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Approval of Treasurer's Report


maj1247@q.com

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No. A treasurer's report is never approved at a meeting. It is merely filed for record. No motions are necessary. An Auditor's report, on the other hand, should be approved by the society. Normally, only the minutes, which are not really a report,  are  approved. The other reports are merely given and if in writing are placed on file. If they report contains a recommendation, the recommendation might need to be voted on, but that is different from approving the report itself

Edited by Richard Brown
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4 minutes ago, maj1247@q.com said:

Under RONR, is it mandated that there be a formal approval (motion, second, & vote) of a treasurer's reported that is given at a meeting?

No. In fact, RONR strongly recommends not to do so. The regular reports of the Treasurer should simply be received and placed on file (and no motion is required to do this). The annual report of the Treasurer should be submitted to the auditors (whether that is an external company or an internal committee), and it is the report of the auditors which is approved.

Approving the Treasurer’s report would imply that the board is acknowledging the report as accurate, which is dangerous if that later turns out not to be the case.

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  • 2 months later...

To continue with this query, if the annual financial report is prepared by an auditor or audit firm and that is what the Treasurer presents to the membership, what happens to that report - is it appended to the minutes of the meeting, or is it just filed with the Treasurer's books?  It seems logical that if the members are asked to approve the audit, that it should be appended to the minutes and become part of the organization's official record, but I cannot find anything in RRO that addresses this point.  Can you help?

 

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While your organization can do that, Being in the minutes is not the only way to be "part of   the organization's official record.

RONR mentions other records that are kept, including committee reports, etc. See pages 458-9.

Members have the right to examine "reports and the record book(s) ... at a reasonable time and place" (p. 460, lines 13-14).

Your organization can still decide to append the report to the minutes. But RONR doesn't say it has to.

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2 hours ago, J. Moore said:

To continue with this query, if the annual financial report is prepared by an auditor or audit firm and that is what the Treasurer presents to the membership, what happens to that report - is it appended to the minutes of the meeting, or is it just filed with the Treasurer's books?  It seems logical that if the members are asked to approve the audit, that it should be appended to the minutes and become part of the organization's official record, but I cannot find anything in RRO that addresses this point.  Can you help?

 

 

2 hours ago, jstackpo said:

Your logic is quite correct.    All adopted (or defeated, &c) motions are documented in minutes.

I'm not convinced that the auditor's report necessarily becomes a part of the minutes.  The assembly can, by a majority vote, order that it be included in the minutes, but I'm not convinced that it automatically becomes a part of the minutes.  I think keeping it on file without actually including it in the minutes might be appropriate. 

I view this much like, say, a motion approving a lengthy 25 page contract, lease, report, blueprints, etc.  I don't think a motion to "approve" a document means that the entirety of the document should automatically become a part of the minutes.  I can find nothing in RONR which says such a report should be included in the minutes.  Does anyone have a citation?

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I think that any report which is actually adopted should be included in the minutes, or attached to the minutes as a part thereof. Such adoption "has the effect of the assembly's endorsing every word of the report—including the indicated facts and the reasoning—as its own statement …" (RONR, 11th ed., pp 507-508; p. 124).

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  • 1 year later...

Since this board is from 2018 I may not get an answer - however, I'm going to try.  I am a part of a small organization that is governed by a board.  Our treasurer has done some questionable things this past year and refuses to present the board with receipts to expenditures as well as income.  Is there anything we can do to get this gentleman to turn over records in order to do an audit?  Thank you in advance.

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