Editing Treasury

{{finances}}
{{headerbox}}'''Treasurers''' handle the [[finances]] of Noisebridge. There's a [[board]] officer treaasurer and as many assistant treasurers as we have volunteers for to make sure financial stuff gets taken care of.
*'''TREASURER:''' [[User:Mcint|Loren]]

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==Responsibilities==
* Handle whatever financial paperwork and accounting tasks need doing.
* Update [[Finances]] reports for sharing at [[meetings]] with current balances, operating costs and major issues for discussion
* Attend [[meetings]] with major financial discussion topics and answer member questions
* Update [[Electricity]] with electrical usage info
* Check [[Mailbox]] for mailed financial documents and donations.
* Thank people who [[donate]] major sums.
* Facilitate major expenditures based on [[consensus]] decisions.
* Advise [[fundraising]] team
* Invest Noisebridge's cash to bear interest to help pay costs
* Periodically sell some of Noisebridge's [[Bitcoin]]

==Projects==
* [[Treasury/Projects/2024/Coinbase Organization Account|2024 - Coinbase Organization Account]]
* [[Treasury/Projects/Taxes|Taxes]]
* [[Treasury/Projects/2024/Reimbursements Systems|2024 - Reimbursements Systems]]

===Subpages===
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==See Also==
*[[Annual Report]] - some financial reports and stuff, color coordinated to look official-like.
==Upgrading Our System==

===Here's the deal===
There are three major components to a modern accounting system: payment processing, invoicing, and bookkeeping. Historically we have primarily used paypal for payment processing as well as direct Wells Fargo transfers, we have used quickbooks and then xero.com for bookkeeping, and we've had no real invoicing system. In the past year, Kelly implemented the use of xero's invoicing system for tracking dues and donations, but it is awful and we're looking to migrate off of it. We will need help with gluing all of these things together, and automating things in the new system, as well as with contacting people about new payment protocols. -- [[User:Hurtstotouchfire]] 22:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

===Action Items===
====Payment Processing====
I'm planning to move forward with a non-paypal payment gateway option that will allow us to take credit card payments. This payment option should:
#Not require creation of an account to make a one-time payment
#Support recurring payments
#Integrate with freshbooks for invoice tracking (and support recurring payments there as well, which leaves [http://community.freshbooks.com/support/what-is-auto-billing/ a short list])
#If it also facilitates bank transfers that would be great. Currently these are not auto-repeating for most people, so that's not necessarily a required feature.

Current options include:
*Some [http://reseller.authorize.net/application/?id=239629 reseller for Authorize.net]
*[https://www.wellsfargo.com/biz/merchant/options/ Wells Fargo merchant services]
**22:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC) Have spent over an hour on hold trying to contact these people. Finally just submitted a request online. Presumably they will call back at an inconvenient time. -[[User:Hurtstotouchfire]]
*[http://www.beanstream.com/site/ca/index.html beanstream.net]
**22:11, 25 March 2012 (UTC) Submitted a sales request online. -[[User:Hurtstotouchfire]]
**freshbooks "pay now" would go to our gateway, once payment is authorized the $$ site in a merchant account, after x number of days it gets transferred to our bank account
**could make pay now be on the noisebridge website and go through beanstream even if we have a merchant account elsewhere (like, say, WF)
**beanstream supports all banks. Period. Not sure how this is possible but they swear they do. Downside is that recurring automated payments are only supported via credit cards, not bank transfers.
*Or maybe WePay? I liked them but I can't remember anymore how much of our payment gateway needs they cover. -- [[User:Hurtstotouchfire]] 03:38, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

====Invoicing====
*Freshbooks will allow you to pay invoices on a one-time basis without creating an account (we think-- we should confirm this) or you can create an account and automate repeating payments.
*22:08, 25 March 2012 (UTC): We currently have 3 test members set up through freshbooks. Once these three members have successfully automated their repeating payments, we will roll out freshbooks to the whole membership. 
**[[User:Hurtstotouchfire]] - I pay via bank transfer. At present, it looks like this will always require manual reconciliation by the treasurer. If we implement beanstream for payment processing, this will possibly allow freshbooks to automate the reconciliation.
**[[User:SuperQ]] - Ben pays via paypal. This could be automated as recurring if we pay paypal extra monies. At present, it requires one-time payments, but freshbooks should auto-reconcile.
**[[User:flamsmark]] - Tom pays via satan's currency (cash) or credit card. The former will always require manual reconciliation and the latter will require a new payment gateway to automate -- either authorize or beanstream probably.

====Bookkeeping====
If we can find sufficiently usable invoicing and payment processing solutions, we may stick with xero for bookkeeping.

===Accounting System Minimum Requirements===
Following are the features that we ''need'' to keep track of our basic finances:

* '''import and reconcile transactions''' (Xero is TERRIBLE at this) from 
** Wells Fargo
** Paypal
** Square
** Stripe -stripe.com (gavin has volunteered to help with setup)
** other possible options listed under [[Treasury#Billing & Payment processing]]
* keep '''repeating invoices''' for membership dues & regular donors
* some '''smart suggestions to reconcile incoming transactions''' with their matching invoices (xero is betarded at this. It searches only by amount, not by name and amount)
* categories for '''flagging transactions''' as various types of expenses and income to make taxes easier
* '''custom categories''' / tagging to track income/expenses for sub-projects (like the [[Noisebridge Tor]] project) separately from the general fund
* some reasonably convenient way to '''output data''' (graphs and reports would be nice, but good clean csv files would do. I can matplotlib that shit.)
* clear ''' tracking of unpaid invoices'''
* Reasonably forgiving and '''customizable rules system''' (i.e. xero has logical rules for automating reconciliation but won't let you create rules to reconcile against created invoices, only to create new transactions)
* '''Reasonable batch edit UI''' (i.e. xero won't let you delete invoices once created, you can only void them, one at a time, and it's 4 clicks per void. Not A Feature.)
* '''generate receipts''' easily
* '''report generation''' for standard bookkeeping reports such as a [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balance_sheet balance sheet] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_statement profit & loss] for reasonably custom date ranges.
* web-based or linux-compatible local app. Some sort of remote data storage and '''ability to access from multiple machines''' is required.  ([http://www.dropbox.com Dropbox] is an acceptable aid for this)

===Bonus Features===
These are in order of priority. Lacking any of these is not a deal breaker, but we really hope for the new system to include some of the higher-priority extras.
* API
* direct access to the full details of paypal or square transactions (i.e. notes to the payee, etc)
* really smart algorithms for invoice reconciliation, alteration and deletion (i.e. delete invoices for this member during these dates or change the invoice amount on individual invoices without affecting repeating invoices)
* an interface which isn't bleeding edge flash that trips up in Linux
* automated email invoicing for recurring invoices

===Options we've looked into===

====Bookkeeping====
*[http://quickbooksonline.intuit.com/ Quickbooks]
**An individual from Intuit contacted Noisebridge via the [[Press Kit | press alias]] wanting to meet with us and talk about how the hacker community works. They offered to reimburse us for our time (weird). [[User:Hurtstotouchfire]] replied suggesting a more casual interaction and noting that they were welcome to come by our public space. Heard back today. Sounds like they are mostly doing market research and will be meeting with Mitch. Will update. --[[User:Hurtstotouchfire]]
*[http://lessaccounting.com/ Less Accounting]
** Recurring invoices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mia5zCN24Q4
** API: http://lessaccounting.com/api (but doesn't have library implementations, so ActiveResource)
* [http://www.gnucash.org/ GNU Cash] (other examples here: http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Hackerspace_Software)
* [https://www.kashoo.com/tour/bank-reconciliation/ Kashoo]
**Now has bank feeds and freshbooks in $10/month "premium" account
**no smart algorithms for reconciliation?
**integrates with Freshbooks
*[https://indinero.com/tour#automation inDinero]
**has bank feeds
**"automatic categorization" -- matching algorithms?
** [[User:SuperQ]] Does not do double entry accounting, not really an accounting package
*[http://outright.com/ Outright]
**bank feeds update overnight
**"automatic categorization"
*[http://www.zoho.com/invoice/ Zoho Invoice]
** Recurring invoices: http://www.zoho.com/invoice/help/invoices/online-recurring-invoices.html
** API: http://www.zoho.com/invoice/api/index.html
** Danny says that Zoho can't import very well.
*[http://sourceforge.net/projects/turbocash/ Turbocash]
** Recurring invoices: http://turbocash.net/Knowledge-Base/Repeating-Invoices/
** Windows / Linux (with WINE) and very dodgy text...
* Accounting package overview
** http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2382514,00.asp?obref=obinsite

====Invoicing====
* [http://freshbooks.com Freshbooks]
*goddamnit, freshbooks does only invoicing. Check partners for accounting: [http://community.freshbooks.com/addons/#14]
** $30 per month for unlimited clients
** Import Clients using CSV http://community.freshbooks.com/support/is-there-a-way-to-import-data-into-my-freshbooks-account/
** '''You can not import invoices, payments, estimates, staff, projects, items, tasks, or timesheets into FreshBooks.'''
*** So we'd need to use API to set up recurring invoices for all users http://developers.freshbooks.com/billing/
** Recurring invoices
*** Out of the box (with template support)
*** With Formstack integration http://blog.formstack.com/2010/05/27/freshbooks-integration-feature-upgrades/
** OOTB Integration with: 
*** Paypal http://www.freshbooks.com/paypal-integration.php
*** Authorize.net http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2008/01/24/authorizenet-picks-freshbooks/
*** Google Checkout  http://www.freshbooks.com/blog/2009/01/28/freshbooks-now-supports-google-checkout/
** WePay with Formstack integration http://blog.formstack.com/2010/12/14/capture-data-and-collect-money-with-formstack-wepay/
** API (Ruby / Python / Java) - http://developers.freshbooks.com/
*** Ruby Gem: https://github.com/bcurren/freshbooks.rb
** Seems to have happy customers http://www.yfncg.com/2011/05/16/computer-guys-toolbox-payment-collection/
** Good review from PC Magazine http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2254091,00.asp
* [http://chargify.com/ Chargify]
** [http://chargify.com/features/recurring-billing-system/ Recurring Billing]
**RESTful API
**Formstack integration
* [http://spreedly.com/ Spreedly] - Recurring Billing
* [http://recurly.com/ Recurly] - Recurring billing

====Payment processing====
*[http://help.dwolla.com/customer/portal/articles/259273-dwolla-for-merchants Dwolla]
**free micropayments and flat $0.25 per payment for payments >$10
**requires SS# or Scanned ID of account administrator
**"Cash" payment processing only, no credit cards (could facilitate bank transfers for non-WF customers?)
**Has android app
*[http://www.authorize.net/solutions/merchantsolutions/onlinemerchantaccount/ Authorize.net]
**subscription payments
**$99 startup, $20 monthly [http://www.authorize.net/solutions/merchantsolutions/pricing/ fees] +$10 for subscriptions, $0.10 transaction fee, $0.25 batch fee
**service provided through [http://www.authorize.net/solutions/merchantsolutions/resellerdirectory/ resellers]
* [http://cheddargetter.com/ CheddarGetter]
** Cash in general
*[https://secure.itransact.com/marketing/freshbooks iTransact]
**merchant account and gateway, etc. Fees.
*[http://www.beanstream.com/public/index.asp Beanstream]
**online credit card payments
**bank debits
* [https://pintpay.com/ PintPay]
*[http://www.mazooma.com/merchants.asp Mazooma] - online service for bank account transfers.
**can't find much info on creating a merchant account without actually signing up. Annoying FAQ.
**accepts [http://www.mazooma.com/supportedbanks.asp most big banks]. Credit unions probably screwed.
*[http://www.moneybookers.com/ads/merchant-account/us/direct-payment-processing/ MoneyBookers] - online payments
**Looks like a pretty direct paypal substitute
**Supports recurring payments
**In the USA, accepts visa, mastercard, and bank transfers
***[http://www.moneybookers.com/ads/merchant-account/us/payment-options/ Uses Mazooma for bank transfers]
**Good international support for payment systems
**[http://www.moneybookers.com/ads/merchant-account/us/fees/ Fees] include a flat $0.29 + 2.9%
***There are additional fees for some transaction types. Very confusing fee structure.
**[https://www.moneybookers.com/app/help.pl?s=laundering Money laundering policy!] - honestly these guys come off as corporate dicks. Anyone have positive things to say about them?
*[http://flattr.com/support/faq Flattr] - micropayment system
**Uses Moneybookers or PayPal to transfer funds.
**10% fee.
*[https://checkout.google.com/seller/experience.html Google Checkout] - online payment processing
**Fee maximum: 2.9% + $0.30 (less if we have >$3K/mo transactions, but that's unlikely)
**requires a google account
*[http://wepay.com WePay]
** [[User:Hurtstotouchfire]] was contacted by WePay and had a phone meeting with them to discuss how they fit with us as a business. They are very nice and have API support. More notes on that call on [[User_talk:Hurtstotouchfire]].
** Donations https://www.wepay.com/about/why_donations
** Request Money https://www.wepay.com/about/why_bills
** Recurring payments
** creating a wepay account is optional for transactions. WePay will process on a one-time basis. Account likely necessary for repeating payments.
** Has fees (3.5%, comparable to paypal) https://www.wepay.com/about/fees
** [https://www.wepay.com/developer/reference API]
** [http://blog.formstack.com/2010/12/14/capture-data-and-collect-money-with-formstack-wepay/ Formstack integration]