Budgets Spending and Administration

Presenter: Richard Seymour
Date: Tue Feb 21 2012

Beancounters don't make strategic decisions. They simply record the numbers and draft reports to decision-making bodies.

Accounting

Cash Accounting

Money comes in, Money goes out. Pretty rudimentary

Income & Expenses

Accrual Accounting

Records expected transactions, rather than daily totals

Assets & Liabilities

Balance Sheet

Assets (What we have, or are owed)

Liabilities (What we owe, debts, etc)

Assets - Liabilities = Overall Financial Health

The Big Three Revenue Streams as of 1st Q 2012

1) Thrift Store

2) Recycling

3) Donations

The Big Three Expenses

1) Staffing, Payroll, etc

2) Occupancy, Rent, etc

3) Everything else

Since 2010, Free Geek's Annual Budget has been around $1.2 million

Normally, an annual budget is drafted every quarter. That is to say, every 3 months, a budget is drafted to account for the following 12 months.

Transactions

Money comes in, stuff goes out (w/ receipt)

End of the day, till counting

The next day, till counts are checked and submitted to the books

Divisions of labor/redundancy to lessen chance of embezzlement, etc.

Classroom Renovation Example

$10,000 grant

Costs:

Staffing (Darryl, contractors)

Materials

Budgets

Areas are without dedicated budgets, currently. Categories reflect nature of expenses but don't cover where they're coming from. Most of the budget is dedicated to staffing expenses. Beancounter goal is to devise a new system to better track expenses and project budgets for committees and areas.

Software

Currently, we're using GNUCash

Staff Spending Policy

$    0 -  100   - Just do it! (All staff)
$  100 -  500   - Ask DPP
$  500 - 1000   - Ask Collective
$ 1000 -  ...   - Ask Board of Directors

Budget Projections

At present, to determine an appropriate budget for events and projects, try to ask other staff members who've done it before. There's no easy answer, unfortunately, so critically analyze the project, the expenses, and so on.