Re: Up to date statements of account?

Andrew Sullivan wrote:
> Dear colleagues,
>
> Some of us recently asked the Liason for the PostgreSQL project for
> an up to date accounting of the PostgreSQL fund at SPI. To my shock
> but not, alas, surprise, we were informed that (once again) the
> information simply isn't available.
>
> I would like to know the following:
>
> 1. When can we anticipate that the current account statements will be
> up to date?

Wednesday, October 1, 2008 at the latest.

> 2. When can we anticipate that procedures (or paid staff, or both)
> will be in place to ensure that the accounts will be kept up to date?
> This is important so that projects can make plans on the basis of the
> funds actually available to them.

As soon as I finish the current reports I'll be contacting our CPA to
obtain their firm's rates for bookkeeping. The greatest delay in my
ability to generate timely reports is due to delays in data entry of
donations. By offloading the data entry, the ability to generate
Treasurer's reports ad hoc should greatly improve.

> In my opinion, keeping the accounts up to date is the _sine qua non_
> of SPI. Without this function, SPI is (bluntly) nothing but a
> parasite on the associated projects, skimming donated money and
> providing nothing of value in return. Since joining SPI, I have never
> once seen this issue completely rectified. I see a lot of fire and
> motion around all manner of other issues in the free software world,
> but on this essential issue SPI does not seem actually to be doing its
> job.
>
> I believe it is the Board's job to do something about this: the Board
> members are responsible for the operation of the corporation. So I
> would like the Board to commit to a date, and provide a plan by which
> it will be achieved.

SPI's books have been in a less than desirable state for quite some
time. Numerous improvements have been made to our account procedures
over the past few years and I'm confident that the current plan of
outsourcing data entry will tie up the last few impediments to timely
report generation.

Michael Schultheiss
Treasurer, Software in the Public Interest, Inc.

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Michael Schultheiss
E-mail: schultmc(at)spi-inc(dot)org