[Eg-oversight-board] 2016 Conference reconciliation

Thu Jul 21 11:37:36 EDT 2016

Grace--

Thank you for that detailed summary.  I can't imagine the number of hours
spent analyzing this.  And I did make it to the end.

Hope to be there this afternoon for at least the middle/end.

Amy

On Thu, Jul 21, 2016 at 11:25 AM, Grace Dunbar <gdunbar at esilibrary.com>
wrote:

> Hi all,
> I have spent quite a bit of time attempting to track down all the
> anomalies in the Host Budget and the SFC ledger.  I also commandeered quite
> a bit of assistance from Galen. :)
>
> Here are my findings thus far:
> *RECEIVABLES*
>
> The income amount for Sponsorships was recorded correctly as $21,200.00.
> As far as I know, all those payments were received.  Awaiting confirmation
> from the SFC. But this all looks to be correct.
>
> The income amount for Exhibitors was recorded as $6,740.00.  This is $285
> less than should have been recorded.  The total seems to have been missing
> an additional registration for Ebsco ($220) and a pre-conference
> registration ($65) for MassLNC.  With those factored in, the amounts now
> balance for exhibitors.
> * Note that exhibitors were given the option of adding additional
> registrations on their exhibitor agreement form so those were not tracked
> along with the people who registered through EventBrite.
>
> This brings us to a corrected total of $28,225 for exhibitor payments.
>
>  Now we get into some odd issues with the attendee registrations.
> The Host Budget spreadsheet matches the EventBrite numbers for
> registrations for the conference and pre-conferences.
> The total registrations sans bad debt/refunds looks to be correct at
> $48,985.00.
>
> However, there a few issues here that are making this difficult to
> reconcile with the actual ledger.
> 1.) If the library requested to be invoiced  EventBrite knows nothing
> about actual payment (or lack of payment) or refunds.
> 2.) When refunds occur, depending on when the refund is requested, there
> are certain fees or portions of fees that might be assessed by
> EventBrite/PayPal/SFC. This makes is difficult to reconcile to the penny
> particularly in light of the more challenging aspects of the SFC's ledger
> system.
> 3.) Registrants names are not always listed in the ledger if a library
> pays by check (for example) for 4 registrants.
> 4.) Bad debt.  There was a registration from a library system for 4
> attendees who requested an invoice.  The web site stated that invoices were
> non-refundable.  The library ended up wanting to send 3 attendees instead
> of 4 and refused to recognize the invoice.  They ended up just ignoring the
> invoice (telling us they were going to "wait for it to expire", which isn't
> actually a thing that happens in reality) and they re-registered the 3
> people who were going to attend and paid for them with a CC.  This was
> annoying but shouldn't have been a crippling problem in the books...
> however, it ended up being difficult to account for because of the way the
> SFC was taking its cut.  I will address that down at the end of the email.
>
> *PAYBLES*
>
> The amounts paid for the Band, the Cake, the Keynote gift, EventBrite
> registration fees, and the Food/AV bill from the Sheraton were all
> completely correct and easily reconciled. The total was $66,832.56.
>
> On the Host spreadsheet, the amount for the SFC donation was incorrectly
> listed as $7,009.50.  At 10% of their original total it ought to have been
> $7,692.50.  With the corrections I have mentioned above, the correct amount
> should be $7,721.00.
>
> Additionally, there are the afore mentioned refunds and bad debt issues
> which could be as high as $1,557.13 but I would need a magic wand and some
> fairy dust to be certain.  Or maybe another 2 days and a CPA.
>
> Lastly for payables, I can find no record in the SFC ledger of a payment
> for the NCDCR attendees (The folks from the NC Cardinal org.)  Their
> registrations in EventBrite are all marked as "Paid by Check", however the
> SFC has no payment listed in our ledger. The total of all these referenced
> registrations that seem to not have payment recorded is $3,930.00.  I have
> emailed my post-conference contact at NC and asked if they could confirm
> payment - perhaps the check got lost in the mail.
>
> So,we're closer to answers for closing out the conference.  Once I have
> some idea of what happened with the NC payment we should be able to
> reconcile with some certainty.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~
> To be honest, this process is being made approximately 400 times more
> difficult than it ought to be due to the in-house ledger system the SFC is
> using.  I know we've all had out moments of confusion regarding the reports
> we get... for example, why income is reported and recorded as a negative
> number.  But the problems with the system seem to be much deeper.  As I've
> investigated the conference reconciliation a few things stuck out.
> 1.) Payment date is not recorded.
> 2.) Ledger cannot be reconciled easily with registrations.  Double entry
> (or triple) is required when payment is received to ensure ledger,
> EventBrite, and budget tracking spreadsheet match.
> 3.) This brings me to what I mentioned above with the SFC cut.  In the
> case of investigating the specific "bad debt" write off I detailed above, I
> noticed there was a peculiar entry for $130 related to this case.  $130
> didn't match what I initially thought it did (two pre-conference
> registrations).  Instead, to the best of my ability to discern, it appears
> to be a write off for lazy and incorrect accounting purposes.  According to
> the Fiscal Sponsorship agreement, the SFC gets a 10% "donation" of *gross
> income*.  From looking at the ledger, it appears that when
> registrations/sponsorships are invoiced, the SFC is transferring its 10%
> cut immediately.
> In the case of this mysterious $130 as far as I can tell, it breaks down
> like this.
> The library was invoiced $880 for 4 registrations at the early bird rate
> of $220.
> The SFC took it's 10% cut of $88.
> The library refused to pay the invoice.
> The library re-registered 3 attendees at the regular rate of $250.
> The library paid $750 by CC.
> The SFC did NOT take a 10% cut of that payment.
> The SFC created a bad debt entry of $130.
> 10% of $130 is equal to the $13 difference between $88 and $75.  This
> seems to have been done to avoid returning the $88 and taking the correct
> amount of $75.
>
> Not only is this bad accounting practice, I don't believe it is reflective
> of the agreement we have with them.  It seems reasonable that the SFC
> should only be transferring their donation after payment is received.
>
> Apologies for the long email but it's been quite an eye opening
> investigation.  I understand that this is coming a little late for
> substantive discussion at our meeting today but I wanted to at least get
> the ball rolling while we wait for other answers.
>
> Kudos if you made it to the end of the email!
> Grace
>
> --
> Grace Dunbar, Vice President
> Equinox - Open Your Library
> gdunbar at esilibrary.com
> 1-877-OPEN-ILS  |  www.esilibrary.com
>
>
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>

-- 
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+
Amy Terlaga
Director of Member Services
Bibliomation, Inc.
24 Wooster Avenue
Waterbury, CT  06708
(203)577-4070 x101
terlaga at biblio.org
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