SACCO Loans Against Savings, Meetings and Membership Fees

This guide covers the three parts of SACCO that connect members to the rest of the institution: lending that is backed by a member's savings, the meetings the SACCO holds, and the fees members pay to belong.

Loans against savings

A loan product can carry SACCO terms. They are set in the SACCO Terms part of the create and edit forms for a loan product (administrators), and appear on the product only at institutions that have SACCO:

• Members Only — a loan under this product can be issued only to a borrower who is an active SACCO member.
• Loan Limit (times savings) — the most a member can borrow, as a multiple of their savings. 3 means up to three times what they hold. Blank means no limit.
• Savings Pledged (%) — this share of each loan is pledged from the member's savings and cannot be withdrawn while the loan is live. The pledge is rounded up; the limit is rounded down. Blank means none.

A product with no SACCO terms behaves exactly as it always did.

What happens when a loan is made

When a loan for such a product is created, the app checks the borrower is an active member and that the amount is within the limit. When the loan is about to go live, it pledges the required savings first. If the member's available savings don't cover it, the loan does not go live and you are told what is missing — add savings or lower the loan and try again. Asking again is harmless: a pledge is only ever topped up to what is required.

A pledge holds savings only; it moves no money. It lasts exactly as long as the loan: when the loan is closed, paid off, written off, rejected or deleted, the savings are free again with nothing else to do.

On the member's account page you see Pledged to loans and what is still Available to withdraw. A withdrawal, transfer or account closure that would dip into pledged savings is refused.

The Savings Security tab

A loan whose product has SACCO terms has a Savings Security tab on the loan page. It shows what the product asks for, the savings pledged, and the actions:

• Pledge savings — pledge more of the borrower's savings (an amount you choose).
• Add guarantor — another member pledges part of their own savings behind this loan; choose the member and the amount. Their pledge works the same way as the borrower's.
• Release — give pledged savings back early, in full or part, with a reason. Branch managers and administrators.
• Recover — collect on the loan from the pledged savings. Branch managers and administrators.

Pledging is open to the same staff who can approve loans. Release and recovery are for branch managers and administrators.

Recovering from savings

Collecting from savings is two steps, and the tab says so: the savings are taken out (through a cash account you choose), then the same amount is recorded as a loan payment. A recovery whose payment has not been recorded yet is marked unfinished and listed on the tab and on the Loan coverage report, with a Record payment button to finish it. A recovery doesn't charge the withdrawal fee, and its savings entry cannot be reversed on its own because it is half of a pair with the loan payment.

Recover before you write a loan off: writing off a loan frees its pledge.

Loan coverage report

SACCO → Reports → Loan coverage lists the live loans against the savings pledged behind them, least covered first, with the loans that are short of their pledge and the recoveries still waiting for a loan payment.

Loans under a product with SACCO terms are arranged at the branch: they are not offered to applicants on the customer portal.

Meetings

SACCO → Meetings keeps the annual general, board and committee meetings. Branch managers and administrators arrange them and record what happened; everyone who works with members can read them.

• The list has tabs and a search box. A meeting has a title, a kind of meeting, a date, a location, the quorum (the number of members needed) and a status. Open one for its details, agenda, attendance, minutes and resolutions.
• Attendance. The sheet lists the members who could attend — joined by that day, not left before it, not pending. Mark each as present, represented by proxy, or add a note. Only people who came, sent a proxy or have a note are saved. The quorum counts members present in person; proxies are counted apart. Rows that failed to save stay marked so you can try again.
• Resolutions. Each has a title, optional detail (wording, proposer, seconder), the votes For, Against and Abstained, and an Outcome. Two people recording different resolutions on the same meeting both keep theirs.
• A meeting that did not happen is marked Cancelled and stays on record; nothing is deleted.

The Meeting attendance report shows, for a period, who came to the meetings held, whether the quorum was met, and how regularly each member attends — least regular first. Meetings held but never written up are warned about and left out of the averages.

Membership fees

A membership fee is money a member pays to belong: a joining fee, an annual subscription, monthly dues.

• Defining fees. SACCO → Membership fees lists the fees (administrators create and change them). A fee has a name, an amount, and how often it is charged — one-off, weekly, monthly, quarterly or annual.
• Choosing fees for a member. Tick the fees when you enrol the member, or add one later from the member's page with ADD FEE. Charge dates are counted from the date the member starts the fee. The member keeps the terms they were given: changing a fee later never reprices existing members.
• Taking a payment. On the member's page choose Record Fee Payment, pick the cash account and the amount. Payments are applied to the oldest unpaid charge first. What a member owes, and what is overdue, is worked out when you look — nothing is charged automatically.
• Correcting. Reverse payment takes a payment back; End membership fee stops a fee from now on.

A payment is cash received. It is recorded as Other Income of the type Membership Fees and cannot be edited or deleted from the Other Income list or the cash account's ledger — only reversed from the member.