[HCoop-Discuss] [ntk] Reconciling financial records

[Nathan Kennedy]

> The current total in our bank account plus PayPal balance is $2818.49.
> Unfortunately, the sum of all active balances on the portal is $3642.22,
> so we're short some money to actually have that much available.

I don't think that there are any "errors."  I think there have been
expenditures in the course of operation that were never billed out to the
balances.  I'll go back and look at what was spent and what was billed out
in more detail later, probably over the weekend.  I don't think there is a
need to maintain absolute parity between our bank account and member
balances, as long as we have enough cash on hand.

I do think we need a better (and more "generally accepted") method of
accounting, as I've said before.  In particular our present system records
changes in balances only, with a text description, but does not tie them
to any other account, and hence cannot distinguish, for instance, between
a charge to an account that is due to expenses and one that is a refund,
for instance, which is important for some purposes, such as determining a
member's ownership interest in the cooperative.

-ntk