14:01:23 <cwickert> #startmeeting Budget Meeting
14:01:23 <zodbot> Meeting started Thu Jan 26 14:01:23 2012 UTC.  The chair is cwickert. Information about MeetBot at http://wiki.debian.org/MeetBot.
14:01:23 <zodbot> Useful Commands: #action #agreed #halp #info #idea #link #topic.
14:01:30 <cwickert> #meetingname Budget Meeting
14:01:30 <zodbot> The meeting name has been set to 'budget_meeting'
14:01:46 <cwickert> #chair kital cwickert harish
14:01:46 <zodbot> Current chairs: cwickert harish kital
14:01:46 <harish> hi cwickert
14:02:15 <cwickert> any more FAmSco members or credit card holders around?
14:02:36 <harish> i don't see anyone else
14:02:42 <cwickert> me neither
14:02:46 <cwickert> so lets start
14:02:51 <harish> go ahead
14:03:08 <cwickert> we were looking at https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture_expenses and figured out we are basically out of money
14:03:19 <cwickert> at least for regional support
14:03:27 <cwickert> and we wonder how this has happened
14:03:37 <cwickert> and what we could do about it
14:04:32 <cwickert> I see two problems here
14:04:50 <cwickert> we - as in FAmSCo - don't know where the money has gone
14:04:52 <harish> it is possible that I might have wrongly classified some premier events expenses (like the FUDcons) into the regional support.
14:05:17 <cwickert> and as we don't know how much is left, we are now having a hard time to make budget decisions
14:05:26 <harish> i have received many claims and i tried my best to classify them and i am willing to relook all of them again.
14:06:01 <cwickert> where are the costs of FUDCon Pune?
14:06:19 * kital is searching
14:06:36 <harish> let me look at the spreadsheet i was working on...
14:06:40 <cwickert> I mean, it doesn't show up at all on the wiki page
14:07:00 <kital> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqqQPlgHkueldEJvd3kzRExLMm94cS1rbkhlRi16dVE&authkey=CO7TqeMP&hl=de#gid=1
14:08:42 <kital> cwickert: i do not know if and how the other credit card owners report the expenses to famsco
14:08:57 <kital> but they have to do it anyway for RH Finance
14:09:58 <cwickert> too bad none of them is here right now
14:10:05 <kital> and as i told harish i am also willing to take more responsibilities in collecting and reporting
14:10:40 <kital> the financial data
14:10:46 <cwickert> well, I would like Jiri to do it. he works for RH, but we need his manager to agree on it
14:10:59 <cwickert> I think you are already doing quite a lot of work
14:11:11 <cwickert> and so is harish
14:11:22 <cwickert> we need somebody who really has time to do the budget
14:12:08 <harish> i am willing to do the following: i will work with kital  to sort this out. over the next couple of days. i am looking at my spreadsheet and it looks like i might have one item wrongly classified as regional instead of premier
14:12:47 <kital> harish: do you know how the other credit card holders report their expenses?
14:12:51 <harish> but that was for about 400 (ambassadors reimbursment)
14:13:09 <kital> do they have something like this https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jsimon/community_credit_card_report
14:13:12 <harish> kital, i get the statements from finance.
14:13:36 <kital> yeah but nobody else knows what they have done
14:13:59 <harish> that's a good point.
14:14:46 * cwickert is on the phone
14:14:48 <harish> i think let's work on this over the next few days to nail it down.
14:14:59 <harish> i have visibility only from August.
14:15:07 <harish> when i took over the budget.
14:15:28 <kital> harish: maybe we should start with more transparency for the credit cards
14:15:31 <kital> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jsimon/draft_community_credit_card_process
14:15:48 <harish> kital, agreed.
14:16:23 <harish> kital, my question is why was there no agreed process for the community credit card in the first place?
14:16:24 <kital> then lets collect from which other places expenses occure
14:17:02 <kital> because john(inode0) did not want too much regulation first
14:17:16 <kital> and it was clear with the role that famsco had at this time
14:17:26 <harish> kital, it was not so much regulation as much as transparency, frankly.
14:17:57 <harish> i'll be the first to admit that perhaps I was lax on that bit.
14:18:09 <kital> it seems max put my process https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_credit_card_process
14:18:12 <kital> here
14:19:29 <harish> yes, indeed.
14:20:43 <kital> so to speak about trancparency - Christoph would it help if the CreditCard Holders Report the summary of their monthly expenses to famsco for the monthly famsco report
14:21:03 <kital> so at least this part is transparent and can be summed up
14:21:29 <kital> and harish "only" has to care what other budget is spend
14:21:40 <harish> i think that would work
14:21:49 <kital> so we can put the pieces together ?
14:22:32 <harish> would it be easier for the credit card report to be automagically imported into a spreadsheet and all the card holders need to do is to put appropriate details.
14:22:53 <harish> how do you do this now, kital ?
14:23:35 <kital> the report that i do for public is also the report for myself
14:23:36 <kital> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/User:Jsimon/community_credit_card_report
14:23:55 <harish> kital, i see the report, but what is your workflow?
14:24:05 <kital> ah ok
14:24:06 <harish> ie how much time do you need to get that done?
14:24:30 <harish> if we can have an easy workflow, it will make things smoother.
14:25:02 <harish> how much time do you need to spend, on the average, per line item?
14:26:52 <harish> kital, ping
14:26:54 <kital> "check initial base to pay"(e.g. tracticket) -> payment -> wiki-report -> store the invoices
14:27:11 <harish> ok
14:27:29 <kital> for the monthly report to rh finance
14:28:04 <harish> ok.
14:28:26 <kital> wiki-report.pdf -> bankofamericaoutput.pdf -> ticketprint.pdf -> invoices.pdf = monthly report
14:28:29 <kital> +
14:28:37 <harish> i see the monthly reports fine, and am wondering why only you've got the process of dcocumeting it online working
14:29:05 <harish> s/dcocumeting/documenting/
14:29:45 <kital> and finally i send also the spreadsheet with all the cost-centers
14:29:47 <harish> i was warned by max that the budgeting process is messy and I am seeing it unfold for me now.
14:30:17 <harish> to me?
14:30:17 <kital> hire me part time and i do it all myself ;)
14:30:31 <harish> kital, working on it :-)
14:30:50 <kital> to answer your question
14:31:00 <kital> why only you've got the process of dcocumeting it online working
14:32:01 <kital> i think the time per line depends on what ticket i get
14:32:23 <harish> that i agree. i was looking for an average, gut feel.
14:32:29 <harish> since you've done a tonne of them already.
14:32:44 <harish> it takes me days to sort out the budget and then I get confused.
14:32:54 <harish> hence the long delays in updating it and then i make mistakes.
14:33:03 <kital> cwickerts tickets in the past often contained a lot legacy bills so they need some time
14:33:13 <harish> and that makes everyone upset with me :-(
14:33:19 <kital> and it also depends if someone attaches his invoices in jpg or pdf
14:33:36 <kital> s/jpg/some imageformat/
14:33:39 <harish> yes, a lot of dependencies - that i am very aware of.
14:33:55 <kital> because then i have to convert it to pdf for reporting etc.
14:34:02 <harish> i am still paying off some fudcon pune expenses - just did one today.
14:34:12 <kital> so if it is only one bill the all over payment can be done in 10 minutes
14:34:46 <kital> but it also can take 30minutes if things are messy or the invoices are in a language that nobody understands
14:35:22 <kital> harish - yes the overall report to rh finance can also take me another 4 hours
14:35:35 <kital> depends on the number of payments
14:36:22 * cwickert is back
14:36:26 <harish> so we need a better way to do this. i am sure max's idea of a Finance SIG was to take care of this - unless I am horribly wrong
14:37:05 <cwickert> I don't think there will be a Finance SIG soon and I am not even convinced it is a good idea
14:37:18 <kital> i think one bigger problem is also that the Ambassador Group did not evolved as expected into a group that is helper and liason also to the other groups
14:37:51 <cwickert> I very much like the idea of a Fedora Council with representatives, but this won't happen any time soon either. so we need to look into something in short term
14:38:05 <kital> so that cwickert is indeed not complete wrong with his opinion that famsco is not always able to decide about wrong and right spending the money
14:38:06 <cwickert> FAmSCo has become much more responsive recently
14:38:31 <harish> cwickert, that i agree
14:38:35 <cwickert> our problem in FAmSco is: we don't know what we can approve
14:38:43 <cwickert> or what we should approve
14:38:45 <harish> as in
14:38:51 <harish> as in finance?
14:38:52 <cwickert> limits
14:38:55 <cwickert> right
14:39:02 <harish> ok.
14:39:18 <kital> cwickert: the initial idea from Max and me was that famsco knows the fedora project better than anybody else
14:39:19 <cwickert> I was told that for example FAmSCo was not able to approve the 5k purchase order for media in EMEA
14:39:28 <kital> because we represent the project
14:39:31 <cwickert> kital: I don't think this is true
14:39:57 <harish> i think that 5k has been approved. /me checking.
14:40:25 <cwickert> harish: it was, but not by FAmSCo. rbergeron needed to have it signed by her manager
14:40:40 <cwickert> kital: but anyway, I'm fine with having FAmSCo handle the budget until we have something better
14:40:42 <harish> which then comes to me.
14:40:57 <kital> cwickert: it was true some day ;)
14:41:13 <kital> s/some day/some days back/
14:41:47 <harish> so, for the remaining weeks of FY12 (ending Feb 29), I am happy to review what I posted on the wiki.
14:41:48 <cwickert> and for me in short term it is important that we have: 1. proper reporting, so it is transparent FAmSCo knows how much money is left and 2. proper guidelines on what can individual credit card holders, the local communities, FAmSco or RH approve
14:42:00 <cwickert> harish: yeah, that would be a vry good start
14:42:02 <kital> i think 2010 was a big degradation and if i look at the new famsco chair i see a person who knows the fedora project pretty good
14:42:16 <harish> +1
14:42:17 * cwickert is getting red :)
14:42:37 <cwickert> thanks for your trust, guys!
14:42:45 <harish> cwickert, i think you are doing the right things and we need to kick the whole thing into shape
14:43:01 <harish> i am here to help and i NEED help as well.
14:43:16 <cwickert> ok, what are we to in short term? update https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture_expenses
14:43:45 <kital> yes and put some more concrete numbers on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_credit_card_process ?
14:43:46 <harish> here's my rule of thumb: I am stingy with Red Hat money. It is not mine. I am therefore going to check and double check. Yes, *that* will slow things down. But at the end of the day I am answerable.
14:44:20 <cwickert> harish: ok, if you need help, then please get in touch with spot. Jiri is willing to help you and he has a master in accounting. but we need to talk to his manager to have him free up some hours a week for doing the budget
14:44:21 <kital> the first thing that i would put up here for credit card holders to report transparently in public?
14:44:40 <cwickert> suggestion: harish to update https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture_expenses
14:44:46 <harish> ok, i will take your advise on that, cwickert
14:45:00 <cwickert> and in the meantime kital and me work on reporting guidelines for the credit card holders
14:45:11 <kital> +1
14:45:16 <cwickert> and on general guidelines on who is allowed to approve what
14:45:18 <harish> ok with me as well.
14:45:23 <cwickert> cool
14:45:45 <cwickert> and harish, I know you are doing a great job and have lots of things to do, so don't hesitate to ask for help
14:46:04 <cwickert> but we need somebody from RH CommArch to approach Jiri's manager in Brno
14:46:14 <cwickert> or to even increase the headcount in their office
14:46:32 <cwickert> I think spot is the right person to talk to, even if he cannot make that call
14:47:04 <harish> ok, let me check with spot about jiri. i can certainly approach jiri's manager directly as well.
14:47:21 <cwickert> better talk to spot first about the strategy ;)
14:47:29 <harish> cwickert, sure thing.
14:47:36 <cwickert> spot know how to get these kind of things done
14:47:41 <cwickert> s7know/knows
14:47:50 * cwickert is clumsy today
14:47:54 <harish> he has the institutional memory as well.
14:48:01 <harish> which is enormously helpful.
14:48:07 <cwickert> #action harish to update https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_Architecture_expenses
14:48:36 <cwickert> #action kital and cwickert work on https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Community_credit_card_process
14:48:51 <cwickert> ok, anything else we need to or can decide today?
14:49:04 <kital> nope not from me
14:49:22 <cwickert> ah, btw, there is a ticket open in FAmSCo's trac as well
14:49:27 <harish> i think we've covered a good enough area for me and thank you cwickert and kital for this.
14:49:53 <kital> ;)
14:49:57 <harish> and, gentlemen, i am here to help not to hinder.
14:49:58 <cwickert> .famsco 251
14:49:58 <zodbot> https://fedorahosted.org/famsco/ticket/251
14:50:27 <cwickert> ok, thanks to harish for making it to this meeting even if it was very short term
14:50:40 <cwickert> I think you are both CC'ed to the trac ticket
14:50:42 <harish> no worries.
14:50:50 <kital> yep saw it
14:50:50 <cwickert> lets document outr efforts there
14:50:59 <cwickert> alright, I think we are set then
14:51:08 <kital> fine
14:51:22 <harish> got the #251
14:51:30 <cwickert> ok, thanks everybody for coming
14:51:39 <harish> thanks. have a good evening.
14:51:47 <cwickert> alright, bye
14:51:50 <cwickert> #endmeeting