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Managing Container Deposits

12/5/2013

 
A reusable box is great way to create a communal experience for your share members and encourages environment-friendly practices.  Coolers are also a great way to expand offerings to your members beyond produce.  But these containers cost money!

The Membership Fee is a helpful tool for asking members to make a deposit on these fun containers.  Read more below for tips on setting up the Membership Fee and then refunding the deposits.

Setting up the Membership Fee

If you set up a membership fee, a member is only charged this fee once when signing up for your share.  The membership fee is specific to a pickup location or delivery zone.  If you want the membership fee to apply to all members who sign up, you will want to set it up for every location.
  1. Go to the Routes manager, found under the Status menu in your dashboard.
  2. Click on a route and then click on a location in order to open the location’s editor.
  3. Click on the “Advanced” tab from the dark blue band at the top of the location editor.
  4. Enter the Membership fee amount and save changes.

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You may want to consider explaining what this fee is for in the signup process by adding a comment to the location or adding it to the payment plan notes.
  • Adding a location comment:  Under the Info tab of the location editor, you may add a comment.  This comment will appear in the first step of the signup process next to the location listed.
  • Adding payment plan notes:  Email [email protected] with edits that you would like to make to your payment plan notes, which are presented in the Terms step of the signup process.  Please note that the notes may not be adjusted for all payment plan types.

Refunding the Container Deposit

When the member signs up and is charged the membership fee, a receive fee payment is added under the Payment tab of their member file.  This payment line indicates that the fee has been charged.

Now let’s say that it’s the end of the season or the member has canceled their subscription, you may record their deposit refund by taking the following steps under the Payment tab of the member file:
  1. Add an Internal payment with the status “Received” for the amount of their refund and save changes.  You may want to add a note that the payment is for a returned container.
  2. Add a Check or Cash payment (depending on how you deliver the refund) with the status “Refunded” for the amount of their refund and save changes.  You may want to add a note that the payment is for a returned container.

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Electronic Check Funding Schedule

11/22/2013

 
Electronic Checks are the preferred method of payment in Farmigo as they have the lowest transaction fees. Electronic Checks take 5-7 business days to process. Holidays will delay funding. 

Farmigo works with Check Gateway to manage electronic check payments. If your member's bank account has not rejected a payment within 4 days, Check Gateway sends our system a status of Received. Once a payment is marked as received in Farmigo, we stop reaching out to Check Gateway to check on the payment status. Most rejections occur within the first 3 days of processing, however, banks have up to 90 days to reject a payment. It is a rare occurrence, but it is possible that after a payment is marked as received in Farmigo, a bank can then go back and reject the payment. This is why we strongly advise you to compare your Check Gateway statements against your Payments Report in Farmigo. 

Below are example funding schedules for an Electronic Check Payment.

Member enters transaction before noon:
Day 1 - Enter transaction BEFORE 12 noon
Day 2 - Processing Day 1
Day 3 - Processing Day 2 
Day 4 - Processing Day 3 
Day 5 - Processing Day 4 (technically funds released at midnight)
Day 6 - Funds available

Member enters transaction after noon:
Day 1 - Enter transaction AFTER 12 noon
Day 2 - Considered day entered
Day 3 - Processing Day 1
Day 4 - Processing Day 2
Day 5 - Processing Day 3 
Day 6 - Processing Day 4 (technically funds released at midnight)
Day 7 - Funds available

How to Resolve Payment Issues

11/15/2013

 
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When reviewing your list of Subscriptions in the dashboard, you may see a symbol appear next to a member’s name that looks like an orange triangle with an exclamation mark in the middle (see image at left).  This is the Payment Issue symbol and it may appear for one of 2 reasons:
  1. An electronic payment was rejected
  2. A pending payment is past due
Read on to learn more about how to address each of these payment issues.

Read More

Farmigo Accounting Features Part III

8/23/2013

 
During the past 2 weeks, we have examined how revenue is recorded on an accrual basis and how this relates to member accounts.  This week’s tip reviews how member accounts list debits and credits and how the Accounting Reports summarize these debits and credits.

Member Accounts Receivable

You may view each member account as an Account Receivable.  The member’s balance indicates either how much is owed by a member for the season or how much credit a member has on account to go towards future deliveries depending on your balance view.

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Read More

Farmigo Accounting Features Part II

8/15/2013

 
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Last week’s Tip examined how revenue is recorded on an accrual basis in the Farmigo system.  This week’s Tip dives a little bit deeper and reviews how these principles are related to your members’ balances.

Your Farmigo system records revenue when it is earned in order to help you account for the way in which subscriptions are managed.  If you are accounting for a one time order, then things are pretty simple.  For instance, a customer orders an item for $5 and then pays for that item. When it comes to CSAs though, members commit to receive deliveries for a specific season or on a continual basis.  They are not placing a one-time order; they are subscribing to your program.

For subscription programs, you need to draw against that prepaid credit as the member receives each delivery.  In this case, you want to recognize payment when the goods are delivered since that is when the commitment for the "product" has been attained.

The scenarios outlined below examine how these principles are applied for a seasonal system and an ongoing system.  For help identifying how your system is set up, click here.

Read on to learn more.


Read More

Farmigo Accounting Features: Part I

8/9/2013

 
This week’s tip focus on how revenue is recorded in your Farmigo system.  The Farmigo system features accounting tools so that you may track your revenue on an accrual basis. This means that income is recorded when it is earned (learn more).  Revenue is considered earned once a member’s order is delivered and recorded as received.

Revenue is realized at the time of delivery in order to account for changes that may be made to a member’s subscription between the time that they place the original order and the time that they receive their order.

Read on to learn more. (Also, check out Part II & Part III)

Read More

The New Payments Report

6/7/2013

 
We have enhanced the Deposits Received report and renamed it the Payments report.  This new report will not only show you all the payments you have received (as the Deposits Received report already did) … It will also show you a summary of:
  • Pending payments that are past due or due in the future
  • Rejected payments
  • Complimentary payments
  • Fees
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Check out the new Payments report generator by going to the Reports manager, found under the Status menu in your administrative dashboard.  Read more below to learn about this new report.

Read More

Reduced PowerPay Rates for Farmigo Clients

5/24/2013

 
We've worked hard to negotiate with PowerPay to decrease your credit card processing fees. 


Lowering the transaction fee from 
$0.25+2.19% to $0.25 +2.09%

Lowering the Authorize.net Service Fee from 
$15/month to $10/month

If you are currently using PowerPay as your merchant to process credit cards, please contact our Powerpay representative Emily to request a reduction in your fees: 
207-228-6042 x 1859 


If you are not currently using PowerPay as your merchant, but would like to, click here for instructions on how to apply and for the online application. Your rates will automatically be set to the reduced rates.

Understanding What You've Earned

5/29/2012

 
One of the fundamental principles that a member agrees to when joining a CSA is that they are most likely paying in advance for their food.  Based on the principles of accrual accounting, the cash that you receive before you deliver your goods is considered unearned revenue.  Once you deliver your produce to your members, the value of that delivery is then recognized as earned or realized revenue.
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The Past Deliveries ($) report provides you with a monthly breakdown of earned revenue by Members, Producers, Locations and Items.  To learn more about the Past Deliveries ($) report, click here.

How does Farmigo charge for its services?

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Farmigo calculates its monthly service fee based on total earned revenue between the first and last day of the previous month.  This calculation includes subscriptions and web store orders.  We will send you an invoice for the past months deliveries between the 5th and 10th of the current month.  You will have one week to review your invoice before you are charged.

Where do members spend money?

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When you breakdown the report by Members, you will see how much revenue has been earned from a member's subscriptions versus web store orders.  To help you compare these figures, I recommend shading the values of web store orders blue; then sort the data by member names.  You will be able to see how much a member spends at the web store in relation to how much they spend on their subscription.

What trends can I identify?

When you generate breakdowns by Producers, Locations, or Items, you will be able to identify other interesting trends.  For example, perhaps you would like to understand which share generates the most revenue each month.  Generate the Past Deliveries ($) report, breakdown by Items.  Open the CSV file in a spreadsheet program, such as Microsoft Excel.  Delete the item rows that are not relevant, select the data, and insert a column or bar graph.  This will provide a clear visual of where you are earning the most revenue.
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For a snapshot of current trends related to your CSA, check out the Analytics listed under the Status menu in your Dashboard.
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What are some interesting trends that you have discovered?

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