how you’re incorporated

• LLC vs 501c3 will have different reporting requirements

• Paypal, Square, Plaid, Patreon, Stripe, e-transfer (canada) can also create a GoFund Me, cash donations are helpful - get a good old jar!

• Can also have a crypto wallet. Zelle, venmo, cashapp - a QR code for all of these

• Lots of websites or softwares have built in payment processing - check what integrations are available with your website software

• Eventbrite / Meetup / Wix and other ticketing services also have integrations with different payment processing software

• Also need to be compliant with all your tax requirements

• Important to think about who on your team has access to these accounts, make sure they don't live on one person's private accounts.

Who Gets Paid

• Payment - we meant taxable income

• For 501c3 you can pay and executive director, but on the board is volunteer based

  • Accounting practices are NEEDED for 501c3

  • You can hire volunteer coordinators or other people to execute services (ie hosting specific events), administrative assistant

• You cannot pay a volunteer - they have to be a volunteer or an employee, they can't do both. You can buy them food, you can reimburse them for costs.

How Money Gets Allocated

• Typically, in a 501c3, the ED would work with the president to create a budget. Then the board of directors takes the proposed budget and then approves it and that's accountability because the board doesn't get paid.

• Paying for your domain name, your website, annual zoom account, other hosting software

• If you're renting a space for an event

• Paying facilitators (ie trained therapists for integration circles), paying speakers

• Some events require materials (ie tie dye, cacao…etc)

• Filing for 501c3 status

• Fees for payment processing

• advertising /postering

• Merchandise

How to Create an External Bank Account

• Need all people who are on your article of incorporation (for an LLC, it's the sole proprietor, if its a 501c3, it's all three members) to all be present to sign the paperwork for a bank

• As you're ready to spend $1 on this org, you can start a club account, you don't even need an ein # and or any articles of incorporation even before you are ready to incorporate. And then a year later you can become an LLC or 501c3, you can easily count and tax that money because you can easily track it, you can back-date your reporting.

• Some banks can be apprehensive about opening an account with an org with the word “psychedelic” in it - make sure the description for your org is clear as well

  • Ie; we’re an outreach group

  • You can also make the official name of the org something different than the one that is advertised to the community - which would require it to have the same name as whatever you incorporated it under

• Make sure you have all the documents needed and you are presenting yourself in a professional, legal way

• Make sure that these people are trustworthy to have access to the account, to sign checks

• Chase has been a good bank for psychedelic banking

• Helpful to start a business account and route all of your transactions to be in one place versus it going through someone's private account first