Opening an Organization Bank Account:

Having a bank account for your organization is a good idea as it allows you to safely keep funds you raise through dues or other means and use funds for operational expenses.

To set up a bank account, you will need to make an appointment at Town Bank The appointment takes about an hour, and you cannot just walk in and do this.

All student organization accounts are considered commercial business accounts; they are non-personal accounts in other words. All non-personal accounts at any financial institution must have an EIN as the funds in the account are not owned by the users of the account.  An EIN can be assigned at the irs.gov website and takes only minutes to obtain.  Should you need help with the process of obtaining an EIN, the Town Bank’s branch manager at the Marquette branch, can guide you through the process. However, legally, the bank cannot do it for you.

Guide to setting up an EIN

You must keep your EIN number on file in a safe place and a shared organization file space. We suggest creating a Microsoft Teams/Sharepoint for your organization, which all studnets have the ability to use, and which you can pass down in your transition process each year. Student Engagement Services does not maintain a record of student organization EINs. EINs are private information.

Note: All organizations are expected to allow Student Engagement staff "Inquiry Access" only for the event that an audit is needed.

Maintaining a Bank Account

As officers transition, you need to update the contact information on your bank account. This should be done by sitting officers before they leave office while new officers are transitioning in. You can use this form to do so:

Town Bank's Letter of Direction

If for some reason, outgoing officers fail to transition the organization and the bank account information, please reach out to AMU Student Engagement Services and a letter can be authored noting who current organization officers are.

NOTE: When setting up or maintaining a bank account, it is highky recommended you choose email bank statements as opposed to paper statements. Paper statements do incur a fee.