Re: Expense reimbursement | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Kelly Bachman (happyvalleykellygmail.com) | |
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 2021 13:13:32 -0700 (PDT) |
Yes we do our own accounting. It sounds like less work than what you are doing now to check the work of an external bookkeeper. I think we are better able to meet the needs of our community than an outside bookkeeper-timely, accurate, useful information and analysis. We can tailor the way we keep the information (categories, sub-categories, memo fields in QuickBooks) to make financial information more understandable and useful while providing everything a future auditor would need. It helps that we have a retired CPA as our treasurer but our first treasurer was a math professor who caught on quickly. Kelly Bachman Bellingham Cohousing On Tue, Sep 14, 2021 at 12:10 PM Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L < cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote: > > On Sep 14, 2021, at 2:04 PM, Kelly Bachman <happyvalleykelly [at] gmail.com> > wrote: > > > > Instead of an audit by an independent accountant, we have an annual > *internal > > audit* that specifically addresses internal controls to prevent and > detect > > fraud and is performed by community members. We have our internal audit > > reviewed by an independent accountant for process and results and they > > provide us with recommendations to improve internal controls or improve > the > > process of the internal audit. This only costs a couple of hours of > > consulting time. One internal control principle is segregation of > duties. > > So the person who writes checks for reimbursement does not make deposits > or > > do the dues billing. > > So you do all your accounting in house? > > We still use a management company to handle the finances but it seems that > we already do all the work of managing forms and receipts and then spend > time reviewing and correcting their accounting and figuring out why the > utilities haven’t been paid. > > So we have team budget people who review expenditures, a community > treasurer who reviews them, an admin team that reviews, several members who > by personality review everything, and then we have an audit. > > This is almost $20,000 a year of overhead including the cost of the audit. > Personally, I’ve yet to see an advantage but it seems to make some people > feel more professional. It’s possible the auditor has found some > corrections of which I’m unaware but I am very aware of bills not being > paid, bank accounts transferred without transferring the debit cards, > accounting of reimbursements to the wrong accounts, etc. With all the > online services now, which they use too, it doesn’t seem like that much > work. It adds a layer of communications energy as well as cost. > > Sharon > ---- > Sharon Villines > Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC > http://www.takomavillage.org > > > > > _________________________________________________________________ > Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at: > http://L.cohousing.org/info > > > >
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Expense reimbursement Susan Rohrbach, September 14 2021
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Re: Expense reimbursement Kelly Bachman, September 14 2021
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Re: Expense reimbursement Sharon Villines, September 14 2021
- Re: Expense reimbursement Kelly Bachman, September 14 2021
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Re: Expense reimbursement Sharon Villines, September 14 2021
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Re: Expense reimbursement Kelly Bachman, September 14 2021
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