[tor] Paypal donations to Tor project

Noisebridge Treasurer treasurer at noisebridge.net
Wed Aug 24 00:18:41 UTC 2011


Hey torfolk,

I just started reconciling the donations we've received thus far and I
realized that I wasn't sure how to track the paypal fees incurred by
these donations. In theory we should track the income and expenditures
for this project independently of Noisebridge's income and
expenditures... For tax purposes, fees should be reconciled as a
Noisebridge operating expense, so they can't be in a bucket with
income because they would make it look like we had less donated
income. We can track other expenses separately, but fees are
particularly hard.

The long and short of it is I don't think we can realistically track
transaction fees separately for a Noisebridge project. What I would
suggest is that we just consider paypal's % part of the overhead that
Noisebridge takes on in sponsoring this project. I also think that we
should add that % to the donation that the project kicks up to
Noisebridge.

So then, total % donation to the general fund is the sum total of the
following factors:

+5% - financial sponsorship (accounting overhead etc)
+(your transaction fee here)%, so ~+3% for paypal

So at the end of the month when you look at your total income (not
tracking paypal fees) you would just take 8% off the top and say
that's your operating budget.

Alternatively, you guys could track and reimburse Noisebridge for
transaction fees. It also depends on whether you'll be accepting
donations through multiple vendors, which I think you should
definitely be considering.

Generally speaking, we haven't discussed how the % to general fund
thing is going to work. That's ultimately another piece of
accountability to track between Noisebridge's treasurer and your
financial officer. I have... honestly no idea how we can show such a
transaction in the accounting. It should be tracked somehow, but it's
not a transaction in the traditional sense. I tend to think it's
easiest if you guys just work with an operating budget that excludes
the general fund % and leave it at that.

Thoughts?

-Kelly



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