Signs That Your Chapter's Finances Need to be Audited
 

When I was a NIB, our treasurer held finance meetings BYOB over a game of poker. All were welcome to attend.

I should have known.

BYOB finance meetings conducted during poker was a sign that my chapter's finances needed to be audited.

Re: Signs That Your Chapter's Finances Need to be Audited
 

lol

good call. I'm financial advisor to my chapter. I get to look at bank records and who is late on their dues. I know basically everything that happens. If they need to be audited, somehow I'm missing something :D

We had a financially strapped alumna in charge of our Housing Corporation suddenly able to attend four Conventions in a row.

She is no longer a member of Alpha Delta Pi.

OMG!:eek: That takes balls! Do you know if she was able to voluntarily resigned or was her membership cancelled by IHQ?

Holy crap. DUBYA-TEE-EFF??? FOUR CONVENTIONS?

I don't know how much your alumnae dues are, but speaking from my own experience, our chapter yearly dues plus the voluntary dues that I send to my Fraternity are nothing like what I paid as a collegian. I have no problems handing over that check even though I'm still a broke recent college grad.

I don't think my chapter's ever been officially audited by the Fraternity, so I don't really know the signs. But I'd think if there were a lot of members not paying dues, outstanding bills that never got paid, or members not being reimbursed for purchases, then I'd throw up the red flag to our FA and VPF.

I am glad that we have a WONDERFUL FA in Clare and that advisors and chapter officers get together in the summer to do a documents audit. We make sure that everything that's in the bank matches up to our records. It's a long and tedious day, but it's well worth it.

It'd be cool if Clare ever suggested poker night at her house, though.

Her membership was cancelled, and all alumnae associations were notified. Words cannot describe how I feel about this woman, who had tried to befriend me as an active!

Instead of working in college, I should have become my chapter's treasurer, lol! Just Kidding! :p

Just out of curiosity, how common is it to have alumnae lose their membership. I mean, that seems more embarrassing than losing it as an active. At least when you are in school you could maybe claim to be young and stupid. I dunno...... I mean stealing is just so aweful! I can't imagine. My heart really goes out to you if she was a friend. That would be such an awkward position to be in. :(

I don't think it's very common unless it is a situation like this, where the alum was still doing things with the sorority and was found to be shady.

Our house corporation board has paid for me to go to two conventions! But I'm not the one in charge... they usually pay for an advisor or a HCB representative to attend. I am surprised that she didn't just budget for that and write it off. That would have been much less sneaky than simply stealing the money to go.

As a former finance committee member, I can tell you that the audit you do in the summer is most definitely reviewed by the Province Finance Specialist and if anything looked at all shady, it would be investigated.

I don't know how often we send Leadership Consultants to our Hawaii chapter (expensive!), but they also do some reviews of the books. There are key things to watch for like...

Pre-signed checks in the checkbook
Not requiring two signatures on each check written
Checks written without accompanying receipts/purchase vouchers
Expenses that put a budget line over budget without EC approval noted
Among other things...

The monthly reports that the VP Finance does are really looked over carefully for oddities.

Dee

Dee

well... we probably should have our colony's officers do a review...
None of us have seen a bank statement since the account was set up by the treasurer and president.
And I'm the only one with the combo to the PO Box so I know we dont get bank statements sent to us there.

LOL! Pre-signed checks is a GREAT one. Haven't heard that in a long time!! :)

My favorite is when I see a budget with a "Miscellaneous" line item. (Especially when the "Miscellaneous" line item has $12,000 budgeted into it!!!

I swear, I'm going to make myself a tshirt that reads, "There is no such thing as a Miscellaneous line item" across the front of it!!!

One sign would be if the deposits listed on the bank statement seem small compared to the budgeted income. I've seen where the year's worth of deposits per the bank statements were about $10,000 shy of the yearly budgeted income, yet the treasurer swore that every member had paid her dues. Where'd the money go ? IF all members did actually pay, then the money sure didn't make it into the bank account.

It became a "red flag" that led to the detection of cash being paid to the treasurer for dues, and then the treasurer turning around and using the cash for UNapproved or underground parties !!!

To my knowledge, this is the only person to whom this has happened - although I'm sure there have been others. She didn't put me in an awkward position because a thief is a thief - and certainly not someone I would count as a friend!

I really feel bad for our chapter, though. We had the most gorgeous suite prior to this woman's third convention, and now, the women don't even have a real working idea of how wonderful a Housing Corporation can work for you! THEY are the ones who lost out, and I would really do whatever I could to change things around. I usually leave Alumnae Teas almost in tears.

I think this is one reason that our new treasurer is sort of an "understudy" for a semester before becoming the actual treasurer. This way at least one semester there are two people on the books to keep eachother honest.

We had a VPF once who everytime we would be voting on something relating to money (ie. donating money to XYZ's philanthropy) she would say, "How is this going to affect us financially?" Um, you're the VPF, shouldn't you know? She should have been asking, "From where do you propose we take the funds?"
She was great....she also quit balancing the checkbook somewhere around June, so she had no idea how much money we had - or didn't have. The new VPF after her spent the better part of her Christmas break and a good chunk of January reconciling everything.

From what I hear and see- that's a common thing at Iowa State. I'm in at least 2 student organizations where the current treasurer had to clear up and complete the paperwork of the previous treasurer.

I've seen that happen quite a bit too. The best key is having a good Advisor to oversee the VPF and not let them get behind. But, people running for VPF should realize that it is the equivalent of another 3 credit class. However, if you're an accounting major and you're at a large school, it can be great resume material. "Managed a $300,000 budget for XYZ".

Dee

Well that's not good. :( It's unfortunate when the new VPF or treasurer often has to spend so much time cleaning up all that mess left behind. Luckily since that time, we've also had good advisers for the position - the current and previous one were accountants.
The funny thing that happened with the VPF I was talking about was that since she wasn't doing her job (balancing the books) she wouldn't let us spend any money. So once the new one came in, rectified everything and caught up on the bills, she discovered we actually had some extra cash.

honeychile, that woman sounds AWFUL. How terrible to take something as special as your sisterhood and take it for granted -- especially when that means stealing from the collegiates, who are just learning what it means to be an ADP!

I'm glad she's no longer with the sorority. She's not worth your letters.

Thank you - I agree! What scares me is, she is the type to pick up a pin on ebay and suddenly transform herself into a member of another sorority. Very, very tricky, that one!

They have a good Financial Advisor now, who's firm but great. I hope we can get a new Housing Corporation going soon, though.

The secret to all chapter finances, is audit every year. We started doing quarterly checks, (treas, pres, and advisor) so that we knew where budgets are, and if you spend over, thanks for the donation. I think it'll work better for us, but its all about the audit.

The chapter finances need to be audited when the treasurer from the previous year has 'lost' all bank statements and kept no records.

They need to be audited when OmegaFi tells you that your collection rate is only 85%.

A chapter needs to be audited every time there's a new VPF. I inherited TERRIBLE financial problems from the previous years' overspending and irresponsible behavior, and with little help (we had no advisor), there wasn't much I could do about it. Especially when you have sisters who think that if they put in $500/semester, that they can buy enough things for the chapter to be reimbursed that $500. :rolleyes:

Must be something in the water there. LOL. ;)

Audit EVERY SINGLE YEAR and make sure all your membership records are current with national HQ as well - that they're not charging insurance on the person(s) you terminated 2 years ago.