This procedure enables you to get subscriptions from those who are willing, and in addition, donations can be solicited over and above that amount at any time. It is better - in order to achieve continuity in the system - to use a procedure that does not oblige you to close the accounts of those who have not paid, whether they can't afford it or just forgot. There is an option in the system to switch off the listings of members who have not logged on for a specified period of time, eg six months or a year - it sends out a reminder which prompts them to update their listings. This does not switch off their account - you would have to de-activate it manually, but it does reduce the out-of-datedness of offers on display.

Renewals in sterling can be taken on the anniversary of members' joining dates - the software has now been updated to enable this to be managed on the system - but this can be kept separate from the procedure of an annula fee-take in local currency. An alternative method is a Donations Appeal for a particular purpose or prior to the AGM, then members can pay in cash at the door - don't forget to write the amount down against their name !

The essence of this is that any time a member makes a sterling payment, it is recorded on their form - or a copy of a receipt if this exists in paper format. This documentation is physically filed for the benefit of the sterling Treasurer, who acts as internal auditor, and/or it is also recorded in the profile of the member, in a field called "Admin Note" which is not visible to members, but is accessible at committee level.

The next stage is to "acknowledge" this in the system. This is done by the LETS Accountant making a payment to the same valuefrom the system account - or better still, a special account created for the purpose - into the member's account. This will be visible in the global list of trades, so it's a good idea to adopt a standard way of describing it, eg: Acknowledgement of Donation or Subscription. So a new member who paid £10 will find that they have an opening balance of 10 units in their account, and an organisation which has paid £100 will have a budget of 100 units to pay members who work for them.

An annual procedure of taking LETS payments from ALL accounts is on the Admin Menu. A pre-set amount is taken from all ACTIVE accounts - omitting "exempt" accounts, which can be set in the configuration file of the system, eg the system accounts itself, and other central accounts and funds. The fee-take will show in individual Transaction Records, but not the overall list of trades (as it's a whole block of identical, boring transactions). Before activating this function, it's a good idea to pre-warn members by means of a message may be sent out to members - another available at admin level - advising members that this payment is about to be taken from their account. (They can also be requested to pay the £5 renewal or a donation of any amount in sterling, and any resulting sterling input can be acknowledged as already described). The LETS Accountant then takes payment on the system, by following the link on the Admin menu. The payments will show in the individual accounts of members and in the system account, but do not show in the list of trades - as the list would be too long.

This is how you create the annual budget for managing the system. So for example from 100 accounts @12 units, one per month, you can create a budget of 1200 units. If you are going to ask for £5 sterling renewals, then you need to make the annual fee 5 + 12 = 17 units, to include both. Payments can then be made into budgets to run the system, eg the Admin Fund for administrative work (NB not attending committee meetings, which should be done on a honorary basis), a Social Fund for helping at trade fairs and running local socials, a Pastoral or Community Fund eg for visiting sick members, etc, and, say, a Green Fund for environmental projects. How you can keep these budgets in balance is by appointing a fund manager for each or all of them. The payments could be made by the LETS Accountant on behalf of members, for example these accounts could have cheque-books. Better still, the "Fund Manager/s", will have the password for specific "Fund" accounts and make the payments online. This diagram summarises the procedure outlined above.

Members can also tithe into these budgets, which is a way of engaging members in making LETS relevant to the community. Sterling Funds can also be raised at public Trading Days, using a Bureau de Change with fixed value vouchers. More about these ideas are on separate pages.

It is important that relevant committee members understand and are confident about these procedures in advance, so that they can ask for endorsement at the AGM. The naming and approving of the various funds - you could suggest putting 200 units in each to begin with - is a positive discussion that can engage members at the AGM, and the fund managers will report back at each committee meeting on how the budget has been spent. The advantages of adopting these policies are that (a) poor and poorly members can be catered for and not excluded from trading, (b) sterling funds can be raised other than from subscriptions, (c) they are a very useful mechanism for outreaching into the mainstream community, and (d) you introduce the idea of governance of LETS expenditure in the same way as for sterling.

NB When you enrol a member, you will need to either take charges in advance for the remaining months of the year, or compensate them for charges that will be made in retrospect. The latter works as a "sweetener" for when the member joins, and is easier to work out, for example, if you take fees retrospectively in January, so a member joining in January gets one, February two, up to December 12 units of currency to counteract the charge that will be made the following January.

LL/MF/ May 2010 - partially updated 5/4/2012