The team receives funds from the club (LHSA) to pay referee fees and to cover tournament expenses. The club will issue checks made out to the team name (and not to any individual person). The checks can be deposited into the team's bank account (an account in the team's name, not in the name of any individual person). Team managers who are signers on the team bank account may withdraw funds from the account as needed. You should keep a record of deposits and withdrawals for the team account and their purpose.
Choosing a Bank
You should find a bank that offers some type of account for a non-profit sports team with zero (or very low) fees. As of 2024, Citizens Bank has a Clearly Better Business Checking account that has all of these features. It is described at https://www.citizensbank.com/small-business/checking/clearly-better-account.aspx. Several teams have gone to the Citizens Bank branch at Federal City Road and Lawrenceville-Pennington Road to open their accounts.
Obtaining an Employer Identification Number
Before opening the team account, you'll need an Employer Identification Number (EIN) for your team from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Note that your team name is not the club's name, you must use a name specific to your team and not for the whole club. Remember that your team name is permanent, so don't use anything in your name that will change from year to year (such as the players' ages or even their birth years since kids may be grouped in different ways over time). As an example, one of my team names for which we have an EIN is "LAWRENCE GIRLS PHOENIX SOCCER".
You can get an EIN online in a few minutes, though you can only do so during business hours. You'll get a letter (online in PDF) from the IRS that you must keep for the life of the team (and probably beyond), the IRS cannot replace it. To obtain an EIN, use an internet search engine to find the EIN online application.
Lawrence Hamnett Non-Profit Status
You may need to show the bank a letter that the club (LHSA) keeps on file from the IRS granting it tax-exempt status. If you need this, contact the club's treasurer (as of 2024, that is Ernie Cerone).
You request funds from the club treasurer, usually by sending a short email to make the request. Your message should include the amount you need and the purpose of the request. The most common requests will be one at the beginning of each season to get the total referee fees you will need for the season, and requests for funds to enter tournaments.
Referees in MOSA are paid in cash by the home team. You should withdraw funds from your team bank account to pay referees. It is a good practice to pay the referees in a way that makes it easy for them to divide the payment among themselves. For example, the fee for a 7v7 or 9v9 game in 2024 is $140, with the referee getting $70 and each of the two assistant referees getting $35 each. If you pay them $140 with 7 x $20 bills, they will not be able to divide that so that each of them gets their fee. Instead we usually pay them with 5 x $20, 3 x $10, and 2 x $5 so they can make $70 + $35 + $35.
If the full complement of referees is not present, you only pay the referees that are at the game. Some games are played with a referee and only one assistant referee. Some games may be played with a referee and no assistants.