Important information regarding ACF Fall payment!

[grapesmoker]

As you all know, this year ACF is moving to a centralized payment system in which teams pay us directly and the money is then redistributed to the hosts. As the recently-minted ACF treasurer, I am administering this system for at least this year. This post is intended to provide both hosts and attendees with important information regarding the payment system, so please read it carefully.

Team Registration

We require that any team that is attending an ACF even register for that event with us. Yes, you also have to send an email to the site TD to let them know you're coming, but we absolutely need to have your information as well. We need this so we can do things like send you invoices and track who has paid us. So, if you are attending ACF Fall, you must register using this form!. I note that the number of teams that have submitted packets is reasonably large (yay!) but the number of registrations is quite small (boo!) so please, if you are playing this tournament, register. It takes all of two minutes of your time.

Host Registration

We likewise require that all hosts also register with us. If you are hosting ACF Fall, please register using this form. It is vitally important that you provide us with a working mailing address because this is where trophies will be shipped.

Invoices

The first invoices will start going out this weekend by email to teams that are both registered and have submitted packets (or are not required to do so). These invoices will summarize what you owe to ACF and will contain instructions for paying us. For ACF Fall specifically, this will involve mailing me a check, made out to me (address and other details will be contained in the invoice). We are working on getting an ACF account set up, so by the time Regionals rolls around, you'll be making the checks out to ACF itself.

This should give you plenty of time to send us checks. We do require, as per this document that the checks be postmarked the Saturday before the tournament. If you think that this is likely to cause you problems, please get in touch with me. We don't want to penalize anyone who is genuinely trying to pay us, so if you're having difficulties with your institution, we'll try to be accommodating. I also would like to personally request that when the check goes out, you drop me a short email letting me know. Teams that do not pay on time and do not come to an agreement with me about why they cannot do so risk being denied the right to play the tournament.

Discounts

We ask that when you register for the tournament, you provide us with information about any discounts that you might be getting (e.g. buzzers and staff). We trust that if you tell us that you are bringing one staffer and two buzzer sets then you are really going to bring one staffer and two buzzer sets. Please note that these discounts come out of the hosts' share of the registration fees; therefore, if you do not bring what you said you were going to bring, it will be up to the hosts to recoup the money from you.

Trophies

As previously mentioned, we will be ordering trophies for every site. Hosts should expect to receive their trophies a few days before the tournament. The trophies will be shipped to the location in the registration form, so please be sure that this information is correct, that you are able to pick up the trophies, etc. As we do not run FedEx or UPS (yet), ACF is not responsible for any shipping issues. When the trophies ship, I will send tracking numbers to all the hosts.

After the tournament

If you're a team, then once you've sent us the registration fee, you're good to go. If you are a host, you should expect to receive a check from within two weeks of the tournament for your share of the tournament proceeds. Barring contrary instructions, the money will be sent to the person listed as the site contact in the host registration form.

Questions?

If you have any questions about the system, please do not hesitate to contact me at [email protected]. I will be happy to address any concerns you may have. Please do not wait until two days before the tournament to iron out any issues; we really want this to proceeds as smoothly as possible, and for that we need you to not procrastinate on either sending us money or resolving any issues that might arise.

[minusfive]

To prevent several Canadian teams e-mailing with the same question, I'll put it here:
Is there any different procedure for Canadian checks (which we spell "cheques")?

[grapesmoker]

To prevent several Canadian teams e-mailing with the same question, I'll put it here:
Is there any different procedure for Canadian checks (which we spell "cheques")?

I'm not sure, since I've never actually cashed a Canadian check. Is there any reason why that should be a complicated process? I assume the check will be made out to account for the currency conversion (although it's effectively 1-1 right now). Unless there's some kind of barrier to this process, it will be the same for Canadian teams.

[theMoMA]

Major banks will cash Canadian checks and automatically apply the conversion rate. Because, as Jerry says, it's essentially 1:1 right now, conversion shouldn't make much of a difference.

[Auroni]

Major banks will cash Canadian checks and automatically apply the conversion rate. Because, as Jerry says, it's essentially 1:1 right now, conversion shouldn't make much of a difference.

You should be aware that some banks will charge a fee for depositing foreign checks (which I paid out of pocket when handling the money from MAGNI last year).

[theMoMA]

My bank doesn't, so if there's an issue with it, have the check made out to me and I can send a real-money check to you. This goes for anyone who's hosting mirror tournaments in Canada, as long as I have some advance notice (obviously). (And it can be a work-around for the ACF system this year if Jerry's bank has fees for Canadian checks.)

[minusfive]

So, for now, should Canadian teams wait for a clarification, or plan to send to the same address as everyone else?

[grapesmoker]

So, for now, should Canadian teams wait for a clarification, or plan to send to the same address as everyone else?

Let's go with the current plan for all. If something changes, I'll let you know.

[Cheynem]

This may be obvious but what with Jerry's constant exhortations for teams to register, perhaps if a team contacts the TD of a site to register, that TD can provide them with the link to the registration right then and there. Sorry if this is in fact so obvious that TD's are doing it, but I wonder how many teams just don't check these boards enough to really pick up on Jerry's exhortations.

[grapesmoker]

This may be obvious but what with Jerry's constant exhortations for teams to register, perhaps if a team contacts the TD of a site to register, that TD can provide them with the link to the registration right then and there. Sorry if this is in fact so obvious that TD's are doing it, but I wonder how many teams just don't check these boards enough to really pick up on Jerry's exhortations.

I endorse this product and/or service. I do hope that TD's have been doing so, but if they have not, they ought to.

[grapesmoker]

Important update regarding the payment schedule!

A lot of teams have emailed me asking about the late payment penalties; some teams have glacially slow financial offices, others are new teams trying to get their squads together, and so on. In light of a lot of the questions I have received, and in view of the fact that this is a new system and we're all navigating this for the first time (myself included), I'm suspending any late payment penalties for ACF Fall, provided that teams are making a good-faith effort to pay us on time. So far, I haven't had any reason to assume that anyone is not making such an effort, which is delightful. Penalties still can and will be enforced for teams who are obviously trying to welch on paying, however (again, the set of such teams is currently equivalent to the empty set and I hope it remains thus).

[tiwonge]

Hosts will report any day-of changes that affect the payment amount. Except in special circumstances to be determined by the treasurer, teams must register all buzzers, staffers, etc. before the tournament to receive a discount. In short, you cannot receive an extra discount for bringing more buzzers or staffers than you registered. If you bring fewer buzzers, staffers, etc. than you registered, the tournament director will contact ACF and you will owe an additional fee.

Will hosts get a summary of what teams are expected to bring (or what they said they'd bring) so we can note changes?

Also, is there any chance of getting a PayPal account at some point (or some other way to do an electronic payment)? I don't know how feasible it would be to arrange for this, or if people would use it.

[grapesmoker]

Will hosts get a summary of what teams are expected to bring (or what they said they'd bring) so we can note changes?

Yes, absolutely. All hosts will receive this information no later than this coming Sunday.

Also, is there any chance of getting a PayPal account at some point (or some other way to do an electronic payment)? I don't know how feasible it would be to arrange for this, or if people would use it.

We're working on that. I don't know if we'll go with PayPal or something similar, but by the time Regionals rolls around we will have an independent ACF account set up and hopefully be able to accept electronic payments.

[Unicolored Jay]

On the registration page, who should the team contact be, preferably? An officer of the club, or someone actually attending the tournament?

[grapesmoker]

On the registration page, who should the team contact be, preferably? An officer of the club, or someone actually attending the tournament?

It should be whoever you want to receive official communication from ACF. This doesn't matter a great deal to us, but if you have someone who is, say, responsible for handling your club's finances, then maybe you want that person to be the contact since they will be getting the invoice from me. But again, it's whatever is most convenient for you.

[grapesmoker]

I am pleased to say that trophies have been ordered and will ship tomorrow. I anticipate that by tomorrow evening I will have the tracking numbers in hand, which I will email to the hosts. Claremont and Boise should expect to receive their trophies on Friday; everyone else's will arrive sooner, though time of shipment varies from between 2 and 4 days depending on weather conditions and the like.

[Adventure Temple Trail]

Suggestion for the future: Is it possible for ACF to display a full list of teams that filled out the registration form for all sites on its webpage? It seems like that kind of thing that could be done by script, and would be an easier way for hosts and teams to check who's "actually" registered.

[Susan]

Suggestion for the future: Is it possible for ACF to display a full list of teams that filled out the registration form for all sites on its webpage? It seems like that kind of thing that could be done by script, and would be an easier way for hosts and teams to check who's "actually" registered.

This, or something that accomplishes the same goal, has occurred to me too and is definitely something I'd like us to do moving forward.

[grapesmoker]

Suggestion for the future: Is it possible for ACF to display a full list of teams that filled out the registration form for all sites on its webpage? It seems like that kind of thing that could be done by script, and would be an easier way for hosts and teams to check who's "actually" registered.

Yeah, this would be nice to have and after Fall is over I'll work on it. I'm not entirely sure whether the way we've got it set up right now lends itself to automating such a process.

[grapesmoker]

Hosts, trophies should be arriving at your doorstep today or tomorrow. Please shoot me an email letting me know you got them when they do.