Our PTO does a standard catalog sale, so hundreds of items and prices. No way do we spend the time to verify prices were recorded correctly on each form.

We double check the math of all the orders (basically adding the righhand column of orders) and verify the amount enclosed matches. As you say, the number of discrepancies is amazing!

We allow a variance of $1.50 either way. If it's within this range, we simply correct the math, add or subtract money. (It tends to even out.) Beyond $1.50, we call the family to get it resolved.

Our catalog company provides a $2 coupon to each family that can go towards an order. Not everyone uses them. Our final tally includes coupons for everyone, whether they included one or not (we have extras). This also helps even out the bottom line.

It works well for us.

[ 03-31-2003: Message edited by: JHB ]</p>

Keep in mind that while the fundraising company will total the individual orders based on what items are listed and their respective prices, the company has no way of knowing how (and really doesn't care) much money the buyer acutally turned in with the order. So...I'm not sure that relying on the fundraising company to highlight payment errors is going to work.

At our PTO, we review EVERY order that we get, much like Bear and Pals. If an order payment is 'off', we call or send home a notice requesting a correct payment before we process the order. By reviewing and logging each order, we also cover ourselves if there are any discrepencies down the road. Plus sometimes we actually find OVER payments. We had one order come in with $100 cash more than needed (two households both paid for the order..). We would never have known to refund that money if we hadn't rechecked the order.

We do all of our fundraisers pre-pay. (Wish the girl scouts did with those cookies but that's a different story) Anyways.... At our holiday fundraiser 5 of us went through every order the very day they all came in & many were off ... I have no idea where these people got the totals they did. Also many prize boxes, many room numbers etc.. were not complete. Every order that was short $$ was set aside & we called that parents ASAP to tell them the problem (about 30 people) we said please come to the office by 4 today to complete the order or the whole thing is void, It may sound harsh but they all came somehow or sent a grandparent. I think they came because their child had took orders around the neighborhood & they did not want those orders to be void also. it was a long & hard process and I still have no idea where these people learned simple math!! SCARY! [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[ 03-30-2003: Message edited by: chic*mom ]</p>

Thanks for all the great advice. It's making my order counting go a lot easier!!

PS. We're dumping this fundraiser company - not very helpful with newbie chairpersons.

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Momski...what I find is that most parents send in the money right away after being notified about a difference. If they give me a run around I tell them i need it on a certain day and if I don't get it i return it all back to them.Last year a chair cashed a check that wasn't right then it turned into a he said she said game. End result was writing a refund check. But if you have a check you question about funds I know in Central New York if you have a bad check we can call the bank and ask if there is money to redeposit it. $1500.00 in nsf is ALOT , we have been fortunate that in our groups 18 months we have only had one check that we never got the money for and we absorbed it. It's too bad your group is dealing with parents who don't seem to care that that money goes to the their kids too...

This is a pizza and gift fundraiser - there are so many little trinket items to look up, that I'll be double checking orders til the cows come home!

Question: while you're waiting for families to make up the balance, do you go ahead and cash their initial check? (The biggest discrepancy is only $20).

I did call one parent whose order was in question and had just put their phone number on the order slip. Would you believe it that their phone was actually out of order!! talk about a red flag!

I'm just paranoid that I will unknowingly MAKE A MISTAKE, then ask the parents to re-issue a check to then have the factory come up with yet another number. Then the parents have to issue yet another check or bring cash upon pick up and then what if it's NSF? Then they lied to me twice!!

(we got burned on our fall fundraiser for $1,500 in NSF). I'm getting crabby about this, can you tell???

I guess we can cash the checks we have now and hold any orders with NSF until they pay, rather than weeks AFTER the delivery when the families have the product in hand.

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