Hi Deannie,

 

Sorry about the lack of response.  The bivio board is not the best place to ask questions about Toolkit or NAIC principles.  If you are a member, they have community forums for that.  I highly recommend the Investing for Growth Forum on Compuserve at

This website is independently run by some of the greatest all-time NAIC members and ex-members, and it's a haven for newbies and veterans, alike.  Check out the forums.  There's one for software.

 

My own personal opinion is this.  I will always have Toolkit.  I learned it 15 years ago, and I rely on it as a tool to help me find good quality stocks and determine how much I should pay for them.  That said, I've never found a program where so many people have owned it for so many years, yet STILL don't know how to use it.  It's just not that intuitive. 

 

I work with new club start-ups.  It's my special area of interest.  And of late, I've been recommending to all new clubs that every member should be required to have an individual membership at www.stockcentral.com to be in the club.  There's a program there, just like Toolkit, called Take Stock.  It's online-based.  It won't let you make judgments (yet...they are working on it) but it produces a very conservative SSG-type 2-sided document that has all the SSG components.  Any new club just starting out would have their hands full just learning the tool, WITHOUT having to worry about judgments. So it's a good program for newbies.  The site offers a stock screener, based on NAIC principles, an annual report analyzer, data files on almost 9,000 companies, community boards for help and support and regular education in the Club area.  All this for $39/year.  There's a 45 day trial.  Test the tools and you decide.  NAIC has similar offerings for $79/year.  That's a no-brainer, in my book.

 

In addition, Toolkit 6 is on its way.  Should be unveiled within the next 60-90 days.  You can pick up TK5 at a discount now, but how long will IClub support it is anybody's guess. 

 

About the internal auditing.  bivio doesn't have the audit feature like the old IClub desktop software does.  In fact, I don't think the new IClub online program features that anymore. (I haven't looked for a little while).  But while the online versions are much more efficient (and bivio in particular--I happen to be very biased here!! <G>) your books are still subject to human error.  So here's what my club does:

 

We balance our bank and broker statements with our bivio reports, to the penny, every month.  This cuts out the need to do it at the end of the year.  They are balanced by the statement, so we have a clean, clear paper trail that is very transparent. 

 

At the end of the year, we run bivio reports on our bank account, broker account, and member accounts.  Three people get together. One takes the bank statements and check register and double checks the numbers.  If, at the end, it balances with the bivio bank account information, then we check it off the list.  Another takes the broker statement and checks off every purchase, sale, dividend and interest payment off the bivio broker account report.  If all balances, we check another item off the list.  Finally, we compare the deposit slips to the member reports to make sure they were properly credited.  Since we do this monthly, rarely do we have a correction.  In the last 3 years, the only corrections we had to make were cash items that had been miscoded (party food, an erroneous bank charge, etc.) 

 

Our next step, as an audit committee, is to run all the tax materials off bivio, complete our State return (which in Minnesota is just filling out the header and putting zeros on every line), then we print, staple, and start the margarita blender!

 

If you have anymore questions, please ask away.  And if you don't get answers right away, just keep nudging us.  Sometimes it's hard when our REAL jobs interfere with our desire to be here, instead! <G>

 

Lynn Ostrem, VP

Crow River Investment Club

Hi Deannie,

 

Sorry about the lack of response.  The bivio board is not the best place to ask questions about Toolkit or NAIC principles.  If you are a member, they have community forums for that.  I highly recommend the Investing for Growth Forum on Compuserve at

This website is independently run by some of the greatest all-time NAIC members and ex-members, and it's a haven for newbies and veterans, alike.  Check out the forums.  There's one for software.

 

My own personal opinion is this.  I will always have Toolkit.  I learned it 15 years ago, and I rely on it as a tool to help me find good quality stocks and determine how much I should pay for them.  That said, I've never found a program where so many people have owned it for so many years, yet STILL don't know how to use it.  It's just not that intuitive. 

 

I work with new club start-ups.  It's my special area of interest.  And of late, I've been recommending to all new clubs that every member should be required to have an individual membership at www.stockcentral.com to be in the club.  There's a program there, just like Toolkit, called Take Stock.  It's online-based.  It won't let you make judgments (yet...they are working on it) but it produces a very conservative SSG-type 2-sided document that has all the SSG components.  Any new club just starting out would have their hands full just learning the tool, WITHOUT having to worry about judgments. So it's a good program for newbies.  The site offers a stock screener, based on NAIC principles, an annual report analyzer, data files on almost 9,000 companies, community boards for help and support and regular education in the Club area.  All this for $39/year.  There's a 45 day trial.  Test the tools and you decide.  NAIC has similar offerings for $79/year.  That's a no-brainer, in my book.

 

In addition, Toolkit 6 is on its way.  Should be unveiled within the next 60-90 days.  You can pick up TK5 at a discount now, but how long will IClub support it is anybody's guess. 

 

About the internal auditing.  bivio doesn't have the audit feature like the old IClub desktop software does.  In fact, I don't think the new IClub online program features that anymore. (I haven't looked for a little while).  But while the online versions are much more efficient (and bivio in particular--I happen to be very biased here!! <G>) your books are still subject to human error.  So here's what my club does:

 

We balance our bank and broker statements with our bivio reports, to the penny, every month.  This cuts out the need to do it at the end of the year.  They are balanced by the statement, so we have a clean, clear paper trail that is very transparent. 

 

At the end of the year, we run bivio reports on our bank account, broker account, and member accounts.  Three people get together. One takes the bank statements and check register and double checks the numbers.  If, at the end, it balances with the bivio bank account information, then we check it off the list.  Another takes the broker statement and checks off every purchase, sale, dividend and interest payment off the bivio broker account report.  If all balances, we check another item off the list.  Finally, we compare the deposit slips to the member reports to make sure they were properly credited.  Since we do this monthly, rarely do we have a correction.  In the last 3 years, the only corrections we had to make were cash items that had been miscoded (party food, an erroneous bank charge, etc.) 

 

Our next step, as an audit committee, is to run all the tax materials off bivio, complete our State return (which in Minnesota is just filling out the header and putting zeros on every line), then we print, staple, and start the margarita blender!

 

If you have anymore questions, please ask away.  And if you don't get answers right away, just keep nudging us.  Sometimes it's hard when our REAL jobs interfere with our desire to be here, instead! <G>

 

Lynn Ostrem, VP

Crow River Investment Club