Finance & Legal minutes: 2015-01-26

Agenda:

Quickbooks API
Bookkeeping process decision
Net metering
Accounts Receivable
Reserve update
CH Assessment proposals
Review questions for Attorney David Keast

Minutes:

Present: Debbi, Becky H., Becky G., Keith, Amy

1. Short Items

a. Quickbooks API

Adi set us up for a Quickbooks API that can generate and send automatic
reports. Amy will follow up with Adi to ask that in future he consult with
F&L prior to setting GO up for services. The committee supports bookkeeper
Becky G's recommendation that no reports be sent out automatically from
Quickbooks. It's important that a human being look at them first to make
sure they are correct before they are sent out, to prevent
misunderstandings and the time-consuming work involved in clarifying with
people. It would also be confusing if two different sets of reports were
to be in circulation.


b. Bookkeeping process decision: Include names of CH assessment
households on balance sheet?

The GO CPA revised our books to split the CH Assessment into 13 separate
line items. This enables those households to make payments in advance, but
it also means that their names show up on the balance sheet. The balance
sheet is not the report about households in arrears (Accounts Receivable).


Great Oak's books are open and this information is not secret, but Debbi
suggested that we hold off on publishing the households' names until after
the proposals regarding the CH Assessment are presented and decided upon,
so that those individuals who want to decide based on the proposals' merit
alone, independent of the names of the households, can do so. In the past,
some people have asked not to know about who is in arrears. If anyone
wants to see the names, they can ask for the information. Becky G. will
temporarily adjust the report. After the proposals are agreed upon, Becky
will put the names back in the reports.


c. Net metering

We discussed a recent e-mail thread about how DTE has not been recording
the solar panel net-metering correctly. Becky G. advised that the
net-metering is not an F&L issue. As bookkeeper, she will e-mail the CH
Committee to request that they check statements at least quarterly to make
sure the amounts are correct.

In the e-mail thread, Adi reminded F&L that agreements still need to be
made about owner responsibility for households with solar panels. This is
on F&L's to-do list.

Keith will forward Adi's message to Paul Conahan to advise that this issue
may affect the Reserve study.

d. Accounts Receivable

Two of the three CH office renters are currently behind. We will engage the
CH Committee about how they would like to proceed with the outside tenant.
Becky G. will look for the lease, and Debbi will call the outside renter.

We'll discuss the AR report at our next meeting.

e. Reserve update

Keith and Mary recently walked around the community on a site visit with
Paul Conahan. Keith will forward his notes.


2. CH Assessment proposals

a. Suggestion that we move forward immediately with the smaller
proposal (Amy)

Debbi will adjust the proposal document and Amy will request to get this on
the February 16 agenda. Debbi will present. This is the proposal asking the
community to authorize households with CH Assessments to pay early or in
full if they choose.

b. Updates to the main CH Assessment proposal


Debbi will bring edits to the February 9 meeting.

Adi sent an e-mail message so that we had a record of an idea dating from
2012, namely, that we "socialize" the debt by absorbing all of the
remaining CH Assessment funds owed to the Reserve, so that every household
pays equally for it. We strongly doubted that the community would go for
this. There is no need for the community to absorb all of the funds owed
since most of the 13 households have been faithfully paying on a monthly
basis.

Becky did an exercise to find out what the impact would be of different
levels of loss of CH Assessments owed (not including interest):

In the unlikely event that all 13 households reneged, the Reserve would
lose about $36,000, or about $973 per household (/37). Spread over 5
years, this works out to $195 per unit per year, which equals a $16/month
increase in each household's Reserve contribution.

If 3 households did not pay, and the community had to reimburse the Reserve
for this over 5 years, it would work out to $4/month per household.


3. Review questions for Attorney David Keast

We continued our work on refining a list of questions for attorney David
Keast, but will need to return to this with Debbi's revised proposal in
hand. We will send questions to Keast via e-mail so that we have a record
of his responses.

A few key points:

-- The CH Assessment is not a loan, it's a special assessment with interest.

-- We want to include language in our agreement stating that assessments
owed are not arrears if paid on schedule.

-- A lien doesn't guarantee that we will get money owed to us if the
household is under water.


4. Next meeting

Our next meeting is on Monday, February 9 at 7:00 PM in the CH Sitting Room.