Next year, associations who have members living in Québec may have to register with Revenu Québec and begin collecting 9.975% Québec Sales Tax (QST), even if they have no physical presence in the province. The purpose of this article is to summarize the new QST rules and to review the existing ones. New QST Rules […]
Sixty to seventy-five percent of the revenue received by our association management clients is by way of credit card payment. If you can determine the total cost of credit card processing when comparing processors—which is very hard to do—you may find that the company offering the lowest processing rates or fees is not necessarily the […]
Associations are tempting targets for hackers. The two most valuable assets that make associations tempting targets for hackers are lists of members that often include date of birth and credit card numbers. Your association, if it collects more detailed personal information, may be an especially tempting target for hackers who steal identities. No-Cost/Low-Cost Data Protection […]
One in four security breaches are caused by human error, according to IBM’s 2016 Cyber Security Intelligence Index. Could one person’s error can cause a breach which would affect 100% of your association’s members? Unfortunately, there is no way to prevent human error, but you can use these helpful tips to protect your association and […]
October is National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The purpose of this article is to make you aware of prioritized doable and no-cost steps to make your association’s computers and computer system “safer” from cyber-attack. Learning from the Equifax Hack One-half of adults in the United States, and 100,000 Canadians, had their personal identifiable information (PII) […]
If your association interacts in any way with youth, the elderly, or people living with disabilities, then you should investigate obtaining abuse and molestation insurance coverage (commonly referred to as abuse insurance). Abuse insurance could be one of the most needed types of insurance for your organization. This is because abuse claims can be very […]
CASL’s (Canada’s Anti-Spam Legislation) three-year transition period ends on July 1st, 2017. Before you celebrate our sesquicentennial, you might want to call your insurance broker, lawyer, and IT professional—plus, educate yourself and all your employees. What is CASL? On Canada Day 2014, CASL came into effect. It applies to “commercial electronic messages” (CEMs), which are […]
Is your association management company doing what they are contracted to do in their scope of work? Are they doing it in the right way? How important are surveys? “What gets measured gets improved,” is management guru Peter Drucker’s answer. An annual survey of board members is a useful way to help your association management […]
“It’s no longer if you are going to have a cybersecurity event, it is when.” This grim prediction comes from the co-author of the Guide for Cybersecurity Event Recovery published by the US Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology. What is Cyber Risk “Cyber risk means any risk of financial loss, disruption […]
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) publishes two guides for not-for-profit organizations (NFP): GST/HST Information for Non-Profit Organizations and GST/HST Information for Charities. CRA’s rules about GST/HST registration are at best complex for NFP organizations who are exempt from income tax—and even more so for registered charities. The goal of this article is to highlight some […]