Greetings unto the populace and especially to those who serve as Exchequers!
We find ourselves in extraordinary times, with events canceled and people trying to accomplish from home what we normally do face-to-face. For groups who have had to cancel events, there is, as the old jokes say, some good news and some less than good. First, if your event was posted on the Kingdom event calendar, you still need to send in reports, even though it was canceled. You need to submit an Event Financial Report. Obviously, with a canceled event, there will be no income, but you may have expenses to report. And even if there were no expenses, we need the event report to confirm that. And, you need to submit an NMR report, showing no attendance and no NMR collected.
If your group lost money on the canceled event, based on deposits that could not be recovered, etc., and your group has decided that you can’t afford to absorb that loss, you can ask for reimbursement from the Kingdom. Please submit to me a Cash Reimbursement Request form, along with a receipt for the expenses paid, and the Kingdom will reimburse your group, based on action taken by the Stallari Council.
Some folks are asking if, given the need for social distancing, we can use an electronic signature from a program like Adobe Sign to sign reconciliations or quarterly reports. Unfortunately, given that Adobe Sign is cloud-based, the Society Exchequer is concerned that copies of our financial paperwork may be held by the companies providing the service and claimed as their intellectual property, as has happened with other “free” services.
The approved methods to sign without personal contact are to scan or take pictures of the documents, and use email to 1) print, sign, scan and email between the Seneschal and the Exchequer; or 2) if either party has no printer, accompany the pictures of the document with emails from those parties stating, for example, that they have seen the bank statement dated <ending date of the statement> with an ending balance of <ending balance amount>, and that they find that balance to be reasonable and acceptable. Be as clear as possible what document you are referencing, and that you approve it. Exchequers should print copies of the emails as PDFs and submit them with the electronic versions of the documents. When we are able to do face-to-face contact, the original documents should be signed and kept for your records.
My thanks to all the folks who are working hard to keep your Kingdom and your group going through these interesting times! Hopefully, we’ll be able to get together in person soon.
Bayard