Finances: Bank Accounts
As a best practice we encourage alumni groups with $10,000 or more in your group’s local bank account to send in excess funds to be deposited in your group’s current use fund or endowment account. By depositing money in your group’s endowment or scholarship accounts, it will allow you to award more funds to current Buckeye students. We know that some groups may need to have more than $10,000 due to a large event budget, but idle funds in excess of $10,000 that are not being used for events should still be sent to your endowment or scholarship accounts so that we can help you award students. We thank you and your members for all the work that you do to support Ohio State students, and look forward to helping you award these funds.
Expectations to follow in regards to bank accounts:
- Transition to electronic record keeping.
- Two signatures are required on each bank account and all financial transactions.
- Max of two local accounts (group checking account & group savings account) per alumni group.
- President & Treasurer have access to all banking documents.
- Weekly monitoring of all financial activities by President & Treasurer to ensure account accuracy.
- Monthly bank statements should be sent from the bank directly to office in addition to the Treasurer, preferably the club President. (This officer should review the statement, canceled checks and deposits for accuracy and appropriate use of funds). Email is an acceptable delivery method, but should be directly from the bank.
- Provide copies of banking statements to the executive board at meetings. Utilize “banking alerts” for transactions over $x dollars. The group needs to decide what “x” is because it will likely be different for each group.
Expectations for opening a bank account:
- Our alumni groups should be opening bank accounts with Business banking rather than personal checking. Business banking accounts are made only with a group and not an individual. This is helpful with alumni group leadership transitions.
- Ensure the name of the account matches the alumni group name on the constitution.
- Alumni groups need to establish EIN numbers (please see Taxes page for more information). Once a group has an EIN number, please share with your OSUAA contact.
- There is no preferred bank. Please note that Huntington Bank is The Official Consumer Bank of The Ohio State University. Visit huntington.com/osu to learn more.
- Ensure the bank can deposit US dollars.
- Each bank may vary on documentation required in setting up accounts. Most commonly used documents are the group’s constitution and charter. Please contact your OSUAA contact if you need these documents.
- If an alumni group changes banks, please update your OSUAA contact. Submit a new direct deposit form which can be found here.