Cohousing-L Mailing List: list of accounting tasks (was Re: Do-It-Yourself Bookkeeping?)

[R.P. Aditya (aditya]

Hi Diana (and anyone else who does the accounting for their community),

On Sun, Jan 02, 2011 at 08:30:17AM -0500, Diana Carroll wrote:
> I do all the bookkeeping for our 22 household community. I taught
> myself quickbooks and there has definitely been a learning curve. I've
> probably unnecessarily reinvented the wheel any number of times. But
> it's less work than I feared. On a normal month (not during tax or
> budgeting or end of year) I'd say it takes less than 15 hours a month.
> I'm not sure what else to say about it. Happy to answer any specific
> questions.

could you share the list of tasks you do each month and how long they
take for your community, something like:

- enter misc charges (I assume there are fixed charges like the HOA fee
  and reserve fund contribution that are set annually and automatically
  added by QB), 2 hours

- enter in payments by check/cash for each household, 2 hours

- enter in payments to vendors against the budget lineitems, 2 hours

- deposit checks/cash, 2 hours

- transfer money around to various accounts, 1 hour

- reconcile bank account(s), 2 hours

what else?

Thanks,
Adi
Great Oak Cohousing
Ann Arbor, MI, USA
http://gocoho.org