Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Losses

[Sarah Florreich (sflorreich]

On Mon, Apr 21, 2008 at 6:27 PM, Catya Belfer-Shevett
<catya [at] homeport.org> wrote:
>  In terms of how the accounting works, we basically put it in a line item
>  as a project expense, along with all of the other project expenses.  Our
>  fabulous finance person reads the list, so she can say exactly which,
>  but it might have gone in the marketing/membership line item?
>
>  Honestly, rolled into the final project bucket?  Even 6 digit money
>  doesn't break the bank. (Says me, anyway.)
>

Yes, our project is so large that even at $200K of sunk costs, it is
not really noticeable to the bank (2% of our oveall budget), so in
that way we were "lucky".  From what I've learned, one could allocate
it out to the lines it was spent on (legal, engineering, etc), or lump
it all in one unrelated, generic category like we did, as long as it
doesn't cause that line item in the budget to look greatly out of line
to what a bank would normally expect for that line item.

No one who has ever bought in after we did all that prior work has
objected to having to pay for this, as we make it clear it's the price
to get where we are.  Often one has to try a few times to get the
right land/buildings at the right time, when the stars are aligned and
all that.  :-)

- Sarah