[OSGeo Finance] Quickbooks, reserve funds...

[Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)]

Everything I'm reading points to using the quickbook "classes"  
approach somehow.

On 15-Oct-08, at 5:08 PM, Paul Ramsey wrote:

> No, they aren't retained earnings, they are, as Jo said, Liabilities.
> They are "things we owe to other people".  (Retained earning are just
> this years new equity.)  I'm trying to figure out how a liability
> account would interact with things like an invoice from a project
> maintainer, paid out of the project pool.  Unlike other invoices, this
> one doesn't represent a new liability, since all the project money is
> already accounted for as a liability. I wonder of this model isn't a
> little beyond the QuickBooks paradigm.
>
> P.
>
> On Wed, Oct 15, 2008 at 5:01 PM, Tyler Mitchell (OSGeo)
> <tmitchell at osgeo.org> wrote:
>> Frank said it all, but to toss in a few more terms, I'm wondering  
>> if these
>> should be falling under Retained Earnings in the balance sheet.
>>
>> Tyler
>>
>> On 15-Oct-08, at 4:43 PM, Frank Warmerdam wrote:
>>
>>> Ken Tamura wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I will reply on this tonight when i have time to read the whole  
>>>> thread.
>>>> Quick question first:   the funds contributed that you want to  
>>>> capture as
>>>> detail, what is the obligation or restriction that deems it  
>>>> necessary to
>>>> track over time?
>>>
>>> Ken,
>>>
>>> 75% of project sponsorships funds received for projects like GDAL  
>>> are
>>> held in trust by OSGeo on behalf of the project to be dispursed  
>>> by the
>>> project steering committee as they see fit.  We (as OSGeo) have an
>>> obligation to be able to report on the funds available and the
>>> transactions
>>> made on behalf of the project when requested.
>>>
>>> We also need to distinguish between general funds that the OSGeo  
>>> board
>>> can spend freely and those we are holding for the projects and  
>>> that we
>>> should
>>> not normally be touching.  Currently the balance sheet reports  
>>> don't make
>>> this
>>> clear and we can get an inflated sense of the funds available for  
>>> general
>>> use.
>>>
>>> BTW - I say held in trust, but I mean that in a general sense  
>>> rather than
>>> a
>>> legal sense.  The projects are not separate legal entities - they  
>>> are
>>> essentially just parts of OSGeo.
>>>
>>> Some additional detail is available in the "OSGeo Finance  
>>> Management"
>>> section
>>> of the project sponsorship document:
>>>
>>>  http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Project_Sponsorship
>>>
>>> Best regards,
>>> --
>>>
>>> --------------------------------------- 
>>> +--------------------------------------
>>> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
>>> warmerdam at pobox.com
>>> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
>>> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer  
>>> for Rent
>>>
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Tyler Mitchell
Executive Director
Open Source Geospatial Foundation
tmitchell at osgeo.org
P: +1-250-277-1621
M: +1-250-303-1831