Finance and Payments

MySummitKeep’s finance tools replace the spreadsheet your treasurer used to keep on a laptop. Money moves through five connected surfaces, each with its own page and a permanent, hashed audit trail behind it:

• Financial Dashboard (/financials) — the unit-wide overview
• Payments (/payments) — collect and track fees, dues, and event costs
• Scout Accounts (/financials/scout-accounts) — per-Scout ISA ledgers
• Banking (/banking) — read-only bank connection via Plaid
• Event Budgets (/events/:id/budget) — line items, receipts, and collection per event

How families actually pay

Each unit connects one or more payment processors — Stripe (card), PayPal, or Venmo — and an outstanding payment shows the matching button (Pay with Stripe, Pay with PayPal, or Pay with Venmo) for whichever processor it was created with. You can also mark cash or check payments paid by hand. The separate Banking connection is read-only through Plaid — for visibility and reconciliation, never for moving money.

Setting dues amounts is a separate step. That lives in Unit Settings → Dues at /settings/dues, not on these finance pages.

Financial Dashboard

The dashboard at /financials is your at-a-glance view. Three KPI cards show Total Unit Balance, Monthly Income, and Monthly Expenses (each with a month-over-month change indicator), followed by a searchable Recent Transactions table.

Leaders with the Financials.Manage permission see Record Expense and Record Income buttons in the header to post a manual unit-level transaction. Everyone with finance access can open the Audit Log from the same header.

Payments

The Payments page at /payments is where you collect money. At the top, Outstanding Payments cards list each open request with a Pay with Stripe, Pay with PayPal, Pay with Venmo, or Pay with Zeffy button depending on which processor it was set up with (plus a Mark Paid button for leaders); below them are four summary cards — Total Paid, Outstanding, Succeeded, and Pending — and a paginated, searchable payments table.

Each row offers:

• View — open the payment detail modal
• Receipt — print or download a receipt for any completed payment
• Mark Paid / Edit — record a cash, check, Venmo, Zelle, or other manual payment (requires the Payment.Update permission)

Marking a manual payment

When a family hands you a check or sends Venmo, click Mark Paid, pick the payment method, and add an optional confirmation or check number. The payment flips to Paid and lands in the dashboard and audit log.

Refunds

Refunds happen inside the payment detail modal, not on a separate transactions page. Open a Succeeded payment in edit mode and click Refund. It defaults to the full remaining amount; you can enter a partial amount and a reason.

Caution

Card payments processed online are refunded automatically. Manual payments (cash, check, Venmo, Zelle) are only marked refunded in the ledger — you still have to return the actual money to the payer yourself.

Zeffy (zero-fee for verified nonprofits)

Zeffy charges $0 processing fee to your unit — the entire amount a family pays reaches you. To make that work, donors see an optional tip prompt on the Zeffy form at checkout; that tip is how Zeffy funds itself, and the payer can set it to $0.

Zeffy is reconciliation-only: you connect it in Unit Settings → Payments by pasting your Zeffy read-API key and your hosted-form URL (we never render a card form in-app). When you request a Zeffy payment, the family clicks Pay with Zeffy and completes payment on Zeffy’s own hosted form. Zeffy then notifies us and the request flips to Paid automatically.

Zeffy requires a verified nonprofit account

Zeffy only serves already-verified nonprofits. MySummitKeep does not verify your nonprofit status — you must connect a Zeffy account your organization has already had approved. If your connection lands in an error state, your account may not be eligible; confirm it with Zeffy (see Zeffy’s pricing and nonprofit eligibility) before reconnecting, or use Stripe, PayPal, or Venmo instead.

Zeffy FAQ

• Does Zeffy really cost my unit nothing? Yes — Zeffy charges your unit no processing fee. Its revenue comes from the optional tip donors can add at checkout.
• Will families be charged a tip? The tip is optional. The payer chooses the amount and can set it to $0.
• Why does my Zeffy connection show an error? Most often the Zeffy account isn’t nonprofit-verified, or the read-API key was revoked. Re-check your account in Zeffy, then re-enter a valid key.
• Does MySummitKeep verify our nonprofit status? No. We rely on Zeffy’s own verification — you connect an account Zeffy has already approved.

Scout Accounts (ISA)

Individual Scout Accounts at /financials/scout-accounts hold money earned by each Scout through fundraising. The page leads with four KPI cards — Total ISA Balance, YTD Credits, YTD Debits, and Avg Balance — over a sortable per-Scout table.

With Financials.Manage, three header actions drive the ledger:

• Add Transaction — post a Credit or Debit to one or several Scouts at once. Credit categories include Fundraising Proceeds, Popcorn Sales, Camp Card Sales, Donation, and Manual Credit; debit categories include Event Fee, Camping Fee, Summer Camp, Equipment Purchase, and Manual Debit.
• Distribute Fundraising — split a lump sum across selected Scouts, either as an Even Split or By Percentage (percentages must total 100%).
• Apply Event Fee — debit the same fixed amount from every selected Scout in one action (for example, a camp registration fee).

The ISA ledger is append-only

You do not edit or delete Scout-account entries. To correct a mistake, open the Scout’s detail panel and click Reverse on the row — that posts a compensating opposite entry so the running balance is right while the original record stays intact for the audit trail.

Click any row to expand the detail panel: a running-balance sparkline, YTD stats, and the full transaction history. Print Statement produces a clean, printable per-Scout statement for the family.

Banking

Connect your unit’s bank at /banking to pull in balances and transactions for reconciliation. This uses Plaid and is strictly read-only — MySummitKeep can see your transactions but can never move money.

Before any connection exists, you’ll see the empty state with a single Connect Bank Account button.

Once connected, each institution shows as a card with per-account balances and Sync (pull new transactions), Refresh (update balances), and Disconnect controls. The transaction table tags each row with a reconciliation status — Auto-Matched, Matched, Unmatched, or Ignored.

Event Budgets

Every event can carry its own budget at /events/:id/budget (also reachable from the event’s Budget tab). Create one from scratch or from a saved template, then work three tabs: Cost Breakdown (line items), Exemptions (fee waivers for specific members), and Collection Status (who has paid).

Line items support receipts and reimbursements — mark a leader who fronted money as reimbursed once they’re paid back. When the books are settled, click Finalize Budget to lock it; a finalized budget can be Reopened if something changes.

Budget Templates

Reusable budgets live at /financials/budget-templates. Save any event budget as a template (for example, “Weekend Campout Template”), then apply it to a new event so you don’t rebuild the same line items every time.

See Event Budgets for the full per-event walkthrough.

Reports and the Audit Log

For the committee, council, or your chartered organization, use the Financial Report at /reports/financial. It covers income and expenses by category, monthly trends, member fees collected vs. outstanding, event costs, and fundraiser profit — and exports to PDF, Excel, and CSV from the buttons in the report header.

For accountability, the Financial Audit Log at /financials/audit-log is an immutable, SHA-256-hashed record of every financial event — payments, refunds, invoices, manual transactions, and unit payment requests. Filter by entity type and date range.

Tip

The CSV export from the Financial Report is the file most treasurers hand to their chartered organization at year-end. The audit log is your backstop if anyone ever questions a number.

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