Okay, it probably depends on your definition of fun.

In preparation for the board meeting held each year at the annual convention, I project what AAN’s income statement will look like at the end of the fiscal year. The convention is usually scheduled in June and our fiscal year concludes on Sept. 30, so the projection is completed a little more than three months in advance.

Now that I have a blog I can share the projection (pdf) with the rest of you. As you can see, I have estimated that AAN will end its fiscal year 2009 with a loss of $4,439.

So now when I post AAN’s income statement each month we can play a game called “How Accurate Was the Executive Director’s Projection”?

Let’s get started.

Here is the income statement through June 30 (pdf). If you look closely you’ll see that I’ve already mucked up a couple of line items even though only three weeks have passed since I made the projection. If I can’t accurately predict the association’s finances three weeks in advance, how likely is it that I’ll get it right after three months have elapsed?

But the point of this game isn’t to trip me up on details, so you can stop your snickering. The point is to focus on the bigger picture of revenue minus expenses.

Come mid-October I will be posting the final income statement for FY09 and if I come within $8,000 of my projection (this isn’t an exact science, so I’m asking for a leeway of 1 percent of revenue) I’ll be the one who is snickering!

In the meantime, here’s AAN’s balance sheet (pdf) at the end of June.

And here’s the fiscal year 2010 budget (pdf) that was approved unanimously at the annual meeting in Tucson.