Record a loan from a member

Record a loan from a member

Sooner or later a member puts their own money in. A float so the account can meet the hangarage before the monthlies land, or cash fronted for a bill the syndicate cannot cover this week. That is a loan, and Syndik8 records it as a credit on the member’s balance, marked as a loan so a treasurer can pick it out later.

The money comes back as flying, or as a payout. A loan puts the member’s balance in credit. Like any credit, it is used on their charges when they choose it at Pay, when you use it for them, or automatically by their Direct Debit. If the syndicate pays the money back instead, record that with Mark as paid out on the loan’s row; see Use or pay out a member’s credit.

Before you start

• You must be an admin (a treasurer needs the admin role).
• You must be online. A loan writes to the financial ledger.
• Know the amount. It goes on as a credit at exactly the figure you enter.
• This is not an expense claim. If the member paid a syndicate bill from their own pocket — an invoice from the engineer, a fuel card, an insurance renewal — that is an expense. Expenses carry a receipt and an approval trail, and credit the member on approval. Use a loan only for money lent, where no cost was incurred on the syndicate’s behalf.

Steps

1. Open the syndicate and go to Members.
2. Tap the member’s row to open their drilldown, then Record a payment to open their charges. Route: /syndicates/:syndicateId/members/:membershipId/charges.
3. Tap Add ledger entry in the top bar. It is there whether or not the member currently owes anything.
4. Choose Loan.
5. Read the note that appears. It says what recording a loan does and, as importantly, what it does not do: there is no repayment to schedule.
6. Enter the amount the member lent, as a positive figure.
7. Enter a reason — this is what appears on the ledger row, so make it something the member will recognise a year from now. Float towards the annual is better than loan.
8. Tap Record loan.

A tap outside the dialog doesn’t close it, so a stray tap can’t lose what you’ve typed. Use Cancel to leave without recording anything.

The credit lands on the member’s balance immediately. Their next collection, whether a Direct Debit or a payment you record by hand, is smaller by that amount.

Recording a loan you made yourself

Admins lend the syndicate money too. To record your own loan, open Members, tap your own row, and in the Balance section tap Add ledger entry. Then follow the steps above from step 4. The same dialog records a charge or a credit on your own balance.

Your own page has no Record a payment: to settle your own charges, use Mark Paid on My Balance, as Record a payment from a member explains.

The other admins are told. Whenever an admin changes their own balance (a loan, charge or credit from this dialog, a charge, credit, waiver or new charge on one of their own finalised bookings, approving their own expense claim, or marking their own charges paid), every other admin of the syndicate gets an Admin Changed Own Balance notification naming you, what you recorded and the amount, with your reason: for example Sam recorded a loan of £2,000.00 on their own balance. Reason: Float towards the annual. Tapping it opens your member page. You are not sent a copy, and if you are the syndicate’s only admin nobody is. See Notification types.

On the member’s charges screen the loan is listed with their charges, marked Loan. It is not taken off the Outstanding total at the top, which counts their unpaid charges only. Instead a line under the total names the credit, for example Sam has £2,000.00 credit they can use., and it is spent only when you or they choose to use it.

What the member sees

On their own balance screen the loan appears as a row named Loan, with its own icon, carrying the reason you entered and a negative amount. Their balance is lower by it, and it is used like any other credit: when they choose it at Pay or Pay All, or automatically by a Direct Debit collection. A loan differs from other credit only in what it is called.

The same dialog does two other things

Add ledger entry also records:

• a Charge — an extra debit on the member, outside the normal finalisation flow; and
• a Credit — a credit on the member’s account, where you are correcting a figure rather than recording money lent. They can use it towards what they owe (Direct Debit uses it automatically); it is not paid back to their bank.

Both write a manual adjustment. Pick the one that describes what happened: the type is what a future treasurer reads, and the reason box will not be read as carefully as you would hope.

A finalised booking’s detail screen has its own Add charge or credit, with Charge and Credit but no loan — a loan has no flight behind it, so it is never filed under one.

If it goes wrong

• “Couldn’t reach Syndik8, so the loan wasn’t recorded.” The device has no connection to Syndik8. Recording a loan is online-only, so nothing was written; try again when you are back online.
• “Syndik8 didn’t confirm the loan.” No answer arrived within about 20 seconds, or the connection dropped after the request had gone out, so the app cannot tell whether the loan was recorded. It is safe to press Record loan again without closing the form, even after changing the amount or the reason: the form is recognised as the same loan for as long as it stays open, so it is never recorded twice. Close the form and start again, though, and it counts as a new loan, so check the member’s balance before doing that.
• “An earlier version of this loan was already recorded, so your changes weren’t.” The first attempt did land, and you changed the loan before trying again. The loan stays on the member’s balance as you first entered it, and nothing more was recorded. To correct it, close the form and record a separate entry for the difference, as below.
• “Syndik8 turned the loan down, so it wasn’t recorded.” The server refused it, most often because you are not an admin of this syndicate.
• “This syndicate is closed and read-only.” or “This syndicate is over its free plan and is read-only.”: the syndicate’s ledger is frozen, admins included, and nothing was written. Where the app could not tell in advance, the same refusal arrives from the server as “Failed to record the loan: …” instead.

A charge or credit from the same dialog fails with the same messages, naming the adjustment rather than the loan.

• You recorded the wrong amount. The ledger is append-only, so there is nothing to edit. Post a Charge for the difference, with a reason naming the loan it corrects.
• You recorded a loan that should have been an expense. Post a Charge cancelling it, with a reason saying so, then have the member submit the expense properly so the receipt and the approval are on the record.

See also

• Transaction types: every kind of ledger entry and how each affects a balance
• Member balance: which transactions count toward the current balance, and when
• Record a payment from a member: logging money that came in
• Approve an expense: the route for a cost the member incurred on the syndicate’s behalf