As the terminology is usually used, and agency account is an account that the university does not own but is holding only as a custodian for another entity. So if the business office has an agency account for Athletics Booster Club, the determination has been made that the Athletics Booster Club is a separate entity from the university, and funds in that account do not belong to the university but to the separate entity.
From that arrangement it follows that the booster club *could* make a gift to the university, since it is a separate entity, and the university would not be making a gift to itself. Since accounting for the university booster club is being managed by the university using the university's system, financial controls sometimes require these sorts of arrangements where a check from the agency account to the university has to be cut rather than making a more straightforward transfer from one account to another.
It is also worth mentioning that, because the agency account does not belong to the university, gifts *to* that account are not gifts to the university, and should not be receipted or counted as gifts to the university, and if the separate entity is not itself a qualified 501(c)(3), gifts recorded in the agency account would not qualify as tax-deductible.
My US$0.02 worth; the usual disclaimers apply.
Good luck!
Alan
Alan S. Hejnal
Data Quality Manager
Smithsonian Institution - Office of Advancement
600 Maryland Avenue SW, Suite 600E
P.O. Box 37012, MRC 527
Washington, DC 20013-7012
*: 202-633-8754 | *:
HejnalA@si.edu<mailto:
HejnalA@si.edu>
[SNAGHTML5cbfa34]<https://www.si.edu/> [AASP_FundSvcs_LOGO-01(040pct)(mark)]
From: Advancement Services Discussion List <
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG> On Behalf Of GILLIKIN Julie
Sent: Friday, February 1, 2019 2:22 PM
To:
FUNDSVCS@LISTSERV.FUNDSVCS.ORG
Subject: [FUNDSVCS] business office practice
Our business office creates and maintains Agency Accounts for different groups within the school.
For example, the Athletics Booster Club raises money through concessions, and that money goes into their Agency Account.
When the Booster Club then wants to buy something (such as a scoreboard), our Business Manager has, in the past, cut a check FROM our school TO our school, given it to me as a donation for the scoreboard, and asked me to process it as a gift. I have told him we have to discontinue this practice because the school cannot make a gift to itself from itself.
He still wants me to do it, and says there is no way in the Financial Edge to just cut a check from the Booster Club Agency Account to the Scoreboard company, and running it through Raiser's Edge as a gift is the only way to do it.
I was 100% this did not belong in RE but the business mgr is wearing me down insisting we have always done it like this, so I am asking the rest of you... should I process this as a gift? If not, how do I explain to the Business Manager why not?
Thank you.
Julie Gillikin
Database and Gifts Manager
[Description:
http://www.roeper.org/images/hd_title.gif]<http://www.roeper.org/index.aspx>
41190 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI 48304
P: 248.203.7315
julie.gillikin@roeper.org<mailto:
julie.gillikin@roeper.org>
News:
www.roeperrecord.org<http://www.roeperrecord.org>
News on your phone: m.roeperrecord.com to get the app
Twitter: @TheRoeperSchool
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/TheRoeperSchool<http://www.facebook.com/TheRoeperSchool>
Web:
www.roeper.org<http://www.roeper.org/>
Donate to the Roeper School<https://www.roeper.org/netcommunity/sslpage.aspx?pid=1229>