PEX User Guide

PEX User Guide

• For additional questions or issues, please email [email protected] and/or [email protected].

• The PEX app

• • It’s great. And it is the only way to submit receipts that we accept. Why? Because hunting receipts through 6 different channels is miserable and we don’t want to do it. Download it immediately, please.

• Receipts

• • All receipts must be attached to expenses via the PEX app.
    • If they are not attached within 2 weeks of the purchase, we may deactivate your card until you are up-to-date with your receipts
    • If we see suspicious activity we may discontinue your account at any time and ask you for more information, and if it is not provided, we may never reactivate your card.
      • What is suspicious activity? Food and beverage purchases (excluding parties and kitchen), your morning McDonald’s purchase, unknown unnamed vendors(?) through Square or Patreon. Gas stations. Etc.
  • Please include a note summarizing the purchase for the purposes of expediting our categorization.
    • It need not be very specific
    • Example: “hardware and brakes for sawstop”
  • If you are a spender who occasionally makes purchases against multiple budgets
    • You must add a note to your PEX expenses denoting which budget the expense is being applied to
    • Example: “Gen ops - windows for the lounge”
  • Where possible, avoid dividing single transactions that cross over multiple budgets
  • If, for whatever reason, it is unavoidable that your expense be divided across multiple budgets, leave a clear note in the “Notes” field of your PEX expense
    • “Pest control - 30% ($15) applied to kitchen, 70% ($35) applied to general”
  • Please avoid making purchases for other card-holding areas with your PEX card where avoidable, unless of course you are gen-ops or CTO or another area/cardholder with a lot of inherent crossover
  • Make sure your receipts are legible or we will not accept them, and we also reserve the right to have a really bad attitude about it.
    • Well lit, reasonable levels of crinkle. None of this dark, dingy, potato chip nonsense.
  • We will try to message you if you are behind on receipts and give you some amount of time to post them. Understand that if you lost them, it is your responsibility to find them.

• Votes

• • If you spend against a vote budget, we need that to be very clearly specified in the notes of your PEX transaction in the “Notes” field.
  • Avoid making generic area-related purchases and vote purchases in the same transaction where possible, as dividing expenses into multiple categories is messy.
    • Example - “Dust Collector Vote - hardware and boards for cabinet”

Budget

• • YOU are responsible for tracking your budget. We will try to keep up and keep you informed. We manually categorize all of your expenses as receipts are attached in PEX, so there will always be some amount of lag, as we do not categorize daily.
  • We encourage you to keep an eye on your own spending. PEX is also a good resource for this.
  • If we see that you have spent more than your total budget, deactivate your card, contact you (by email), and wait for you to
    • a) run a vote for additional funding
    • b) ask for money from a different area with a kind-hearted area host who has underspent
    • c) do nothing. [Not a great option. It won’t make us feel like turning your card on ever again, because it means we have to deal with your “whoops” money. If you ask for help, we will help you figure it out but we prefer you be involved in solving the problem rather than hot-potato-ing it at us].
    • d) whatever else you choose to do.

• Funding/Additional Funding to PEX Balance

• • We keep PEX cards roughly balanced at $500.
    • This is done manually, on a roughly weekly basis, so if you are spending a lot in a short period of time, you may run into a depleted account problem.
    • If you are intending to make a large purchase or a series of purchases, please send us an email 48 hours in advance and we can boost your account. **Tell us how much, why, and when you intend to spend it. If we see it sitting in your account after several weeks, we will remove it again.

If you have a reason why you would like a resting balance of more than 500, let us know and we will ^^^consider^^^ it.

Troubleshooting

• Pex Card Declines

• • PEX cards have rulesets, each with different functions.
    • Sometimes the reason for the decline is that a ruleset needs its attitude adjusted. If you are having a difficult time shopping at a specific type of store or stores in a specific geographic area, we may need to make an adjustment
    • More often than not, it happens because PEX holders are entering the wrong pin or other mundanities.

• PEX Card Lost, Stolen, or Damaged

• • Email treasurer@ and info@ immediately so we can turn it off and order a new one. Make sure to let us know when the new card arrives so we can reactivate your account.

• Accidental Personal Charges on PEX card

• • It happens. We’d rather it didn’t, but it does. Please keep an eye out when making purchases to avoid this.
  • Should it happen, let us know as soon as you know. Otherwise, we will reach out to you about it and figure out a reimbursement method, typically Chase Quickpay or Paypal. We might turn off your PEXcard if we are concerned you’ve gone rogue, but will reactivate it as soon as the issue is resolved.
• Accidental PEX Charges on personal card
  • This is handled the same as other reimbursements.
  • See the “Reimbursements” form on the wiki and contact us if you can’t find the form and would like us to send it to you.

• Closing Notes

• • Additionally, please remember that we are volunteers as well, and that sometimes someone else is doing something silly that has bumped itself to the top of our priority list. There are approximately 30 cards that we manage currently, each with its own set of snafus in addition to a myriad of other tasks. When you send us messages or requests, help us help you by being concise and clear in what you are asking.

With that in mind, if you are in a pickle feel free to *politely* ping us if you haven’t heard back in a while.