And your BI chapter may Be able to assist w a GTM one off audit meeting, but since we may have to wait until 2022 for in person meetings again zoom or GTM or similar good investment
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 16, 2020, at 10:38 AM, Paul Madison via bivio.com <user*31595900001@bivio.com> wrote:
I have facilitated the yearly audit for several years for two online clubs that I am involved with.
The day of the audit I use GoToMeeting (but could use Zoom or any other online meeting products like Google Meet or Skype etc.) to have a meeting between myself (always in a facilitator role) and two non-treasurer club members. The actual meeting is usually about an hour and no more than two hours. More about the meeting in a minute.
As facilitator I take time to pull the resources together to make the meeting go smoothly. We use the bivio audit form as our guide. In the Files section on each club's bivio website I set up the files to be used. I have a high level folder called Audits and then subfolders for each year. Under the year I have a subfolder for the Broker (TDA, Fidelity, Schwab, Folio, etc) and a subfolder for "bivio". I also have one more subfolder called "Source Documents" which is used to store receipts for expenses that were paid externally. (Neither of these two clubs have a separate checking account, if you have that you will also have to reconcile that account with bivio as well). So a sample of our structure for 2020 might look like this:
-Audits (subfolder)
-2020 (subfolder)
-bivio (subfolder)
Step 1 2019 EOY Valuation
Step 2 2020 EOY Valuation
Step 3 Interest & Dividends Report for 2020
Step 4 Expenses
Step 5 Short & Long Term Capital Gains and Losses Report
Step 6 Member Contributions
Step 7 Withdrawals
-Broker (subfolder)
Step 1 - Dec 2019 Statement
Step 2 - Dec 2020 Statement
Step 3 - Broker Interest & Dividends report for 2020
Step 5 - Boker Short & Long Term Gains and Losses Report
Step 6 & 7 - Jan-Dec Statements for 2020 (used to see contributions and withdrawals)
-Source Documents (subfolder)
Step 4 All Expense Receipts
- Club Audit form for 2020 (blank is found on bivio)
At the actual meeting I usually show one side of the audit on the shared screen (ie, bivio or Broker) and then one of the two participants separately (outside of GTM) pulls up the other side of the audit (so Broker or bivio). Then one member reads the numbers they are seeing at say bivio and then the other person looking at the broker is verifying that the information matches. I then note any discrepancies on the Audit form and let the treasurer know about them so they can take corrective action if needed. By the way we usually do not need to go into the brokerage site during the meeting.
We have found this process to work extremely well. Neither club has had any serious accounting problems while doing this process.
In my opinion, clubs who do not do yearly audits are just looking for trouble. I would not be in a club that does not do them.
Although docs are in Bivio, I download all from Bivio and Etrade convert or adjust columns and then create tabs for particular subsets.
Our club does Audit w treasurer and asst treasurer there to assist/explain. We do via GTM. We have the two members go line by line through the Bivio audit memo, showing reports and spreadsheets. Having treasurer / asst treasurer to help gives all a look at how everything cross references.
We can knock out in less than 2 hrs (we ensure all files of club docs, minutes, expense receipts, etc all current and available).
It has actually been a good thing to have us all there. For example, creating a folder in Bivio for digital copies of expense receipts, was an innovation created by in response to me holding up different pieces of paper, return receipt post cards, etc. Club agreed that digitization of receipts was ok.
With the money involved, going line by line via Bivio memo, and showing the relevant broker and Bivio reports gives us all a warm fuzzy. A couple of years we found things, noted on form, and corrected for following years.
Tim Hoyman--why would you not download the brokerage reports into a PDF file and send those to the auditors. I realize that they might not be seeing original docs, but I am hard pressed to think about what chicanery you might be up to that would show up in the brokerage report but not in Bivio.
We have been doing in effect virtual audits for some time now. As the Treasurer, I allow the"disinterested party" access to our brokerage account. All of our statements are in Bivio as well. Once the auditor
is finished, I make a new password to the brokerage account. While this is not perfect, we have never had an issue. Some folks may not like this, but our club has been together for 25 years and we all know each other well.
The auditor usually calls with questions and the audit is complete. I do watch carefully when the member has access just to make sure nothing wrong has been done.
I have to do this also. My plan was to download all of the necessary reports and email them to the audit committee in Excel or Word as necessary. I was managing the audit of another (noninvestment) club,
and the Treasurer sent everything as google docs. I don't know yet how to use Google docs, so I might pick that up pretty quickly.
On the other hand, everyone can log into Bivio and follow along with the reports since they are all in Bivio, except the 1099 and cost basis and value that the brokerage shows.
We annual audit the books of our Club with two "Disinterested Partners." With the virus we are doing everything virial ie., Zoom,
Go2Mtg. etc. So, how do we do a virtual audit? I am open for suggestions.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement--Mark Twain.
Stay positive....Test negative!!
cecelia vanderlip on
Good detail. Thank you.
On Dec 16, 2020, at 9:37 AM, Paul Madison via bivio.com <user*31595900001@bivio.com> wrote:
I have facilitated the yearly audit for several years for two online clubs that I am involved with.
The day of the audit I use GoToMeeting (but could use Zoom or any other online meeting products like Google Meet or Skype etc.) to have a meeting between myself (always in a facilitator role) and two non-treasurer club members. The actual meeting is usually about an hour and no more than two hours. More about the meeting in a minute.
As facilitator I take time to pull the resources together to make the meeting go smoothly. We use the bivio audit form as our guide. In the Files section on each club's bivio website I set up the files to be used. I have a high level folder called Audits and then subfolders for each year. Under the year I have a subfolder for the Broker (TDA, Fidelity, Schwab, Folio, etc) and a subfolder for "bivio". I also have one more subfolder called "Source Documents" which is used to store receipts for expenses that were paid externally. (Neither of these two clubs have a separate checking account, if you have that you will also have to reconcile that account with bivio as well). So a sample of our structure for 2020 might look like this:
-Audits (subfolder)
-2020 (subfolder)
-bivio (subfolder)
Step 1 2019 EOY Valuation
Step 2 2020 EOY Valuation
Step 3 Interest & Dividends Report for 2020
Step 4 Expenses
Step 5 Short & Long Term Capital Gains and Losses Report
Step 6 Member Contributions
Step 7 Withdrawals
-Broker (subfolder)
Step 1 - Dec 2019 Statement
Step 2 - Dec 2020 Statement
Step 3 - Broker Interest & Dividends report for 2020
Step 5 - Boker Short & Long Term Gains and Losses Report
Step 6 & 7 - Jan-Dec Statements for 2020 (used to see contributions and withdrawals)
-Source Documents (subfolder)
Step 4 All Expense Receipts
- Club Audit form for 2020 (blank is found on bivio)
At the actual meeting I usually show one side of the audit on the shared screen (ie, bivio or Broker) and then one of the two participants separately (outside of GTM) pulls up the other side of the audit (so Broker or bivio). Then one member reads the numbers they are seeing at say bivio and then the other person looking at the broker is verifying that the information matches. I then note any discrepancies on the Audit form and let the treasurer know about them so they can take corrective action if needed. By the way we usually do not need to go into the brokerage site during the meeting.
We have found this process to work extremely well. Neither club has had any serious accounting problems while doing this process.
In my opinion, clubs who do not do yearly audits are just looking for trouble. I would not be in a club that does not do them.
Although docs are in Bivio, I download all from Bivio and Etrade convert or adjust columns and then create tabs for particular subsets.
Our club does Audit w treasurer and asst treasurer there to assist/explain. We do via GTM. We have the two members go line by line through the Bivio audit memo, showing reports and spreadsheets. Having treasurer / asst treasurer to help gives all a look at how everything cross references.
We can knock out in less than 2 hrs (we ensure all files of club docs, minutes, expense receipts, etc all current and available).
It has actually been a good thing to have us all there. For example, creating a folder in Bivio for digital copies of expense receipts, was an innovation created by in response to me holding up different pieces of paper, return receipt post cards, etc. Club agreed that digitization of receipts was ok.
With the money involved, going line by line via Bivio memo, and showing the relevant broker and Bivio reports gives us all a warm fuzzy. A couple of years we found things, noted on form, and corrected for following years.
Tim Hoyman--why would you not download the brokerage reports into a PDF file and send those to the auditors. I realize that they might not be seeing original docs, but I am hard pressed to think about what chicanery you might be up to that would show up in the brokerage report but not in Bivio.
We have been doing in effect virtual audits for some time now. As the Treasurer, I allow the"disinterested party" access to our brokerage account. All of our statements are in Bivio as well. Once the auditor
is finished, I make a new password to the brokerage account. While this is not perfect, we have never had an issue. Some folks may not like this, but our club has been together for 25 years and we all know each other well.
The auditor usually calls with questions and the audit is complete. I do watch carefully when the member has access just to make sure nothing wrong has been done.
I have to do this also. My plan was to download all of the necessary reports and email them to the audit committee in Excel or Word as necessary. I was managing the audit of another (noninvestment) club,
and the Treasurer sent everything as google docs. I don't know yet how to use Google docs, so I might pick that up pretty quickly.
On the other hand, everyone can log into Bivio and follow along with the reports since they are all in Bivio, except the 1099 and cost basis and value that the brokerage shows.
We annual audit the books of our Club with two "Disinterested Partners." With the virus we are doing everything virial ie., Zoom,
Go2Mtg. etc. So, how do we do a virtual audit? I am open for suggestions.
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement--Mark Twain.
Stay positive....Test negative!!
cecelia vanderlip on
Thank you!
On Dec 15, 2020, at 10:18 PM, Irina Clements via bivio.com <user*29448700001@bivio.com> wrote:
Although docs are in Bivio, I download all from Bivio and Etrade convert or adjust columns and then create tabs for particular subsets.
Our club does Audit w treasurer and asst treasurer there to assist/explain. We do via GTM. We have the two members go line by line through the Bivio audit memo, showing reports and spreadsheets. Having treasurer / asst treasurer to help gives all a look at how everything cross references.
We can knock out in less than 2 hrs (we ensure all files of club docs, minutes, expense receipts, etc all current and available).
It has actually been a good thing to have us all there. For example, creating a folder in Bivio for digital copies of expense receipts, was an innovation created by in response to me holding up different pieces of paper, return receipt post cards, etc. Club agreed that digitization of receipts was ok.
With the money involved, going line by line via Bivio memo, and showing the relevant broker and Bivio reports gives us all a warm fuzzy. A couple of years we found things, noted on form, and corrected for following years.
Best, Irina
On Dec 15, 2020, at 9:47 PM, Michael Grove via bivio.com <user*23913100001@bivio.com> wrote:
That is what I do - download reports and send them with filled-out checklist and findings. Has worked so far.
Tim Hoyman--why would you not download the brokerage reports into a PDF file and send those to the auditors. I realize that they might not be seeing original docs, but I am hard pressed to think about what chicanery you might be up to that would show up in the brokerage report but not in Bivio.
We have been doing in effect virtual audits for some time now. As the Treasurer, I allow the"disinterested party" access to our brokerage account. All of our statements are in Bivio as well. Once the auditor
is finished, I make a new password to the brokerage account. While this is not perfect, we have never had an issue. Some folks may not like this, but our club has been together for 25 years and we all know each other well.
The auditor usually calls with questions and the audit is complete. I do watch carefully when the member has access just to make sure nothing wrong has been done.
I have to do this also. My plan was to download all of the necessary reports and email them to the audit committee in Excel or Word as necessary. I was managing the audit of another (noninvestment) club,
and the Treasurer sent everything as google docs. I don't know yet how to use Google docs, so I might pick that up pretty quickly.
On the other hand, everyone can log into Bivio and follow along with the reports since they are all in Bivio, except the 1099 and cost basis and value that the brokerage shows.
We annual audit the books of our Club with two "Disinterested Partners." With the virus we are doing everything virial ie., Zoom,
Go2Mtg. etc. So, how do we do a virtual audit? I am open for suggestions.