[So things have settled into a routine for our club
Treasurer and her assistant (me), thanks to many of your
great help and patience. Bivio is pretty easy, without the
special situations of withdrawals, brokerage mergers, etc!]

What should we read to prepare ourselves for tax preparation
with bivio?
What special do we have to do for Maryland?
When should we start? January valuation date is 1/11/08.

thanks, Etana, The Stockettes

Gene,
Thanks for the speedy reply. I downloaded it, but at first
glance it looks like it's specific to iclub's CAO, and since
I'm so new at this and unskilled to accounting, I thought
I'd like something specific to bivio... Any other
suggestions? I will read Ira's document.

thanks, Etana

Gene Rooks wrote:
> Etana, a great resource is Ira Smilovitz' presentation in  the (free)
> Learning Library at StockCentral.   Here is the link, his is at
> the bottom.  
>  
> http://www.stockcentral.com/learn/learninglibrary/tabid/180/language/en-US/Default.aspx
>  
> Gene Rooks

Etana, while he may reference CAO, the routine of verifying and closing your
books for the year is the same, no matter how you do your taxes. His
presenntation is geared toward that, not specific use of one program or the
other, and there is not that much difference between the two programs. Gene

Etana,

You should wait until you have received your 1099s before beginning
your tax auditing
in earnest. We always recommend that you reconcile your books monthly so the
year-end work is verifying the values on your 1099s are correct. Then
you simply click on Accounting > Taxes and follow bivio's simple tax
interview.

A lot of what Ira talks about is ICLUBcentral specific. For example,
bivio provides you with
ex-dividend dates and calculates qualifying stocks/dividends for you.
"Distributing Units"
is another archaic ICLUBcentral "feature", which is fully automatic on
bivio, and is called
"tax allocations". And, of course, you don't have to buy a "Tax
Printer" with bivio; it's included
for free.

If your books are out of balance today, you will need to reconcile them.
There are several reports which can be used to help you reconcile
your books. The most important report is your valuation statement:

https://www.bivio.com/my-club-site/accounting/reports/valuation

Enter the date of your bank and/or broker statement on your reports
page:

https://www.bivio.com/my-club-site/accounting/reports

Make sure the cash balances agree with your bank and/or broker.

Compare the valuation statement with the bank and/or broker statements
as far back as necessary to determine the last time your records
balanced.

From there you can review the transactions in your bivio records
against the transactions reported by your bank and/or broker to see
what is missing.

To review the transactions for a particular account, you can go
to your Accounting > Accounts page and click on the name of the
account you'd like to reconcile. Make sure the transaction dates
match your statements exactly.

Another useful report is the Transaction History:

https://www.bivio.com/my-club-site/accounting/reports/transaction-history

This lists all transactions during a specified time period. It
might be the account is incorrect. Go to your Account Detail
page and edit the account.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.bivio.com/hp/accounting-reports.html
http://www.bivio.com/hp/valuation-report.html
http://www.bivio.com/hp/transaction-history-report.html
http://www.bivio.com/hp/account-detail.html
http://www.bivio.com/hp/deleting-transactions.html
http://www.bivio.com/hp/editing-transactions.html

Cheers,
Rob

Rip West writes:
> To my mind, you do your users a disservice when you tell them to
> ignore Ira's workshop. He clearly defines what is applicable to Club
> Accounting and what is applicable to bivio. I think that users of all
> investment club accounting programs can benefit by Ira's clear
> explanation of the factors involved.

Maybe we are talking about two different workshops. The one that is
on the stockcentral site makes no mention of bivio. For example, Ira
writes:

    At long last, we've finished reviewing our club's records and are
    ready to officially close the books. In CA3 and CAO, this means
    redoing the Allocation process if any changes were made during the
    review process.

    CA3:
    Tools>Allocate Income and Expenses. Select 2007.

    CAO:
    Accounting>Utilities>Allocate Income and Expenses. Select 2007.

As you very well know, this step is fully automatic on bivio, and has
been since we released in 1999. Given that bivio does not require
this, or for example, this unnecessary step:

    CA3:
    1) Securities, Double-click on each security and choose among Common
    Stock, REIT, Other Publicly Traded, Mutual Fund, or Fixed Income
    Investment; or Tools>Year-End Tasks and go through the wizard. You
    will encounter a screen where you can review and change all of the
    security settings.
    2) Tools>Allocate Income and Expenses. Select 2007.
    3) Reports>Club Capital Gains. Click the Prev. Full Year button.
    4) Reports>Allocation of Income and Expenses. Choose 12/31/2007.

    CAO:
    1) Securities>Update Security Settings. Click on the edit link for each
    security and choose among Stock (common, REIT or other), Mutual
    Fund, or Other.
    2) Accounting>Utilities>Allocate Income and Expenses. Select 2007.
    3) Reports>Club Capital Gains. Set the dates from 1/1/07 to 12/31/07.
    4) Reports>Allocation of Income and Expenses. Choose 2007.

I therefore think a majority of Ira's document is irrelevant and
confusing to bivio users.

Cheers,
Rob

Rip writes:
> I only know of the one, and it is on the stockcentral website. I am quoting
> pertinent excerpts below where Ira does, indeed, make distinctions between
> the IClub and bivio products.

I can see we are talking about two different documents. On this page,
which Gene
mentioned, there are several PDFs:

http://www.stockcentral.com/learn/learninglibrary/tabid/180/language/en-US/Default.aspx

There is only one document labeled "Year End Treasurer's Workshop", which makes
absolutely no mention of bivio.

When I search on bivio smilovitz workshop, I get 8 hits:

http://www.google.com/search?q=bivio+smilovitz+workshop

Two hits are to messages on stockcentral, but this is a sequence of
emails. Is this
the document you are referring to?

Happy New Year!

Rob

Rob and Rip, I think the problem here is there are two different versions of
Ira's tax presention on StockCentral.. The original workshop he gave on the
StockCentral forum liberally includes bivio in the discussion.
http://www.stockcentral.com/community/tabid/143/forumid/289/postid/1739/view/topic/language/en-US/Default.aspx

The presentation under Learning Library is basically the same information in
a more concise way, and you are correct in that he gives some specific how
to's to get reports and search for anomalies only in CA3 and CAO, but the
concepts and procedures would apply just as well in bivio, the screens and
reports aren't all that different.

However, I agree with Rip that any diligent treasurer can benefit from the
steps Ira gives in verifying your accounting before you run your tax
printer, things to look for, what may need correcting and why. No treasurer
should blindly accept that everything done during the year is foolproof.
That is what this review and audits are for.

Gene

I received ALERT 12-07 from Maryland which lists changes in the corporate
income tax law. I don't think it affects investment clubs, but I thought I
would throw it out to the cafe and see if anyone has more insight. I have
been filing form 510 which is an informational pass-through and no money is
involved. All of our members live in Maryland.
Thanks for the help.
Marcia Meltzer
Security Investment Now

Rob, Thanks, I'll save and digest this this month.
This looks good.
Etana

Rob Nagler wrote:
> Etana,
>
> You should wait until you have received your 1099s before beginning
> your tax auditing
> in earnest. We always recommend that you reconcile your books monthly so the
> year-end work is verifying the values on your 1099s are correct. Then
> you simply click on Accounting > Taxes and follow bivio's simple tax
> interview.
>
> A lot of what Ira talks about is ICLUBcentral specific. For example,
> bivio provides you with
>

Rip,

YES, I'll surely read Ira's article: I printed it; it seems
very straightforward.
ETana


Rip West wrote:
> To my mind, you do your users a disservice when you tell
> them to ignore Ira's workshop. He clearly defines what is applicable to
> Club Accounting and what is applicable to bivio. I think that users
> of all investment club accounting programs can benefit by Ira's clear
> explanation of the factors involved. 
>
> Rip West
> Saint Paul,
> MN
>
>