By Sam Richards

Staff writer

Friday, June 6 (3:00 p.m.): The delivery to Rossmoor’s Mutuals of the 2025 financial reports as of May 25 marked one kind of progress. But that those financial numbers were generated, tallied and unveiled through the new NetSuite business software package is, in Todd Arterburn’s words, “a game changer” for how Rossmoor’s accounting and business work can be shared among Rossmoor divisions, and with the Mutuals.

“It’s completely different from where we’ve been, though not where I want it to be yet,” Arterburn, Rossmoor’s chief financial officer, told the Rossmoor Walnut Creek (RWC) Finance Committee on May 27. “I think we’ve turned a corner here.”

Rounding that corner has been a long time coming. Since the RWC Board approved a five-year agreement with NetSuite, with a two-year option, in November 2023 to replace the 20-year-old, overtaxed Jenark business and accounting software, Arterburn and his accounting staff (and others) have been putting in long hours making the switchover work.

It’s been a daunting task, with its own ups and downs, but at the Finance Committee meeting, NetSuite showed off some of the qualities that convinced the Board to take the $1.3 million plunge.

Committee Chairman Dan Ring was impressed with how quickly desired information could be found.

“That would have been an hour of work to find that answer” using the old Jenark system, Ring said of one example scenario, “but now, it’s 30 seconds!”

The time saved, Arterburn said, should give his accounting staff time to do some financial analytics, to get a better handle on why the numbers are the way they are, instead of being consumed by simply keeping up with transactions.

Arterburn said that will be only one of many benefits of the new system, which should benefit Rossmoor staff and Mutual leaders alike.

“The transition to NetSuite is a foundational investment that will make our monthly financial reporting significantly more digestible for Board members,” he said after the May 27 meeting. “With cleaner layouts, real-time insights and streamlined categorization, our goal is to present financials that are not only accurate but easy to understand – helping you make informed decisions without needing to be a CPA.”

Finance Committee member Kim Starr asked Arterburn whether it would be easier to directly compare one year’s budget numbers against another year’s, or to compare actual financial numbers to those estimated at the start of the budget year. Arterburn said yes, though not necessarily in deep detail.

The budget numbers NetSuite helped generate were also mostly positive for the first three months of 2025, Arterburn reported. Total RWC expenses for the first quarter were $7,295,994, about 10.5% less than the budgeted figure of $8,057,209. And RWC actual income for the first quarter 2025 – expressed as “gross profits” – was $8,330,191, a smidgen more than the budgeted figure of $8,330,196.

While Arterburn said having the April financials done in May is a big step forward for NetSuite, there’s still much work to be done, and that various processes still need a lot of refining. And the rest of the 2025 calendar, and beyond, is marked with dates for when different NetSuite operations should be up and running – if all goes according to plan.

In other action, the Finance Committee on May 27:

• Voted 6-0 to recommend the RWC Board proceed with a partnership with Lyft Business to begin two separate Lyft services, Lyft Concierge and Lyft Pass, to provide Saturday and Sunday ride services for residents (see related RWC Board story in this issue).
• Heard from Rossmoor General Manager Jeff Matheson that, as of mid-May, the overhead solar panels above the Gateway main parking lot were generating electricity. These panels are part of a larger project intended to save Rossmoor as much as $11.3 million in electricity costs for RWC Trust structures (clubhouses, Event Center, MOD, other GRF facilities) over 25 years, allowing RWC to sidestep buying power from an outside utility.
• Received a report that home sales in Rossmoor totaled 159 for the first four months of 2025, 19 more than during that same period in 2024. Collected from 125 of those sales, 78.6% of the total, was $1,741,500 in Membership Transfer Fees. That four-month 2025 total is $325,000 more than collected during the same period last year. That’s notable because the MTF replenishes the RWC Trust Estate Fund, from which Rossmoor capital projects are funded.