I am used to getting paper copies of brokerage statements and keeping them in a filing cabinet. I keep forgetting that in todays world of electronic statements rather than paper ones, it's probably still a good idea to keep the electronic copies filed somewhere.
It's a good practice for several reasons:
They're available for other members of your investment club to be able to review them
They're needed when audit time comes around
Brokers may not store them for long periods of time for you
They are important if you ever have issues with cost basis amounts shown for any of your stocks. If you've made mistakes in your entries during the time you've held a stock, you may need to use your old statements to track down and fix the problem.
How do the rest of you handle this? Are you diligent about downloading statements when they come out and then saving them in the bivio files area? That does make a nice central location where everyone can access them. It also keeps them in one place so future treasurers can get to the information if they need it.
This seems like it might make a good monthly job for someone who is designated as an assistant investment club treasurer. Any thoughts?
Laurie Frederiksen Invest with your friends! www.bivio.com
Does each club have unlimited storage in bivio? We have saved our minutes, portfolio reports and Treasurer's reports for the last 2 years. Plus our bylaws, standing rules and some reference articles.
Jayne Gilbert
Make A Lot Investment Club
On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 1:10 PM, Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz> wrote:
Do any of your investment clubs have this issue?
I am used to getting paper copies of brokerage statements
and keeping them in a filing cabinet. I keep forgetting that in todays world of electronic statements rather than paper ones, it's probably still a good idea to keep the electronic copies filed somewhere.
It's a good practice for several reasons:
They're available for other members of your investment club to be able to review them
They're needed when audit time comes around
Brokers may not store them for long periods of time for you
They are important if you ever have issues with cost basis amounts shown for any of your stocks. If you've made mistakes in your entries during the time you've held a stock, you may need to use your old statements to track down and fix the problem.
How do the rest of you handle this? Are you diligent about downloading statements when they come out and then saving them in the bivio files area? That does make a nice central location where everyone can access them. It also keeps them in one place so future treasurers can get to the information if they need
it.
This seems like it might make a good monthly job for someone who is designated as an assistant investment club treasurer. Any thoughts?
On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 3:28 PM, JAYNE GILBERT <> wrote:
Does each club have unlimited storage in bivio? We have saved our minutes, portfolio reports and Treasurer's reports for the last 2 years. Plus our bylaws, standing rules and some reference articles.
Jayne Gilbert
Make A Lot Investment Club
On Wednesday, October 8, 2014 1:10 PM, Laurie Frederiksen <laurie@bivio.biz> wrote:
Do any of your investment clubs have this issue?
I am used to getting paper copies of brokerage statements
and keeping them in a filing cabinet. I keep forgetting that in todays world of electronic statements rather than paper ones, it's probably still a good idea to keep the electronic copies filed somewhere.
It's a good practice for several reasons:
They're available for other members of your investment club to be able to review them
They're needed when audit time comes around
Brokers may not store them for long periods of time for you
They are important if you ever have issues with cost basis amounts shown for any of your stocks. If you've made mistakes in your entries during the time you've held a stock, you may need to use your old statements to track down and fix the problem.
How do the rest of you handle this? Are you diligent about downloading statements when they come out and then saving them in the bivio files area? That does make a nice central location where everyone can access them. It also keeps them in one place so future treasurers can get to the information if they need
it.
This seems like it might make a good monthly job for someone who is designated as an assistant investment club treasurer. Any thoughts?
I am a member of two investment clubs, both of which use
Bivio. Both clubs store their records on Bivio (though I
also back them up by keeping them on a local hard drive).
One club has eight years of records on Bivio. The other has
eleven. Neither club has used a significant fraction of the
storage space available to it.
I am also a chapter director, and I was recently contacted
by the Treasurer of a club in our chapter. She had
discovered that their brokerage reported a different number
of shares of a stock than Bivio reported. When I asked her
if she had been checking the share quantities in Bivio
against the brokerage statement each month, she said that
she hadn't. I also asked her if her club had performed an
audit recently. Her answer was that HER CLUB HADN'T
PERFORMED AN AUDIT THAT SHE COULD REMEMBER! Her club is well
over ten years old, and she kept only paper copies of the
last seven years of brokerage statements. Her brokerage
could not supply copies even that far back in time. Luckily
for her (and her club members), all of the numbers matched
at some point less than seven years ago, so she could
correct her errors after that point in time. Still, she had
a LOT of work to do, especially since several members had
left the club over the years. When the accounting was
corrected, some of those members were still in the club
(they still owned units). Imagine the tax consequences for
the club and every member since the first error was made!
The moral of this story is: (1) keep copies of your records
at least as far back as the last audit (five years minimum);
(2) check dollar values and share quantities every month;
(3) check that every transaction has been accurately
recorded in Bivio; (4) make corrections as soon as errors
are found; and (5) perform an audit annually. Being
Treasurer of an investment club is NOT difficult, unless you
make the kinds of mistakes that this Treasurer did.
Laurie Frederiksen on
Very good points Bill.
You really should keep any records that establish the cost basis of a
capital asset (like a stock), until you sell the asset. Brokerage
statements are a very good way to verify any transactions you've had in the past that might have resulted in cost basis adjustments for any of the companies you own.
Laurie Frederiksen Invest with your friends! www.bivio.com