Hey, Katy here from Hacker Dojo.<br><br>I got pinged on this thread as to how the Dojo handles billing/accounting/the making of awesome graphs, and to see if the system might work for Noisebridge.<br><br>The answer seems like pretty much yes, our system will work for you if you want it.� System overview is we integrated a few services to do
this: Spreedly, Mint, and a little in-house code.� Long story short the
money comes in Spreedly, which also handles billing, and we do our
financial planning with the data collected in mint.� The in-house code
(on github) is what activates logins/member accounts/emails/RFID keys/mailing lists, and a lot of stuff Noisebridge already has covered.� Mint is
free, and we pay about 15 dollars a month to Spreedly for the honor of
not having our treasurer hate herself.� Honestly, I don't know how we
could do the 180 active subscribers we right now have otherwise.<br>
<br>Let me go item by item<br><div class="im"><ul><li>import and reconcile transactions from Wells Fargo, Paypal & Square.</li></ul></div>Yes
and no. We have everybody sign up for a Spreedly account, and they
manage their transactions from that.� They can use a payment gateway of
their choice, including a credit card or paypal. You put the money
collected in a bank, but I don't think it takes directly from transfers
from Wells Fargo, though I could be wrong. It totally permits you to
manually add time though, so if your treasurer gets checks they are
super easy to add.� Spreedly is based mostly around the concept of time,
that you have paid x dollars for y days of subscription, however it
comes in, and that most changes are adding to or subtracting from that
time.<br>
<div class="im"><ul><li>
keep repeating invoices for membership dues and an option to have the member invoiced automatically via email.</li></ul></div>Yes, it does that. Normally it just collects the money via whatever gateway you told it to and then informs the subscriber that it did it.<br>
<div class="im"><ul><li>
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)</li></ul></div>Everything in Spreedly is arranged by subscription, including the invoices/payments, so this problem is designed out.<br>
<div class="im"><ul><li>
custom categories for flagging transactions as various types of expenses and income to make taxes easier</li></ul></div>Mint does this.� Hook it up to the bank account Spreedly feeds.<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
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.)</li></ul></div>Mint
does this, both in the pretty graphs department and the CSV file
department. We did, however, want a better way to track things from a
subscription perspective so a member hacked this up for us <a href="http://www.dustball.com/account/txns/dojo" target="_blank">http://www.dustball.com/account/txns/dojo</a>
It is probably the only chunk of code that runs the dojo that isn't on
github other than our API keys, but the guy who made it is pretty nice,
and if for some reason he doesn't want to give you the code I'm sure
he'd set up an automatic graph for you too.<br>
<div class="im"><ul><li>
clear tracking of unpaid invoices</li></ul></div>Spreedly does this. If an invoice fails it whines at you.<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
reasonably forgiving and customizable system (i.e. xero won't let you
delete invoices once created, you can only mark them invalid. Not A
Feature.)</li></ul></div>All the invoices are automagicly sent, and
Spreedly thinks of everything as a subscription. Subscriptions you can
do whatever you like with (including manually adding time or making it
another kind of subscription), but we don't muck with the individual
invoices unless somebody forgot to cancel their subscription and we need
to refund them.<br>
<ul><li>
generate receipts easily</li></ul>Members get an email when stuff is
changed on their account... a bill goes through, and you can make them
set for "time added" I believe.<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
web-based or linux-compatible local app. Some sort of remote data
storage and ability to access from multiple machines is required.</li></ul></div>Spreedly and Mint are web-based.� Our code is thrown on Google App Engine.<br><br>
And the optional stuff:<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
direct access to the full details of paypal or square transactions (i.e. notes to the payee, etc)</li></ul></div>Not sure on this one. :(<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
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)</li></ul></div>We do this by switching people from one subscription plan to another, or by manually adding time to the account.<br><div class="im"><ul><li>
an interface which isn't bleeding edge flash that trips up in Linux.</li></ul></div>Fuck flash. I run Linux, and the system works great.� If you really have strong UI feelings though, both Spreedly and Mint have some pretty sweet APIs.<br>
<br>Anyway, hope that helps you guys, and if there is anything else we can do to help out please tell us!<br><br>David, best of luck with your new space, and please take any code you might find useful: <a href="http://github.com/hackerdojo">http://github.com/hackerdojo</a><br>
<font color="#888888">
<br>Katy</font><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 7:23 PM, Christie Dudley <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:longobord@gmail.com">longobord@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
You mentioned you put together some software for the Dojo? �Does it do<br>
this stuff?<br>
<br>
Christie<br>
_______<br>
But wait... there's no FCC on the moon!<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
---------- Forwarded message ----------<br>
From: Kelly <<a href="mailto:hurtstotouchfire@gmail.com">hurtstotouchfire@gmail.com</a>><br>
Date: Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 4:47 PM<br>
Subject: [Noisebridge-discuss] accounting software / websites<br>
To: Noisebridge <<a href="mailto:noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net">noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a>><br>
<br>
<br>
Wherein you are invited to disclose your opinions on things you will<br>
never take any action on yourself! A rare Noisebridge opportunity!<br>
<br>
Here's the deal:<br>
I, your new treasurer, already hate <a href="http://xero.com" target="_blank">xero.com</a> (our current bookkeeping<br>
system). I'm planning to finish out 2010 using xero, but I'll have a<br>
good 9 months of 2011 to look forward to, and they could be accounting<br>
bliss. That's the fantasy.<br>
<br>
Here are features we need:<br>
-import and reconcile transactions from Wells Fargo, Paypal & Square.<br>
-keep repeating invoices for membership dues and an option to have the<br>
member invoiced automatically via email.<br>
-some smart suggestions to reconcile incoming transactions with their<br>
matching invoices (xero is betarded at this. It searches only by<br>
amount, not by name and amount)<br>
-custom categories for flagging transactions as various types of<br>
expenses and income to make taxes easier<br>
-some reasonably convenient way to output data (graphs and reports<br>
would be nice, but good clean csv files would do. I can matplotlib<br>
that shit.)<br>
-clear tracking of unpaid invoices<br>
-reasonably forgiving and customizable system (i.e. xero won't let you<br>
delete invoices once created, you can only mark them invalid. Not A<br>
Feature.)<br>
-generate receipts easily<br>
-web-based or linux-compatible local app. Some sort of remote data<br>
storage and ability to access from multiple machines is required.<br>
<br>
Here are features that would make me especially super happy:<br>
-direct access to the full details of paypal or square transactions<br>
(i.e. notes to the payee, etc)<br>
-really smart algorithms for invoice reconciliation, alteration and<br>
deletion (i.e. delete invoices for this member during these dates or<br>
change the invoice amount on individual invoices without affecting<br>
repeating invoices)<br>
-an interface which isn't bleeding edge flash that trips up in Linux.<br>
<br>
Ideas?<br>
<br>
-Kelly<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>