2009Q3 Reports: Treasurer

ACL Treasurer's report, August 2009

Because ACL's finances have grown considerably over the the last few years, we have engaged a bookkeeper, Mr John Biggs of Baldwin Accounting, Toronto, who is helping us to move to a more-suitable accounting system, including a new and more-detailed classification of our income and expenses. The new system, when complete, should make our Office Manager's job easier and our conference and other accounting faster. The new system is being phased in for the 2008 reporting year. Unfortunately, however, a combination of the amount of work required for this and extended ill health of Mr Biggs in recent months means that a full report for 2008 is not yet complete.

A statement of assets and liabilities as of 31-Dec-2008, however, is complete and is shown below. Amounts are in US dollars, with our euro assets converted at the prevailing rate on 31-Dec-2008. In 2008, we spent over $104,000 more than we took in, and our net assets (equity) dropped by that amount. This is explained, at least in part, by fluctuations arising our variable conference calendar: in 2008, we took in revenue from only one 2008 *ACL conference (ACL in Columbus), but planned and made advances for three 2009 conferences (EACL in Athens, NAACL in Boulder, and ACL in Singapore), including US$50,000 for Singapore and €20,000 for Athens. It is not unusual for our assets to fluctuate by $200-300,000 over a two- to three-year cycle. If all our 2009 conferences return a reasonable surplus, some of the loss in assets will be restored by the end of 2009, as we have only two conferences in 2010 (Uppsala and Los Angeles) for which outlays need be made. Preliminary data for the Columbus ACL conference suggest that it had a healthy surplus.

Graeme Hirst, Treasurer, Association for Computational Linguistics

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Association for Computational Linguistics Balance Sheet as at 31 Dec 2008 ASSETS Cash & cash equivalents U.S. accounts Wachovia main acct 104,468.08 Wachovia NAACL acct 66,296.01 Wachovia Walker Fund 32,413.25 Wachovia money mkt 1 107,259.02 Wachovia money mkt 2 31,550.77 ---------- Total, Wachovia accts 341,987.13 European accounts Bank of Valeta, Malta 29,231.24 Malta bonds/deposits 73,185.00 Swiss Bonds (CHF) 194,064.06 UBS (CHF) 570.49 ---------- Total other funds 297,050.79 Total cash & cash equivalents ========== 639,037.92 Other current assets Prepaid expenses & deposits 0.00 Accounts receivable 0.00 ---- Total, other current assets 0.00 TOTAL ASSETS 639,037.92 LIABILITIES Current liabilities Accounts payable 4,353.36 -------- Total current liabilities 4,353.36 TOTAL LIABILITIES 4,353.36 EQUITY Prior year's surplus 739,074.10 Current earnings (104,389.54) ========== Net surplus 634,684.56 TOTAL EQUITY 634,684.56 LIABILITIES AND EQUITY 639,037.92