My thread titled "15 month free trial with 400 transactions"
has turned into a discussion of delinquent members and late
fees, so I'm starting a new thread to address some of Bob
Hooper's questions. These are not in the order in which he
asked them.

"How do we find out how many transactions we have
accumulated from the beginning of our subscription?"

At your club site, go to "administration", then to the
"Subscription" tab. Ours says "Your AccountSync subscription
ends on 01/06/2008. Your club currently has 338 / 400
transactions for the current subscription. Click here to
upgrade to ActivePartnership."

"Where on the bivio site is the 400 limit quoted?"

The limit of 400/year for AccountSync is not on any
documentation page I can find. The place mentioned above is
where I found it.

"What constitutes a transaction?"

We have 2 accounts for our club, a bank account and a
brokerage account. If I go to accounting/Accounts, each has
a link next to it titled "transactions." I believe anything
on any of these lists constitutes a transactions. This
includes not only 1 for each stock purchase and sale, but 1
for each member deposit, 1 for each dividend paid, 1 (or 2?)
for each transfer between the 2 accounts, 1 for each monthly
interest payment on the broker cash account, and so forth.

The bivio documentation does not offer a definition of what
constitutes a transaction, as far as I can tell.

Transaction Limit is discussed in the Help file at:
http://www.bivio.com/hp/transaction-limit.html

It references the Service Overview at:
http://www.bivio.com/hm/services.html

Neither of these mentions the 400/year limit. (I wonder if
the limit is legally binding, if not documented anywhere?)

By the way, my original question was that our club is having
trouble renewing its AccountSync subscription after 12
months, instead of upgrading to ActivePartnership. Help on
that topic would be welcome.

Mike Carroll
VistosoVIP

On 9/29/07, Michael Carroll wrote:
> "Where on the bivio site is the 400 limit quoted?"
>
> The limit of 400/year for AccountSync is not on any
> documentation page I can find. The place mentioned above is
> where I found it.

We apologize. This was removed accidentally when we merged the Club
Accounting and AccountSync documentation. The WayBackMachine tells
all:

http://web.archive.org/web/20061017003139/http://www.bivio.com/hm/club-accounting.html

We will correct oversight this shortly.

BTW, the free trial does not have a transaction limit.

> The bivio documentation does not offer a definition of what
> constitutes a transaction, as far as I can tell.

We document the meaning of the term "transaction" throughout our help
section. It's pretty much a standard accounting term. If someone
deposits a check, that's a transaction. Interest, dividends, buying
stock, etc. are all transactions.

> By the way, my original question was that our club is having
> trouble renewing its AccountSync subscription after 12
> months, instead of upgrading to ActivePartnership. Help on
> that topic would be welcome.

Please contact support@bivio.com, and I'm sure we'll be able to help
you.

For those of you who are worried about your transaction limit, please
be aware that 90%+ of bivio clubs fall under the 400 transaction
limit. This is how the limit was chosen. We want to keep our
accounting services as cheap as possible for ordinary investment
clubs, and charge more for those clubs and funds which consume more of
our resources.

Cheers,
Rob

On 9/29/07, danny matthews <danny.matthews@hotmail.com> wrote:
> Is a reinvested dividend one or two transactions. The money received and
> then the reivestment of that money?

I believe that if you enter it manually, it's one transaction. If it is entered
automaically, it is two transactions.

As a part of The One Minute Treasurer(tm) system, we recommend you do
away with re-invested dividends for two reasons: automatic investing is not
thoughtful investing and managing lots of tiny stock transactions is
unnecessary overhead.

Cheers,
Rob

One of the core tenants of betterinvesting/NAIC is to
reinvest dividends.


Rob Nagler wrote:

> As a part of The One Minute Treasurer(tm) system, we recommend you do
> away with re-invested dividends for two reasons: automatic investing is not
> thoughtful investing and managing lots of tiny stock transactions is
> unnecessary overhead.
>
> Cheers,
> Rob

>One of the core tenets of betterinvesting/NAIC is to
reinvest dividends.

Actually ... that's one of the more widely-held misnomers or
misinterpretations of NAIC philosophy.

Rule #2: Reinvest dividends and current income -- is really intended to
suggest that we avoid attempts at market timing, essentially remaining fully
invested within reason. In other words, there are always opportunities to
identify and own quality companies with sufficient expected returns.

The proof? Over the years, this guideline has been mangled into some sort of
endorsement of dividend reinvestment programs when the reality is that the
rule was "invented" decades before DRIP programs ever existed. So it's
simply impossible for dividend reinvestment to have been the motivation for
Nicholson's guideline.

Rob Nagler is right. Thoughtful investing into the best stock available --
either inside or outside your portfolio -- should be what's done, and the
origin of the funds available (dividends) shouldn't have anything to do with
the destination unless, of course, it deserves it.

Best wishes and Better Investing,

Mark Robertson
www.manifestinvesting.com

Sorry, of course I meant tenet.

About the reinvesting into the same company: I like
reinvesting in the same company, although I can certainly
get behind just reinvesting in the best choice at the time.


Rip West wrote:
> &lt;&lt;
> One of the core tenants of betterinvesting/NAIC is to
> reinvest dividends.
> &gt;&gt;
> &nbsp;
> That 'core tenant' is often misunderstood. The
> recommendation doesn't mean that you have to reinvest the dividend in the same
> stock that produced it.
>
> Rip West
> Saint Paul,
> MN