Trouble in Paradise?
- From: "Norman Braman" <nbraman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 28 Jul 2005 07:32:24 -0700
As AAMT prepares to head to Hawaii for its annual meeting, it presents
this financial picture on their website:
AAMT began 2005 with a deficit budget. Therefore, setting fiscal
direction in 2005 to line up with the strategic priorities of the
organization was much more challenging than in previous years. The bad
news is that we had a deficit budget and outstanding payables that we
must overcome to regain solid financial footing. The good news is that
we know where the budget shortfalls exist in real-time because the
year-end financials reflect an accurate picture of actual and accrued
revenues and expenses. We also have trend reporting now that enables us
to better pinpoint areas of exposure much quicker. Many factors
contributed to poor financial performance in 2004. The two biggest
areas were membership and journal outsourcing. Membership accruals
changed in 2004 to reflect standard accounting practices so revenue
projections, if realized, occurred much later in the year. Compounding
the accrual issue was the effects of discounting all categories of
membership dues and to a lesser extent, the EZ Pay option. We under
projected expenses for journal publishing by calculating costs based on
a no growth assumption in membership. Membership soared in 2004,
particularly the lower cost student category, while journal costs per
member stayed fixed for all member categories, increasing this line
item on the expense side. Other targets missed that factored into the
equation included inability to sublet office space, employee turnover,
higher speaker lodging expenses from the annual convention, development
costs to automate the certification exam, and corrections to inventory
depreciation. Worse still was the fact that revenue expectations on new
product development were not realized. The good news is that the staff
have identified issues early on and have begun to take an active
approach to cut backs where ever possible, engaged our contractors to
assist in developing solutions, discontinued outsourced vendors where
necessary, and slowed down initiatives or brought projects in house to
hold on expenses.
.
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