By Private Profile ca8a843b on 2015-11-13 17:21 in Finance Team

Meeting Report

The FiT team held their annual sprint in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA on Sep. 25-27. This location was chosen as it is close to one of the team members, saving on travel and hotels.

 

The event was well-organized and ran smoothly. The venue was Aloft Milwaukee Downtown.

 

In attendance were:

• Victor Drover — Treasurer and interim team-lead

• Martijn Boomsma — Assistant Treasurer

• Mike Demopoulos — Team Member

• Susan H. — Accounting Professional (name withheld for privacy)

 

We worked 8AM-6PM on Days 1 and 2, and 8AM to 1PM on day 3. The following items were performed/discussed.

Day 1, 25-Sep-2015

1. Classes & Accounts in Quickbooks.

   1. All 2015 classes (aka “sub-account”) have been entered into Quickbooks

   2. 2015 Budget amounts have been added for each Class.

   3. A number of Classes have been renamed in Quickbooks to allow for proper reporting since the reports to not display data for parental classes (i.e. CLT_Sustainability class renamed CLT_Sustainability_Other).

   4. Reconciliation has been done through July 31st.

2. Fix Citibank connection in Quickbooks

   1. With Susan’s help, Citibank has been reconnected and transactions can auto-import daily.

   2. This is a known and on-going issue with Quickbooks, but is working for now

   3. As a workaround, transactions can be manually imported when needed.

3. Transaction re-classification

   1. Since the Classes in Quickbooks have changed for 2015, we spent much of the day reviewing and re-classifying. Susan was an excellent asset as her advanced Quickbooks access allowed us to re-classify items in bulk, saving a lot of time.

      1. Susan is a Quickbooks expert with access to an administrative interface unavailable to standard users.

4. Update automated reporting and review initial report

   1. After most of the classification was complete, we updated the following reports for 2015:

      1. Profit & Loss - a project-wide overview

      2. CLT expenses - Budget vs. Actual

      3. OSM expenses - Budget vs. Actual

      4. PLT expenses - Budget vs. Actual

   2. These reports will be used for reporting back to the Budget Liaisons and the Joomla community. They also serve as a quick way to check all the classifications of expenses and income performed. This Quality Control step revealed the classification items that needed more attention, and identified some duplicate transactions.

 

Day 2, 26-Sep-2015

1. Transaction re-classification (continued).

   1. Based on the report review in day 1 we reclassified transactions as needed and reconciled all duplicate transactions.

   2. Reports were refreshed and reviewed for accuracy.

2. Review mutual fund investments

   1. Mike Demopoulos provided updated investment schedules for conservative, moderate and aggressive mutual funds.

   2. The moderate portfolio is a good mix of safety and return on investment. Based on a $24,000 annual investment for 10 years, the projected revenue is approximately $100,000 (i.e. invest $240,000, and the projected value is about $340,000).

   3. Funds are already approved in the budget.

   4. Mike has coordinated the Mutual of Omaha to move forward with opening the account with $10,000 and contributing $2000 per month.

3. Financial Policy

   1. We reviewed the financial policy that has been in the works for the last year:

      1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o4iOZkohKFsQvm8rIMZLWm1H5TRXV-a1lVvg--iMPw8/edit#

   2. Based on Susan’s input and the group discussion among the team, various details were added, removed or modified including:

      1. Eligible travel times for reimbursement of incidental and other daily expenses.

      2. Conditions for event sponsorship

      3. Requirements for the budgeting (and re-budgeting) process and a prioritization policy.

      4. Short-term budget resolutions to allow for critical operating expenses when no budget has been approved.

      5. Requirements for policy updates.

   3. Based on community feedback, a number of changes were made to the document.

   4. Three appendices were added:

      1. A list of the Unified Chart of Accounts (this is the basis for our accounting system).

      2. A list of Contributors (people who helped write the document and provided written comments).

      3. A list of changes

   5. The spelling and grammar was also proofed, and the copy modified for readability.

   6. The FiT team will provide a copy of the policy to the board of Open Source Matters for approval.

 

Day 3, 27-Sep-2015

 

1. Finished second draft of Financial Policy.

2. 2016 Budget Prep

   1. We discussed at length improvements that could be made to the budgeting process (many of these items were added to the Financial Policy document).

   2. For the 2016 budget, we will:

      1. provide a form for inputting budget totals, line item owners, Summaries and descriptions.

      2. Each submission will include a detailed budget breakdown, not just a single number for the entire line item.

      3. Budget will have to provide some allowance for the new department-based structure due to be implemented in 2016.

3. Expense approval workflow R&D

   1. Expense approvals right now are mostly done ad-hoc with no submitted documentation.

   2. A standardized workflow is needed to:

      1. Streamline approvals

      2. Provide accountability for line item owners

      3. Improve the reimbursement workflow.

      4. Allow others to process reimbursements and other payments when the person or people with banking access are unavailable.

   3. Martijn prepared an excellent white paper on our needs:

      1. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qhk7fRVlM3XYP5oSLhP9VTdRgE3E14F58vNuKdmVIoE/edit

   4. Based on these requirements, Martijn explored a number of options, with Extensify looking like a good solution.

      1. The service is existing so we don’t have to invent the wheel

      2. It has an automated approval workflow.

      3. It has automated payment following approval.

      4. Unlimited user activity, but per active user pricing.

      5. Automated currency conversion.

      6. Integration with our accounting software (QuickBooks).

      7. Digital Receipt Scanning.

      8. Excellent transparency and reporting

   5. Martijn will match requirements with Expensify features and report back. If it does meet all requirements Martijn will request budget for implementing this service for our projects reimbursement workflow.