Hopefully this is the first of many books to come that I will review on the topic of barter.  I heard about this book through a fellow barter fanatic who recommended it to me.  It was written by Bill Meacham of BancMarc who is a 30 year veteran in the industry.  I traded some emails and phone calls with Bill and he proved to be a wealth of information about all things barter and generously offered to send me a copy of his book for review.

Smarter Companies Barter is an 80 page self published book that is a quick read even for speed-challenged readers like myself.  What it lacks in polish it more than makes up for in passion.  The book explains the value of a modern barter exchange to the uninitiated, really hammers on the importance of ethics for all parties involved in barter and does a good job reminding folks that run barter exchanges of how to run a tight ship.  A recurring theme in the book is the importance of member education.  One potential use for the book is for exchanges to give it to new members as part of an educational program.

I have to admit that the book did lead me to question one of my own trading practices (more on that later).  It’s an unusual book that motivates me to make changes in my own life so I have to give this book my recommendation.

If you want to buy a copy of Smarter Companies Barter it is available at www.smartercompaniesbarter.com.  Ironically it is not available on barter at the time of my publishing this article.  I would also like to note that the author has mentioned the idea of sponsoring this blog.  That possibility has not influenced my review in any way, but I’m afraid you’ll need to take my word for it.

After bartering for a while it occurred to me that my trade profit was significant and that I really should be tithing at church on the profit that I’m earning on trade.  For a couple months I started tracking my trade profit and tithing cash for it.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that I hadn’t come up with a good solution.  I simply couldn’t afford to keep paying out cash tithes on barter profits.  I’ve spoken with a couple people and have come up with two potential solutions:

The easy solution is simply to set your church up with a barter exchange account and tithe in barter credits on the barter portion of your profit.  The problem I have with that solution though is that it puts the burden of managing the account and figuring out what to use it for on your church.  I don’t know about other churches, but the staff at my church already have plenty on their plate and really didn’t need another job added.

My solution is more work for me, but I think it’s the best way to go.  I contacted my Pastor, and let him know the situation.  I explained to him that I wanted to tithe on my barter profit, but I simply couldn’t do it in cash.  We agreed that we would both watch for things that the church needed that could be purchased on barter and that I would then take care of those needs based on records I was keeping with regard to what I needed to tithe in barter.  This way it doesn’t put any new work on church staff and at the same time, I don’t need to tithe cash on barter profits.

From time to time I’ve had folks tell me that bartering within a particular industry is “not allowed.”  Usually the person I’m talking to will vaguely refer to the IRS, the SEC or some other regulatory agency without any specifics.  Not satisfied with this, I’m trying to track down some hard facts and here’s the first area that I’ve nailed down.

Based on my research it appears that bartering for psychotherapy services is NOT in and of itself illegal, however it does raise some serious ethical issues and could quite possibly be against the ethical code for some professional organizations in the industry.  The concern here is that a patient/therapist financial relationship needs to be extremely strait-forward so as not to allow for the possibility of the patient to be taken advantage of due to the therapeutic relationship.

In California (where I am) the primary concern of the Calif. Bd of Behavioral Sciences and the Calif. Assn of Marriage and Family Therapists (CAMFT) is the issue of “dual relationships”.

1.2 DUAL RELATIONSHIPS-DEFINITION: Marriage and family therapists are aware of their influential position with respect to patients, and they avoid exploiting the trust and dependency of such persons.

Marriage and family therapists therefore avoid dual relationships with patients that are reasonably likely to impair professional judgment or lead to exploitation. A dual relationship occurs when a therapist and his/her patient engage in a separate and distinct relationship either simultaneously with the therapeutic relationship, or during a reasonable period of time following the termination of the therapeutic relationship.
Not all dual relationships are unethical, and some dual relationships cannot be avoided. When a concurrent or subsequent dual relationship occurs, marriage and family therapists take appropriate professional precautions to ensure that judgment is not impaired and that no exploitation occurs.
1.2.1 UNETHICAL DUAL RELATIONSHIPS: Other acts that would result in unethical dual relationships include, but are not limited to, borrowing money from a patient, hiring a patient, engaging in a business venture with a patient, or engaging in a close personal relationship with a patient. Such acts with a patient’s spouse, partner or family member may also be considered unethical dual relationships.

The former legal analyst for CAMFT, Richard Leslie,  adds to this in a recent article:

Do not permit the patient to pay for therapy by rendering personal services to you (e.g., fixing your car, landscaping, cleaning your house, editing a book, giving a massage, cutting your hair). Do not permit the patient to barter for therapy with items of subjective value (paintings, sculptures, hackies, collectibles).

Even barter of items with an objective value (cord of wood, bag of horse oats) may present difficulties. While the barter has a fixed value, the trade of it may entail meetings outside of session or meetings at the patient’s or therapist’s residence.

Ultimately it appears that it is up to the individual therapist to determine if they feel that bartering for services constitutes an unethical dual relationship.  I can see both sides of the issue on this one.  From the one point of view, if the specifics of a barter are determined before the therapeutic relationship starts and the terms of the arrangement are as strait-forward as a cash relationship (as they should be if the barter was conducted through an exchange) then I really don’t see a problem here.  That being said, my friend who is a therapist and helped me with this research did not feel that barter has a place in his business.  He feels that patient/therapist relationships must be so squeaky clean that all possible grey areas are to be avoided.

Added 9/27/10
Here’s an article on the topic that appears to be very well thought-out:  http://www.zurinstitute.com/bartertherapy.html