The Finance Department in 2023 was tasked with a significant amount of work deciphering and recording the financial transactions for the entire fiscal year. Not only was 2023 a tremendous challenge, but to record 2023 transactions correctly the Finance Department had to review, understand, and record the transactions from 2022. There was very little recording of data for the 4th quarter of 2022. Additionally, during the period between the exit of the prior CEO in late April 2023 and the new CEO assuming the position on May 15, 2023, the Treasurer was required to assume management-level activities along with the board-level responsibilities for financial oversight of the organization. This included gaining access to the operating bank accounts, and other financially related accounts such as PayPal. The Treasurer shut off automatic payments for unnecessary payments. This required extensive hours of work. Fiscal year 2022 included not only a complete transition from one financial reporting system (Dynamics from Great Plains) but also included a complete transition from the old membership management system (Impexium) to NetSuite and M360, respectively. None of the current staff participated in the decision-making process, nor the development, testing or transitioning from the old system’s data to the new system. The Finance Department discovered that there was no acceptance testing of either system prior to the transition. Due to this, the Finance Department has also been utilized to support the Membership Department to ensure that the membership management system is synchronized with the financial reporting system and that the membership payment system appropriately tracks and records members.

The Finance Department was required to perform extremely diligent review and analysis to attain a level of comfort that the importation of prior data occurred completely and accurately and that any outstanding transactions for 2022 (in particular, the 4th quarter) were recorded as accurately as possible; given the supporting documentation available and obtained.

After numerous time-consuming months within the Finance Department, with the assistance of every other member of the staff, some Board members, specifically the Treasurer, we were able to get the 2022 year closed and move on to 2023. Although 2023 was not much easier to review and gain an understanding of the revenue and expenses, we were able to obtain sufficient evidence to ensure that the recordings of the transactions were as accurate and proper as possible and that we have identified all current sources of revenue, expenses, and accounts payable. Based upon reports prepared by the Finance Department and presented at the Finance and Audit Committee, a 2024 deficit budget was approved by the BOD.

As we close out 2023, we recognize that there is plenty more to understand and to provide enhanced and more detailed accounting for the transactions occurring at ACNM. The Finance Department is currently working on the next level of detailed accounting for ACNM using the NetSuite software, as this delineation occurs, it will ensure that all divisions, departments, and projects are properly aligned to ensure complete, accurate, and adequate accounting for each budgeted area.