Treasurer's Report

Hello Fellow ACA members,

As your trusted servant and new Treasurer I am committed to ensuring our finances are transparent and as error free as possible. To that end, we have begun implementing more office procedures which are in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. These procedures are being coordinated with staff, our outside bookkeeper, and our new general manager. 

For example, from now on all check requests, credit memos and other forms used in our internal procedures will be sequentially numbered. I also suggested we implement a numbering system for our chart of accounts to allow for better tracking and coordination between income and expense accounts.

I am happy to report we received a refund of $16,365.08 after an audit of the Workman's Comp 2016 policy payments. The overcharge was due to a coding misclassification of some of the employees in the California Standard Classification System. After reviewing the audit reports for the two prior years 2015, and 2014, I have asked the insurance company to redo the audits for those years as the same erroneous codes were used then as well.

 We will be reviewing the 2016 Audit report very soon and looking for ways to further improve our internal controls, including our financial policies and procedures. The final draft of the financial statements has been issued to the board and the 2nd draft of the management letter has been issued.   

The 7th Tradition Contributions are listed under that tab in the left menu. 

Please feel free to contact me at [email protected] with any questions or comments.

The Profit and Loss Statement shows a Net Income of $2,815.

The Balance Sheet shows a decrease in assets which, according to the bookkeeper, is due to literature inventory sales and reduced cash as a result of two large literature purchases made at the end of the month. The finance committee is going to review these reports again at its next meeting and will report back to the board.

We also have something new in addition to the reports on the website this month. We created two charts that show graphically where the 7th Tradition Contributions come from. We have them by Region and by Country to help give a visual of the activity by groups and individuals. You can see them on the 7th Tradition Contributions webpage.

Just like an ACA Group should never rely on book sales to meet its financial obligations, WSO should not rely on book sales to meet its fellowship services operating budget. Ours is one of the few major 12 Step organizations whose literature sales support such a large percentage of its operating budget. The sales far outweigh the contributions made by members and groups. Our 7th Tradition says we are self-supporting through our own contributions, not our book sales. I say this to help us become aware of where the bulk of WSO funds are coming from. I am going to make a commitment to encourage my home group to send in contributions more regularly. I hope you all will too.

Finance Committee Report

Committee members: Bill D. Chair, David M. Vice Chair, Jeffrey F., Charlie H., and Amy T. As Board Chair Mary Jo L. is an ex-officio member.

The Finance Committee met all weeks in May except the week I was in California coordinating the move to the new office. This past Wednesday we reviewed the May financial statements in detail and sent our comments back to the bookkeeper. She returned the revised financial statements late Friday night. The committee has not had a chance to review the revised financials together at the moment. The committee also discussed and approved an outstanding sizable refund to a customer due to a large quantity of lost and damaged books that were shipped from the third party fulfillment vendor Ware Pak

Other items on the Finance Committee's radar are developing a plan to deploy Quickbooks at the office and performing a cost accounting of Amazon US and Ware Pak fulfillment operations to see what our margins are in each of them as compared to the Signal Hill warehouse operation. We are also preparing to review the auditor's report and implementing their recommendations to move to an accrual based accounting system, develop an accounting manual, and create more internal controls and policies that will ensure an efficient and well run financial operation.