Answer: The preferred method is to enter this information online through the Member Management program. Please include apartment or building numbers, where applicable.

 

Answer: Contact Customer Service at (800) 524-3611. They will set you up with a user ID and temporary password.

 

Answer: Previous issues of Columbia may have been “undeliverable,” resulting in a restriction on future mailings. If not, it may be a local postal issue. If restricted, verify the address and notify the Membership Records Department of any changes so that the restriction can be removed. Then request back issues of Columbia by contacting either Membership Records or Columbia magazine.

 

 

Answer: We receive a listing monthly from the Postal Service of those members who have reported an address change. Under certain conditions, family members with the same prior address are changed as well. If you notice that an address has been changed in error, please report it to us as soon as possible.

 

Answer: If the financial secretary of record is resigning, he should submit a letter of resignation addressed to the Supreme Knight. If the grand knight and trustees do not wish the financial secretary to be reappointed, they should so indicate on the Evaluation Form #1938. Upon receipt of the resignation letter or the evaluation form not recommending reappointment, the Supreme Council office will provide the grand knight with a Nomination Form #103 (to be completed by the grand knight and trustees) and Application Forms #101 (to be completed by the prospective candidates).

 

Answer: The Evaluation Form #1938 advises the Supreme Knight of how effectively the financial secretary is performing his duties. Completed near the end of the financial secretary’s three-year term, this form allows for the grand knight and trustees to recommend/not recommend reappointment.

 

Answer: Not necessarily. The Evaluation Form #1938 gives the grand knight and trustees the opportunity to either recommend or not recommend reappointment. If reappointment is recommended, a letter of reappointment will be forwarded to the financial secretary. If the form is not received within 120 days following completion of the financial secretary’s term of office, he will be reappointed automatically.

 

Answer: To confirm that he is leaving office of his own accord. If, after 120 days from the conclusion of his term, a (1) letter of resignation or (2) an evaluation form not recommending reappointment has not been received, the financial secretary will be reappointed automatically.

 

Answer: No. A letter of resignation from the financial secretary addressed to the Supreme Knight should be forwarded to the Financial Secretary Appointments Division.

 

Answer: Bonding in the amount of $5,000 is provided for financial secretaries upon appointment. Treasurers are covered upon receipt of an Officer Report #185. Bonding is on the position, not the person.

 

Answer: Yes. The charge for additional bonding is $7.00 per thousand of additional insurance. A written request for additional coverage must be made to the Supreme Secretary’s office. The charge for the additional insurance will appear on the next council billing statement and will be prorated as necessary. Bonding begins on March 1 and runs through the end of February.

 

Answer: Yes. Bonding on the financial secretary and treasurer is limited to $125,000 of total coverage per council, including the provided $5,000 of coverage on each officer.

 

Answer: Claims for bonding coverage are made to the Legal Department who investigates the request and subsequently pays the claim, if deemed appropriate. In order for the bond to be in effect, the past two semiannual Council Audits #1295 must be on file at the Supreme Council office.

 

Answer: Within the council the financial secretary cannot serve in another elected office. There are no limits, however, to his serving in another elected office outside of the council.

 

Answer: No. The retention committee should include the grand knight, chairman ex officio; membership director; retention chairman; trustees; and proposer, if available.

 

Answer: The Request for Taxpayer Identification Number must be on file in the Supreme Council office in order to receive the financial secretary compensation paid by the Supreme Council. Money paid under this compensation program is reported to the Internal Revenue Service. Those financial secretaries who receive payments in excess of $599.99 will receive a 1099-Misc.

 

Answer: From the Supreme Council, paid annually at the end of each calendar year… forty cents for each life insurance certificate registered through the council. From the local council… an amount equal to not less than eight percent and not more than ten percent (as stated in the council by-laws) of moneys collected for dues only. The financial secretary is free to waive this compensation at his discretion.

 

Answer: At the October 1991 meeting of the Board of Directors, it was voted that new college councils may not be instituted unless a member of the faculty or staff of the school or a permanent member of the local community has agreed to serve in the position of financial secretary. It was further voted that this regulation should also apply to financial secretary reappointments in all college councils. The reason for this regulation is to provide both a consistent point of contact for the state council and the Supreme Council, and to provide the college council with a consistent campus presence. That helps ensure that the council won’t have to “start from scratch” at the beginning of a school year if most or all of the student officers have graduated.

 

Answer: No. Only a state, district or territorial deputy may declare any office in a subordinate council vacant, and only in cases where the officer fails or refuses to perform the duties of his office.

 

Answer: Currently, supplies cannot be ordered online. The Requisition Form #1 should be completed and forwarded by mail or fax to the Supply Department.

 

Answer:

• Current member Form 100s (new members, reentry transactions for members who did not join through your council originally): 7 years
• Current member Form 100s (all except above and data changes): 3 years
• Current member Form 100s (data changes): verify processing at the Supreme Council office, then destroy
• Former member Form 100s (all transactions): verify processing at the Supreme Council office, then destroy
• Correspondence and accounting records: 3 years
• In all cases, tax ID numbers—including the last four digits—must be obliterated.

 

Answer: When a member is transferring from one council to another, the Form 100 must be filed by the council into which the member is transferring. A member cannot be transferred out of a council.

 

Answer: Signature requirements vary by transaction. Please refer to the chart on page 61 of this Handbook.

 

Answer: A transfer cannot be processed until a Form 100 is submitted by the new council. Prior to that time, the member remains in his former council and dues assessments continue to accrue.

 

Answer: Not if he can satisfy the admission committee to that effect. A former member should never be challenged openly regarding what degree he has attained. If there is any doubt on the part of the admission committee, it should be suggested that the member attend the degree(s) to become familiar with the changes that have been made since he received his degrees. In so doing, he is receiving the degrees by observation.

 

Answer: The procedure is the same for any council officer, with the exception of the financial secretary, who is appointed by the Supreme Knight. You can complete a new Officer Report Form 185, including only the information for the position(s) being changed. On the form, be sure to indicate the effective date of the change. The recommended and most convenient method is to report any changes via the online Member Management application.

 

Answer: Both distinctions require 25 consecutive years of service any time during the member’s tenure. Thus, the 25 consecutive years can be amassed before a break in service or after. Please remember that automatic awards will only be issued based on consecutive years since the last break in service. The age requirement for the honorary distinction is 65 years; the honorary life requirement is 70 years. Honorary life is also awarded to those members who have amassed 50 years of consecutive service, regardless of age. The honorary life distinction is awarded to all priests and religious brothers upon receiving the First Degree of the Order.

 

Answer: This situation arises when an applicant purchases insurance under the 90-day membership exclusion and your council number is listed on the insurance application. Under this exclusion the applicant has 90 days in which to join the Knights of Columbus or risk cancellation of any insurance coverage. Thus, when you receive a copy of one of these letters – whether the original was sent to the writing insurance agent or to the applicant – we are asking your cooperation in seeing that a Form 100 Membership Document is forwarded to our office reporting his initiation as soon as possible and within the 90-day period. If the applicant has not received his degree, we would ask that you contact him and the writing agent as soon as possible to arrange for him to receive the First Degree.

 

Answer: Rosters on the Order’s website at www.kofc.org are updated weekly and can be accessed by financial secretaries or grand knights. In addition to the current rosters, rosters dated January 1 and July 1 are also available for audit purposes.

 

Answer: In the past the fraternal system did not support storing Second and Third Degree dates. This information was normally retained by the local council. While we now have the capability to store all degree dates, many have never been provided to us. If degree information is known, it should be reported to the Supreme Council office. The easiest way to do so is to update those fields using the online Member Management application. If an exact date is unavailable, simply report “yes.”

 

Answer: New members and re-entries are counted as gains; suspensions and withdrawals are counted as losses. Deaths are not quota losses, and transfers in or out do not count for or against the quotas.

 

Answer: You must make a good-faith attempt to contact the member, including filing the Form 1845 Notice of Intent to Suspend, as filing that form initiates state council retention efforts. If attempts to contact fail, you can submit a Form 100 for suspension with a notation “unable to contact” listed as the reason.

 

Answer: While some decisions regarding withdrawal requests are subjective, the Supreme Council office must be convinced that the member – not the council – initiated the request.

 

Answer: If membership numbers and/or degree dates are not available at the time of application, you can submit the Form 100 without them. Simply include on the form what information you have available. In the case of transfer, this information will usually be provided by us or the former council on the Transfer Account Adjustment Form 142. If not – and in the case of reentries – check the council roster on the Order’s website. Web-based rosters are updated weekly.

 

Answer: The member has re-entered the Knights of Columbus through another council. That council was responsible for collecting the re-entry fee, which is passed along to your council by the credit appearing on your monthly statement.

 

Answer: Inactive members are insurance members in an exit status, either by suspension or withdrawal, and thus are no longer in good standing in the Order. However, because they have in-force Knights of Columbus insurance, they are retained on your rolls to satisfy the requirements mandated by the insurance commissioners in the various jurisdictions we serve. Inactive members are subject to Supreme and state-levied assessments. To help offset these assessments, we credit your account $9.00 annually for each. The inactive member will remain in that status until such time as he reactivates his membership in yours or another council or he is no longer insured under a Knights of Columbus policy.

 

Answer: Full definitions for these four re-entry transactions are found on page 49 of this handbook. However, when reporting a re-entry transaction to the Supreme Council office, the financial secretary shouldn’t be overly concerned with which transaction is appropriate, as the member’s master record at the Supreme Council office shows how he left and how long he has been out of the Order. The system then determines the proper transaction. Just be certain to mark “reinstatement” if the member has paid all arrearages and is entitled to continuous service.

 

Answer: Following processing of a transfer application submitted by the new or receiving council, a “dues adjustment” Form 142 is sent to the former council’s financial secretary, who must enter the amount of his council’s annual dues, the date to which dues were paid and the credit or past due balance amount. The balance is to be calculated as of the last day of the month of transfer as indicated on the Form 142 in the upper right-hand corner. If degree information is missing, the financial secretary should add those dates or the word “yes” in each applicable field. He retains the former council copy and returns the remaining copies to New Haven.

 

Answer: The full date of death is necessary for us to process a death transaction. In the United States you can visit the RootsWeb.com site on the Internet and click on social security death index. It is free and the social security number is not required to search. Similar websites are available in other countries. Use your favorite search engine to locate one.

 

Answer: While deacons are certainly recognized by the Order as belonging to religious communities, the original intent of awarding honorary life to priests was to compensate for the meager salaries common to the priesthood. Normally, permanent deacons are employed full time in other than a religious vocation and with higher compensation. Thus, permanent deacons are only eligible for the honorary and honorary life distinctions upon satisfying the normal age/years of service requirements.

 

Answer: Councils use different accounting systems: the PegBoard or other manual system, the online member management/billing application, the PC-based FSPC software program or another locally developed spreadsheet application. These can require different card formats. Since errors, multiple issues and replacement cards can occur under any system, it is difficult to project the number of blank cards per council. Councils are also expected to recruit new members, adding to the potential count. Thus, the financial secretary is in a better position to estimate the proper number of cards needed.

 

Answer: The ordinary procedure for authorizing the expenditure of council funds is a vote of the members present at a regular business meeting. Section 122(b) of the Laws of the Knights of Columbus, also known as “the $500 Rule,” is intended to ensure that major council expenditures are authorized by the members.

 

Answer: Member Management: Grand knights and financial secretaries have access to council information; faithful navigators and faithful comptrollers have access to assembly information. Member Billing: Only financial secretaries have access to council information and faithful comptrollers to assembly information.

 

Answer: Currently, all transactions except data changes, deaths and officers chosen for the term require submission of a paper form.

 

Answer: Any membership document processed by the Membership Records Department during a given work week will be added to the Member Management/Billing database on the following Tuesday.

 

Answer: Changes reported through Member Management are not entered directly into the client/member record. They must be rekeyed by clerks in Membership Records. Member Management rosters are updated on Tuesdays.

 

Answer: Due to database constraints, search results in Member Management and Member Billing will not return a list of all of your members on one screen. You can view all of the members’ last names that start with a particular letter by placing that letter followed by an asterisk in the search box.

 

Answer: To assess a new member in your council, you must make adjustment(s) on the member ledger. The first adjustment will be the type “Dues Assessment.” For new members, an additional adjustment is required for “Initiation Fee.”

 

Answer: You will need to use the Data Extract Tool in the Member Management Print Center to create a spread sheet and then create a merge document to generate the envelopes.

 

Answer: Our recommendation is to set the “Page Scaling” option in the Adobe Print dialogue box to the “Shrink Large Pages” setting. Print a test page and then adjust the “Page Scaling” until you find a setting that works for you. For membership cards, some users report setting the page scaling to “Shrink to Printable Area” and then trimming 1/4 inch off the top of the card. Printers handle files differently. We know of no way to overcome every print issue.

 

Answer: In Member Billing under Member Information there is a Transfers section, which allows you to search using the Transferred Member Ledger. This screen provides the information needed to complete the Transfer Account Adjustment form and allows for clearing any outstanding balances.

 

Answer: When a member transfers in, only Member Management information on the member will be available to the new council/assembly. No member billing information is viewable.

 

Answer: The application will not give you the opportunity to view each individual member bill prior to processing the “Pending Assessments.” To assure that the assessments will process correctly, after you have generated the assessment (Clicking on the “Assess Dues” button in the council/assembly dues process or the “Assess Other” button in the Special/Miscellaneous process) you should review the amounts on the “Pending Assessments” screen (Council Ledger/Assessments/Pending Assessments or Assembly Ledger/Assessments/Pending Assessments). If the total properly reflects the amount to be billed (and adjusted), click on the “Process Assessments” button. If for some reason a member’s bill is wrong, an adjustment can be made on the member’s ledger.

 

Answer: You must go to each Member’s Ledger and void the incorrect transaction. Make sure you choose the correct assessment if there is more than one listed on the member’s ledger. Once all of these assessment transactions are voided, go into the Assessments screen and assess dues for the proper billing period.

 

Answer: Since assessments cannot be edited, the only way to change an assessment is to delete it while it is still a “Pending Assessment” and then re-enter it. Once an assessment has been posted/processed, the only way to change it is to void the assessment on each Member’s Ledger and then re-enter it as a voluntary assessment.

 

Answer: Make sure you have processed your pending assessment and/or clicked the “Update Status” button. Refer to the “Pending Assessments” page in the “Council Ledger/Assessments” or “Assembly Ledger/Assessments” section. The Member Billing landing page (“Council Ledger” or “Assembly Ledger”) also has any pending transactions indicated near the bottom of the page.

 

Answer: For each membership card you wish to print, set the Billing Status (on the top of the Member Ledger page) to “Dues are Current” and set the “As of” date to an arbitrary value (such as 12-02-2008). When you print membership cards, select the tab that says “All Members Whose Dues are Current” (instead of the default “By Member Type.”) Set the “Show from” and “to” dates as 12-02-2008 (your arbitrary date) and click on the “Print Cards” button. Be sure to reset the “Billing Status” and “as of” values when completed. There is a future plan to allow the printing of individual membership cards via the Member’s Ledger.

 

Answer: As of right now, there is no way to import data, such as phone numbers and email addresses, into the Member Management/Billing application. All data must be brought in manually.

 

Answer: Currently, support is being provided, but there will be no new releases. Councils using FSPC are encouraged to transition to Member Management/Member Billing at their convenience. In the meantime, you can continue to use FSPC, with or without our support.