[Noisebridge-discuss] accounting software / websites

Sat Oct 9 22:49:01 UTC 2010

Hey, Katy here from Hacker Dojo.

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.

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.

Let me go item by item

   - import and reconcile transactions from Wells Fargo, Paypal & Square.

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.

   - keep repeating invoices for membership dues and an option to have the
   member invoiced automatically via email.

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.

   - 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)

Everything in Spreedly is arranged by subscription, including the
invoices/payments, so this problem is designed out.

   - custom categories for flagging transactions as various types of
   expenses and income to make taxes easier

Mint does this.  Hook it up to the bank account Spreedly feeds.

   - 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.)

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
http://www.dustball.com/account/txns/dojo 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.

   - clear tracking of unpaid invoices

Spreedly does this. If an invoice fails it whines at you.

   - 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.)

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.

   - generate receipts easily

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.

   - web-based or linux-compatible local app. Some sort of remote data
   storage and ability to access from multiple machines is required.

Spreedly and Mint are web-based.  Our code is thrown on Google App Engine.

And the optional stuff:

   - direct access to the full details of paypal or square transactions
   (i.e. notes to the payee, etc)

Not sure on this one. :(

   - 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)

We do this by switching people from one subscription plan to another, or by
manually adding time to the account.

   - an interface which isn't bleeding edge flash that trips up in Linux.

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.

Anyway, hope that helps you guys, and if there is anything else we can do to
help out please tell us!

David, best of luck with your new space, and please take any code you might
find useful: http://github.com/hackerdojo

Katy

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 7:23 PM, Christie Dudley <longobord at gmail.com> wrote:

> You mentioned you put together some software for the Dojo?  Does it do
> this stuff?
>
> Christie
> _______
> But wait... there's no FCC on the moon!
>
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Kelly <hurtstotouchfire at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 4:47 PM
> Subject: [Noisebridge-discuss] accounting software / websites
> To: Noisebridge <noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net>
>
>
> Wherein you are invited to disclose your opinions on things you will
> never take any action on yourself! A rare Noisebridge opportunity!
>
> Here's the deal:
> I, your new treasurer, already hate xero.com (our current bookkeeping
> system). I'm planning to finish out 2010 using xero, but I'll have a
> good 9 months of 2011 to look forward to, and they could be accounting
> bliss. That's the fantasy.
>
> Here are features we need:
> -import and reconcile transactions from Wells Fargo, Paypal & Square.
> -keep repeating invoices for membership dues and an option to have the
> member invoiced automatically via email.
> -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)
> -custom categories for flagging transactions as various types of
> expenses and income to make taxes easier
> -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 system (i.e. xero won't let you
> delete invoices once created, you can only mark them invalid. Not A
> Feature.)
> -generate receipts easily
> -web-based or linux-compatible local app. Some sort of remote data
> storage and ability to access from multiple machines is required.
>
> Here are features that would make me especially super happy:
> -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.
>
> Ideas?
>
> -Kelly
> _______________________________________________
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>
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