Bivio requires me to have a valuation date no later than the
transaction date. This is contrary to what I'm trying to
do. For example, if I have a member pay a week ahead of the
monthly meeting, I'd prefer their Valuation in the club NOT
be included yet because otherwise their voting rights are
greater. Also, some members prefer to pay for a few months
at one time in advance. I'd rather the Valuation Date be
set to the day of the month our meeting is held and the
Transaction Date be when I deposited the money into the
account. Any advice?

Wayne Myers writes:
> Bivio requires me to have a valuation date no later than the
> transaction date. This is contrary to what I'm trying to
> do. For example, if I have a member pay a week ahead of the
> monthly meeting, I'd prefer their Valuation in the club NOT
> be included yet because otherwise their voting rights are
> greater. Also, some members prefer to pay for a few months
> at one time in advance. I'd rather the Valuation Date be
> set to the day of the month our meeting is held and the
> Transaction Date be when I deposited the money into the
> account. Any advice?

Yes, we use the Suspense or a special Advanced Payment account for
this. To learn more, please visit:

http://www.bivio.com/hp/suspense-account.html

Cheers,
Rob

Garbagecop writes:
> Rob, I've given my member, investment and cash accounts a quick tour, and I
> can't find where to select the suspense account--and yes, I read the
> directions first! Is this a setting I have to set in order to use?

You create a cash account by going to Accounting > Accounts >
[new account -- star icon]. You can name the new account Suspense,
but this is historical. Today, we recommend Advance Payments. It's
an ordinary cash account, the software doesn't care about the name.

Cheers,
Rob

Rob, I've given my member, investment and cash accounts a quick tour, and I
can't find where to select the suspense account--and yes, I read the
directions first! Is this a setting I have to set in order to use?

Lynn Ostrem, Minneapolis
garbagecop@foxinternet.net

Well duh! Thanks Rob. I didn't catch the part about creating the account.
I thought there was a Suspense account already there and I was missing the
icon for it! <G>

You are making this WAY too simple! <G>

Lynn

Garbagecop writes:
> Well duh! Thanks Rob. I didn't catch the part about creating the account.
> I thought there was a Suspense account already there and I was missing the
> icon for it! <G>
>
> You are making this WAY too simple! <G>

How do you spell "simple"? b-i-v-i-o.

:-)

Rob

Thank you for the advice but I don't understand how this
helps. I entered a member's advance payment to a new
"Advance Payment" account. When I look at the Member Status
report, it still includes a member's advance payment in the
Units column...UNLESS I put a future date in the Valuation
Date field. However, I CAN'T put a future date in the
Valuation Date field unless I put a future date in the
Transaction Date field. Of course I can do all that without
a separate account.

If I add the transactions as Miscellaneous Income to the
Advance Payment account and not as a member payment, it
messes up the Income Statement.

So I guess my Transaction date won't really be correct until
time catches up and I can manually adjust the date back to
the real date?! I don't understand why I can't enter a
Valuation Date in the future...that would logically be why I
have such a field?

Wayne Myers writes:
> So I guess my Transaction date won't really be correct until
> time catches up and I can manually adjust the date back to
> the real date?! I don't understand why I can't enter a
> Valuation Date in the future...that would logically be why I
> have such a field?

The problem is you don't know the price of a future valuation date.
You can't buy something unless you know the price, so the transaction
hasn't happened yet. This is why the transaction date is always on or
after the valuation date. The valuation date determines the price of
a unit in your club.

Our general advice is to avoid the concept of advance payments
completely. Mutual funds don't allow it. If someone pays money into
a mutual fund, they won't "hold it for you" (it probably would be
illegal). Rather, you can buy any amount at any time. We recommend
that clubs value all capital contributions on the date they are
received.

You can make "automatic payments", which in effect is what your are
doing, except that with a mutual fund, they initiate the transfer on
the day of the transaction for you. By allowing advance payments, a
club is requiring the treasurer to manually transfer funds on the day
of the transaction. As you noticed, our software allows you to enter
payments in the future, but this is nothing more than scheduling the
payments as any automatic payment mechanism would do.

Cheers,
Rob

Thanks Rob. The explanation makes sense but I would still
suggest an enhancement to allow a future Valuation Date. We
would not invest the dollars paid in advance which I think
avoids the problem you were describing. We would, however,
like to account for it correctly. That is, when the payment
was made/deposited, vs. when we want to count the dollars
against the Unit Valuation in the club. The Unit Valuation
is 90% of the reason I wanted to use Bivio. The rest of the
accounting is very straightforward. This is a problem.

===============

Rob Nagler wrote:
> Wayne Myers writes:
> > So I guess my Transaction date won't really be correct until
> > time catches up and I can manually adjust the date back to
> > the real date?! I don't understand why I can't enter a
> > Valuation Date in the future...that would logically be why I
> > have such a field?
>
> The problem is you don't know the price of a future valuation date.
> You can't buy something unless you know the price, so the transaction
> hasn't happened yet. This is why the transaction date is always on or
> after the valuation date. The valuation date determines the price of
> a unit in your club.
>
> Our general advice is to avoid the concept of advance payments
> completely. Mutual funds don't allow it. If someone pays money into
> a mutual fund, they won't "hold it for you" (it probably would be
> illegal). Rather, you can buy any amount at any time. We recommend
> that clubs value all capital contributions on the date they are
> received.
>
> You can make "automatic payments", which in effect is what your are
> doing, except that with a mutual fund, they initiate the transfer on
> the day of the transaction for you. By allowing advance payments, a
> club is requiring the treasurer to manually transfer funds on the day
> of the transaction. As you noticed, our software allows you to enter
> payments in the future, but this is nothing more than scheduling the
> payments as any automatic payment mechanism would do.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob