Website concerns that I need advice on

[EddieWalker]

Welcome

This is the website for a club that my wife and I belong to that helps out the breed of dogs that we show with AKC. It's a registered charity that holds events a few times a year and then sends checks to different groups and people that are doing good things for Akita's in need.

Over the years the Board of Directors has lost track of what was happening to the money. Mostly it was just accepted the everyone was honest and did what was best for the breed. Last year my wife and another member started to audit the expenses and they found some issues.

The person running the website has not provided any receipts or invoices on what the website costs or who it is with. Today she tried to take $250 out of the PayPal account to reimburse herself for the website. She does this every year. 2017, 2018, and now 2019. After telling her that she no longer has access to the PayPal account and that she has to submit an invoice to be reimbursed for her out of pocket expense on the website, she emailed a copy of a picture of a Paypal bill that she paid for the hotakitaclub registration for 2019-2021, which is for two years. This raised more red flags and we're wondering why she has been paying this every year if it's supposed to be for two years?

How do you find out who owns the website and what they charge for it? Or what a normal fee would be for such a simple website that really doesn't do anything?

 

[5030]

Whois.com - Domain Names & Identity for Everyone

I'm on there as well. You can look me up if you want....Flipmeisters Specialty Products

 

[Diggin It]

Domain Information
Domain:
hotakitaclub.com
Registrar:
PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com
Registered On:
2015-09-05
Expires On:
2020-09-05
Updated On:
2019-09-01
Status:
clientTransferProhibited
Name Servers:
ns1.thecloudwebsiteserver.com
ns2.thecloudwebsiteserver.net
ns3.thecloudwebsiteserver.org
Registrant Contact
Name:
Domain Admin
Organization:
Privacy Protect, LLC (PrivacyProtect.org)
Street:
10 Corporate Drive
City:
Burlington
State:
MA
Postal Code:
01803
Country:
US
Phone:
+1.8022274003
Email:
email@privacyprotect.org

 

[RNeumann]

I love the assumption of guilt. She runs it.......at the next meeting have the treasure ask to see the site that charges the funds. The history should be fairly clear from there. Direct communication is always best.

Every board member has the same fiduciary responsibility. So a lack of accounting for several years doesn’t suddenly get pushed onto one person- everyone shares the blame for this.

Sounds like a bunch of rats on a sinking ship.

 

[EddieWalker]

I love the assumption of guilt. She runs it.......at the next meeting have the treasure ask to see the site that charges the funds. The history should be fairly clear from there. Direct communication is always best.

Every board member has the same fiduciary responsibility. So a lack of accounting for several years doesn’t suddenly get pushed onto one person- everyone shares the blame for this.

Sounds like a bunch of rats on a sinking ship.

Why do you think that I'm assuming anything? We have a long list of things that she has spent money on that have nothing to do with helping out Akita's.

Since I do not understand websites, I was hoping for advice on how to figure out what one should cost. Does $250 per year sound right? Does the copy of the PayPal bill that says the payment is for two years sound right? and why has she spent this amount in 2017 and 2018 if it's an every other year?

Our concern is that she is also running a website for her personal kennel and using the funds from the Akita Rescue to pay for her personal stuff.

We are just starting to try and figure out what is going on with the website. She was blocked from access to the Paypal account because she has not produced receipts or a reason for spending $400 on custom collars and leads for dogs under 20 pounds. My female Akita weighs 92 pounds and my male is 110 and growing. We are also waiting for a receipt or invoice on why she spent $600 on aquarium supplies. So far, we cannot figure out that one.

Not sure why you consider us "rats" on a sinking ship? We did manage to donate over $2,000 to a variety of shelters the first half of this year, so we're not big time or anything like that, but maybe we'll get better and no longer be considered "rats" by some.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

$250 yr for website could be ok, could be too much. It depends on level of service. Are they hosting email or other services?

 

[aczlan]

$250 yr for website could be ok, could be too much. It depends on level of service. Are they hosting email or other services?

Exactly, in many cases if you sign up for paid web hosting, they will pay for your domain so the length of time that the domain is registered for is not necessarily an indication of how much it is costing each year for domain registration.
If you're doing web hosting and email and some background services to have interactive pieces on the site and an easy path to program with interface, $250 a year is not unreasonable for web hosting.

Aaron Z

 

[ovrszd]

Eddie, you guys have already lost faith in her. Thrre's no recovery from this. Replace her if you have the authority.

 

[Diggin It]

I pay about $70 including the domain name.

One thing I noticed is some conflicting information on the registrar in the WhoIs file. I saw something about $35/year for a .com which is ridiculous when most are $10 or less. But then they also said they don't sell to individuals, so I got confused.

I wasn't able to ID the webhost though to see what their published rates are.

 

[sdquick]

One idea for the future is that some of the organizations that I belong to send out (or make available) to members the meeting notes which INCLUDE all expenses (and financial transactions) that have occurred since the last meeting. They are presented and approved (or not) at that meeting and that information is included in the notes. The "public" record of the finances helps keep everything above board and keeps everyone aware of the money. Keep up the good work!

 

[om21braz]

Eddie,
Maybe this link will be of value to you:

Charity Navigator - Your Guide To Intelligent Giving | Home

 

[Dftodd]

Domain Information
Domain:
hotakitaclub.com
Registrar:
PDR Ltd. d/b/a PublicDomainRegistry.com
Registered On:
2015-09-05
Expires On:
2020-09-05
Updated On:
2019-09-01
Status:
clientTransferProhibited
Name Servers:
ns1.thecloudwebsiteserver.com
ns2.thecloudwebsiteserver.net
ns3.thecloudwebsiteserver.org
Registrant Contact
Name:
Domain Admin
Organization:
Privacy Protect, LLC (PrivacyProtect.org)
Street:
10 Corporate Drive
City:
Burlington
State:
MA
Postal Code:
01803
Country:
US
Phone:
+1.8022274003
Email:
email@privacyprotect.org

Why is it listed as being in Massachusetts, with a Vermont phone number? I recognized the area code.

 

[aczlan]

Why is it listed as being in Massachusetts, with a Vermont phone number? I recognized the area code.

It's probably a VOIP number, it's a privacy service that fowards calls or problem reports for the domain to the domain owner without having to publish a live email address and phone number to get spammed.

Aaron Z

 

[ovrszd]

It's probably a VOIP number, it's a privacy service that fowards calls or problem reports for the domain to the domain owner without having to publish a live email address and phone number to get spammed.

Aaron Z

So it might actually be in India?

 

[Dftodd]

It's probably a VOIP number, it's a privacy service that fowards calls or problem reports for the domain to the domain owner without having to publish a live email address and phone number to get spammed.

Aaron Z

Gotcha, that makes sense. I'm not much up on the techy stuff.

 

[RNeumann]

That provides some clarity. It sounded like she was on the board and some folks don’t like what she has done so they were snooping around behind her back. This is an approach that I would disagree with. If their are issues with her actions a group email explaining what everyone would like to see (documents, receipts etc) would be above board. Include a meeting date and have her produce the documents etc. She may be a bit defensive but at least not blind sided by a sneak attach. The whole board owns this. “I wasn’t watching her” is an excuse for a month, not several years. Your treasure can hopefully help. The rats comment was in relation to pointing blame instead of owning blame. You indicated that for several years it’s been ran loosely....at best. Probably not to the By-laws and certainly not to the fiduciary responsibility of the board. Now that some irregularities may have popped up (some maybe have gone on for several years) it seems the finger pointing is starting. My point is the whole board owns this. The board is dealing with a group and money. The board was elected or appointed to provide over-site and direction. It sounds like neither was happening- dog collars for small dogs, website etc. It may be time for a bylaw refresher and possible bylaw overhaul.

As far as website costs- it’s hard to say without being in the back end. Their are basic hosting services that are less. But their are services that provide a lot of user info that would cost a lot more. SEO, email and analytics can drive cost- does the club have custom emails- eddie@mydogisawesome.com? I think our little business website (no online sales) with some basic analytics is about $240/year? We also have a basic server that has a back of house project management- it’s basically a mini website. We pay about $120/year for it. To me, $250 for 2 years is a deal.

 

[Diggin It]

To me, $250 for 2 years is a deal.

That's part of the problem. They haven't see billing statements from the webhosting company to know if it's $250 for one year or two. If it's supposed to be for two years and she's 'collecting' that each year, where is the other $125 going?

 

[aczlan]

So it might actually be in India?

Stranger things have happened...

Aaron Z

 

[/pine]

If the site is on a leased server and not a "shared" server...$250 is low for hosting about 3-4 times that plus bandwidth is more like it...domain registration is about $39 through netsol (cheaper through a 3rd party creditor) if it's ownership is protected it's another $10.00.
...shared hosting can be had for as little as $6-$8/ month with full services like MySQL server, PHP, Ruby, etc., etc... also unlimited e-mail proxies...

A leased server usually requires a NIX administrator or there is additional costs for administrative services (not cheap)...

 

[EddieWalker]

Thank you everyone. The board took a vote last night by phone and decided to reimburse her immediately. My wife is in charge of re writing the bylaws and the biggest change is going to be accounting for the money. From what you have said, it sounds like the $250 isn't too far off on what it should cost for a website. In the next month or two, somebody else will be taking that over and we will have more accurate information on what that costs are.