NFCA Peer Finance Training 2017

On October 27, 2017, Finance department staff from Neighboring Food Co-ops across the Northeast gathered for peer learning at NFCA’s Peer Finance Department Training. Special thanks to our sponsoring partners National Cooperative Bank, ECRS and Brazee & Huban, CPAs, for their support of this event, and to our hosts at Co-op Food Stores for their hospitality, Tim Wingate of Hunger Mountain Co-op for helping us plan the day, and to Equal Exchange for providing refreshment. 

Below are resources from the day. Please consider these for internal use for NFCA member co-ops and not for public distribution.

Presentations & Resources:

1. Tracking & Communicating Co-op Impact 

Since 2008, the NFCA has worked with Member Co-ops to measure our shared impact on the regional food system and economy. Why do these numbers matter? Dami Odetola (National Cooperative Bank), Erbin Crowell, and Bonnie Hudspeth (Neighboring Food Co-op Association) share their perspectives on how can our food co-ops can work together to communicate the Co-operative Difference in a competitive marketplace, and the important role of finance department staff in supporting our shared success.

2. Setting up Solid Internal Controls & Accounting Changes 

Marty Huban of Brazee & Huban CPAs presented at NFCA’s Peer Finance Department Training on best practices for establishing and maintaining strong internal controls, changes in accounting rules, and best practices in financial reporting for Co-ops.

3. Trends in Point of Sale: Maximizing the Usefulness of your Member Database

Aaron Chase of ECRS presented at NFCA’s Peer Finance Training to share a look at the evolving nature of retail transactions and how member data can be used to drive business, better promote your co-op to bring in new customers, and improve your customers’ experience.

4. Excel Tips and Tricks, NFCA Peer Finance Training 2017 

Tim Wingate of Hunger Mountain Co-op, put together this worksheet of tips and tricks in Excel and pivot table basics to help deepen NFCA Peer Finance Training participants’ ability to extract and organize important co-op finance data, and increase efficiency. See attached worksheet for tips and tricks in Excel from quick key stroke number formatting to changing precision and to understand the power of pivot tables to quickly re-format big data into usable formats for better analysis.

Central to the NFCA’s mission is to provide peer networking opportunities for co-op leaders to build relationships, share skills and experiences, and learn from each another and other professionals to support the shared success of our Member Food Co-ops.

For more information, visit: www.nfca.coop/membership