[haiku-inc] Re: LW08 booth cost in 2008 Financial Report

  • From: "Jorge G. Mare" <koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: haiku-inc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 24 Feb 2010 08:28:07 -0800

Hi Ryan,

Ryan Leavengood wrote:
On Tue, Feb 23, 2010 at 6:14 PM, Jorge G. Mare/aka Koki
<koki@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The side-effect of this is that the LW08 costs are reported at about
50% higher than they actually were. This kind of defeats the purpose of
the report, which is to inform the community how much revenue there
was, what the sources of revenue were and where the funds were actually
used.

I think the report is pretty clear in indicating that the costs of the
LinuxWorld booth were shared (though I will admit my use of "Donation"
when referring to the $500 from ReactOS is not really accurate.) If
you would like to re-design the report to better indicate this I could
send you the OpenOffice document used to create the PDF.

On a more picky and perhaps even selfish level, the report as it is now
also does not reflect all the effort (lots of back and forth
negotiations with IDG, producing and submitting demographic data,
writing announcements, creating artwork, etc., all in exchange for a
significantly reduced booth rental rate) that we put into bringing down
the cost of the LW08 booth to Haiku from several thousands of dollars
(about $6K I believe) to a mere $500.

I'm sure you put a lot of effort into that, but how is that relevent
for a financial report? If you wish attribution for your efforts I
think there are more appropriate venues. I hope you received some
thanks back in 2008 for your efforts, and if not, I'm happy to give
you a belated thanks for putting that together :)

It's not that I want to be thanked. I just want to make sure that there is no room for misinterpretation. In this specific case, as one of the persons that was involved in organizing LW08 for Haiku, I want people to know that the booth cost for Haiku was in fact $500 not $1000, because the latter could well be seen as an excessive use of funds. This would also bring the total for the "Conference Costs" line to what it actually was (i.e., less than $1K).

Being that this is a report for informational purposes (and not
something to be submitted to, say, the IRS), is really there anything
stopping you from reporting the (f)actual income and expenses
regardless of how money changed hands?




The report as it stands is basically generated from a GnuCash cash
flow report, and it is accurate as per the transactions that actually
took place. ReactOS did not give $500 to LinuxWorld, they gave it to
us and then we paid for LinuxWorld. In that sense it does represent
"income" as far as it was incoming money, even if it was just a
reimbursement.

I understand that the report is technically correct. But for the people this report is targeted (the community that supports the project) as well as the volunteers who incurred into the expenses in the name of the project, accurately showing the actual cost to the organization is more relevant/important than showing how money changed hands.

I think we need to look at this for what it is: a report for informational purposes, and not an accounting record. IMHO, that way it will serve the purpose better. :)

As I said above if you would like to take the time to design a report
which you feel is more accurate, just let me know. I'll probably need
to tweak this report either way since the rollover amount needs to be
calculated further back than 2007 so we have a proper running total.

That would be great, and thank you so much for all the work! :)

Well someone has to do it. Also I welcome suggestions for improvements
to these reports, but much like the code in our projects, a "patch"
speaks much louder than just suggestions.

As mentioned several times in the past, I would be glad to help with the Haiku Inc. reports. Email me whatever file you have created this in, and I will take a shot at it.

Cheers!

--
Jorge/aka Koki
Website: http://haikuzone.net
RSS: http://haikuzone.net/rss.xml



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