TTNC4Me, It has been worth it. We ended up making more on our auction last year with the acceptance of cc. It cost us $20 start (included imprint machine, cc slips, Visa/MC/Discover signage, & instruction booklet. We don't do enough cc transactions to justify buying the card swiping machine so we just use the imprinter and call in for varification---VERY EASY. We did offer the cc option for our fall fundraiser as well. We pay $5 per month for the account and the fees are 2.00% + .10 for Discover Cards and 2.88% + .40 for visa/MC. We held our carnival/silent auction on a Friday night and our money was direct deposited into our bank account on Monday morning. I was very impressed. You can also view your DiscoverNetwork account online and order more cc slips/Visa,MC, Discover logo signage/stickers free as needed. I can't say enough positive things about the Discover Network. I still believe that it was one of the best things we ever did. Our elem. school is now going to sign-up with them as well. It will be handy for yearbooks, etc. Something else to consider... we also signed-up with the check recovery service that is listed in the PTOToday yellow pages. We haven't had to deal with any bounced checks at all this year! That is sooo nice.

Hope this helps,
Holly
McCaw PTA
Henderson, NV
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Holly,
I'm curious if the credit card processing was/is worth it for you?

Anyone else...is using a parent's business processing machine allowed?
Any other ideas?
I noticed at our recent book fair, that a good majority of our parents used their cards and of course, makes it easier for them to spend more.
I'm looking for options for our auction. TIA

We held our 4th annual silent auction last November and this is the first year that we were able to accept credit cards. One of our parents owns his own business and brought his machine, plugged into the phone jack, and ran every card for us. Needless to say our auction went from $4500 in 2004 to $12000 in 2006 (over $5000 in just credit card donations)

Hi all,

We decided we wanted to be able to accept credit cards for our auction and fundraisers. I looked into a few companies and we decided to go with www.discovernetwork.com. I have a friend who has used them for several years and highly recommended them to us. I called and signed up and exactly one week later I received an imprinter and all of our information in a nice kit. I followed the simple directions and activated it. We are now capable of processing cc. The fee is $5 per month, 2.00% + .10 for Discover Cards and 2.88% + .40 for visa/MC. The money is direct deposited into our PTA account at our bank in 2-3 days. We will officially use it for the first time this next Friday (3/31) at our silent auction/raffle during the carnival. I'll let you know if there's any problems.

Thought you might be interested.
Holly
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I can't begin to count the number of times parents have asked me if I accepted credit cards (for things like donations, SCRIP, etc.) The rates seem to be outrageous, and was wondering if it really did increase participation, and if anyone had a good non profit merchant to recommend.

Thanks!