I 'm the treasurer of a 12-yr old investment club that has
just started a 3-month trial run in bivio (which we expect
we'll join permanently).  For treasurers who have used bivio
for a while, I have three questions:
1.      (a) Are members' payments automatically sent to and
accepted by your broker, or (b) do you collect and remit
payments? We have always accumulated members' payments in a
local bank account then written a check for the aggregate
amount to the broker once a month. We'd like an automatic
member-to-broker account system, but wonder if brokers like
ours (TD Ameritrade) would accept 14 separate payments to
the account every month.

2.       How do you handle advance payments? For example, a
partner may pay 1,2,3 months in advance if s/he will miss
several meetings. In the past our procedure (adhering, in
Club Accounting 3, to the idea that we must keep all the
accounts equal) has been to park advance payments in the
suspense account, then move it to the member's account on
the date it's due, but that's extra work that I'd like to
avoid--as well as the "all-members-must-be-equal" rule. (Of
course, direct automatic payments to the broker account
would eliminate the extra work AND this outdated "rule.")

3.      After joining bivio, did you continue your $40
annual BetterInvesting (NAIC) club membership? Apparently
clubs need NAIC membership in order to purchase fidelity
bond insurance as well as software like Club Accounting and
the annual Tax Printer.  But joining bivio apparently
eliminates the latter two, so we wonder if clubs have found
it important to maintain the club membership and annually
purchase the fidelity bond insurance.

I would also appreciate any other comments or suggestions
you may have on transitioning to bivio as well as how
successful your club's operations have been under bivio.

The Petty Cash discussion is interesting. Our club has a
preponderance of accountants, tax accountants,  CPAs and
auditors which may be why we handle things differently:
1. Early in the year we prepare a budget of estimated
expenses for the entire year (we all work(ed) where annual
budgets are mandatory). We divide the total estimate by the
number of partners, collect that amount from each partner
(separate from the regular monthly payments), then place
that cash in the CA3 account called "Deductible" which is
part of our local bank acct balance----and we only pay
tax-deductible expenses there.  To pay an expense, we write
a check and charge it to the Deductible account. At year
end, CA3 allocates the year's actual expenses among the
partners; the tax program then picks up those expenses on
the tax return and on the respective K-1s. Any unspent
Deductible account balance is rolled into the next year and
taken unto account for the new year's expense budget. We
pass the hat for non-deductible expenses (e.g., flowers,
food, cards) so they are never recorded in the club's
accounts.

2. We don't use the actual CA3  "Petty Cash" account since
using the CA3 Deductible account means that tax deductible
expenses flow into the tax return without any treasurer
intervention which I understand is NOT the case with the
Petty Cash account.
  We hope that we can continue our Deductible account
  process when we switch to bivio.

Many thanks, Ira, for your comments. I now have even more questions. Why is collecting the money beforehand (as a fee) somehow wrong? And why is that a redistribution of collected funds?

We collect the same monthly payment and promptly invest it so where is this redistribution occurring?

If you pay expenses directly from the capital account, you reduce the cash available for investing. If you collect money outside the capital account (as we're doing), you don't reduce the capital account cash so you have more cash to invest---which, to me, is the ultimate, laudable) goal.

Secondly, preparing a deductible expense budget (as with businesses, non-profits, government and families), forces us to prioritize our expenses, gives everyone a chance to question proposed expenses of dubious value, and probably helps avoid unneeded spur-of-the-moment expenditures.

Third, only one club member has a significantly smaller capital account than the others, all of whom
joined the club at its inception, or who, by their own choice (not a club requirement), invested additional cash and so have capital accounts similar in size to that of the charter members, which makes equal expense sharing pretty fair. Fourth, but even if it were otherwise, I have a philosophical problem with some members paying more, proportionately, of an expense than others. If, for example, we buy software to keep our accounts in order or properly prepare our taxes, or buy printer ink and paper to print reports, the 1065 and the K-1s, all the members essentially receive the same benefit so why shouldn't we all pay equal amounts?

Perhaps when our club discusses this in January, some or most of our members will wish to change; at present, I'm still unconvinced. My initial concern was whether we could still have a Deductible account in bivio if we wanted it, and I'm satisfied to know that's possible.