The latest valuation statement of 10/29/07 has incorrect
balances in the Bank and TDAmeritrade accounts.

The bank balance should be $27.02.

The TDAmeritrade balance is $11.67.

I may be incorrectly entering member dues payments which
could be contributing to the problem. When I send the
payments to the broker, I enter the payments under each
members name. Then, when it is processed by the broker,
account sync records the payments in the Bivio ledger for
the broker account and I then identify the payments. This
is probably entering the payments twice for each member and
skewing the balances. Is my reasoning correct? Should I
delete the initial entry?

Cynthia, if you are manually entering payments, then later allocating
payments from the AccountSynch entry, you would indeed be entering them
twice, but you would be out of balance a lot more than that if that is what
you did. You should create a journal report to compare your entries
against the broker.

Personally, I would manually enter member payments when you send the
deposit, then delete the Account Synch entry when it shows up.

You do need to reconcile both your cash and numbers of shares on hand each
month using the
EOM valuation date that agrees with the date of your brokers statement.

Gene Rooks, Space Coast Chapter.

Gene Rooks wrote:
> Personally, I would manually enter member payments when you send the > deposit, then delete the Account Synch entry when it shows up.

> Gene Rooks, Space Coast Chapter.

To each his/her own, but I do not make the manual entry when
I mail the checks. I scribble the member's name and check
number on scrap paper, wait for the autosync to post and
then enter the member's check number on his record created
by autosync. Entering each member's deposit manually defeats
the whole purpose of autosync--letting the computer do the
data entry.
Jack Ranby

Rip West writes:
> Of course, you are also making a manual entry, as well as letting
> the computer do its thing. Sribbling on scrap paper constitutes making
> an entry, albeit not a very good one, so its hard to see how your
> method is superior to Gene's.

The amount and date are entered by the broker, imported automatically
by bivio, and made easy to verify by bivio's automatic disbursement
mechanism (penny payment system). The amount is what matters, not the
check number. If you make a typo in the amount, you've got a problem
to resolve. When bivio imports the data directly, it eliminates typos
by the treasurer, which I can verify is a common problem.

I always wonder why treasurers write down anything about deposits.
It's not like it is a receipt or anything. The cashed check is
technically the receipt. If the broker doesn't cash the check, the
club member needs to figure out why so that she can balance her
checking account. If the check is cashed, and credited to the wrong
member, I would hope one member or the other would notice, and point
out the discrepancy to the treasurer.

As always, the more time you let bivio do its job (accounting), the
more time you have to use bivio to help you improve your investment
performance.

Cheers,
Rob