YPTC ASSOCIATE HELPS NONPROFIT

UNCOVER $103,000 IN "FOUND" MONEY

Your Part-Time Controller’s associates, accountants and bookkeepers do many wonderful things to help their clients manage their finances, but Mare Emery’s experience with one client was truly unique. Using her professional curiosity coupled with years of experience, she helped her client to locate over $103,000 in “found” money – funds that were desperately needed to meet a cash flow shortage.

Associate Mary Jane Emery (“Mare” to her friends and colleagues) was reviewing a client’s monthly cash receipts and noticed a check from a major international financial services company. “It was only a small check – about $100 – but it stated it was for dividends,” said Emery. “I reviewed the organization’s list of investments but I didn’t see this particular one listed.”

Emery asked the client if perhaps they had any estates that might have bequeathed this stock to the organization; a review of the organization’s trusts turned up nothing that matched.

Undaunted, Emery called the financial services firm and found that the organization was receiving dividends as a result of a 2001 “demutualization,” a practice of converting a mutual life insurance company, which is owned by its policyholders, into a publicly traded stock company owned by shareholders, usually as a way to raise additional capital. Mutual life policyholders and their heirs continue to be entitled to receive whatever policy benefits they may be due in addition to receiving stock, cash and/or policy credits in exchange for their ownership interest in the old mutual insurance company.

Emery's investigation revealed that the organization owned $103,000 worth of stock. None of the employees of Emery’s client were aware that the organization now owned shares of this company or that the shares were paying regular dividends. “For years they had just been depositing the checks and logging them as miscellaneous income. Neither the staff nor the auditors thought to look at what they were for.”

The organization opted to sell the stock and apply the proceeds to operational expenses. “It was a nice chunk of change,” said Emery. “They were in a tight pickle and the sudden infusion of found money was nice. It helped their cash flow for a few months. It really made a difference for them.”

While incidents like this are unusual, they are testimony to YPTC’s professionalism and investigatory prowess. “We know things. We’re tenacious. We continue to ask questions. If we don’t recognize something, we keep digging until we get a solution,” said Emery. “We work it from beginning to end.

“I’m very proud to work for Your Part-Time Controller. We have an excellent reputation, always hold the client’s best interests first, and we’re continually helping our clients to understand their financial data and the impact of that data,” she said.

“This is precisely the type of value that we bring to our clients that comes from our capable, experienced people,” said Eric Fraint, YPTC President and Founder. “Organizations that think they are saving money by hiring cheap people are actually hurting themselves. Our clients benefit from our experience every day.”

Meanwhile Emery, and her client, are very appreciative. “It made me feel great,” she said. “I wish I could find $103,000 for all my clients!”