| NESFA Treasury Procedures – Table of Contents | Last updated before 7/2005 |
For its convenience, NESFA maintains advance accounts with many of its members.
The advance account allows the club to advance money to a member who is anticipated to be spending money on behalf of the club in cases where it is inconvenient for the club to write a check directly -- it isn't right that they should have to carry the float themselves. The normal procedure is that people who will be buying something gets an advance check which is estimated to cover the outlay for a reasonable period -- a month or two is typical. That check is a credit against the advance account, which is an asset account recording at the start that so-and-so owes NESFA the amount of the check.
As the person buys things for the club, they get receipts and turn them in using an expense report, the expenses are debited against the person's advance account.
As a practical matter, most members prefer to leave their advance accounts open rather than getting a check, buying a whatever and then settling the balance due. Provided that the amount in the advance account owed NESFA doesn't build up inordinately, this is not a problem. It is the Treasurer's duty to notice when a member is owed a significant sum of money and offer to pay it. It is the member's duty not to abuse advance accounts by building up too large a sum owed NESFA. If that happens, the Treasurer is responsible for cutting off further advances on that person's advance account until it gets back to a reasonable balance.
Under certain circumstances, advance accounts may be used to purchase NESFA books and to pay for memberships.
Boskones also have advance accounts which are separate from the NESFA advance accounts. When a Boskone closes, it is required that the Boskone treasurer transfer advance account balances to NESFA when the same person is owed money by Boskone and owes money to NESFA. it is prohibited for the Boskone treasurer to write a repayment check in that case. Other advance accounts may be optionally transferred as is convenient for the treasurers.