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Fund consolidation


Jeru
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To make life easier and prevent waste, I would like the Treasury Committee's approval to take the following steps:

  1. to consolidate all of the Flattr funds into our SPI funds, 
  2. to cancel the Flattr account,
  3. to ask Jason to consolidate all of the legacy PayPal funds into our SPI funds, and
  4. to let Jason know that once the funds are transferred, he can close the legacy account if he wants to.

We currently have EUR 805.18 in the Flattr "wallet balance", up from EUR 619.75 in November 2015. I am attaching a month-by-month transaction log of the last year or so.

Based on 2014-2015 data, the legacy PayPal account probably has something like USD 300-400. This is money that legally belongs to Jason and he can be taxed for any extra income that goes into the account.

@MishFTW and @feneur, what say you? :)

flattr.png

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Hmm, about €200 in a year is a fair amount of money, so the question is how much of that would we still get if we removed the option of donating via Flattr. On the other hand, having money in multiple places does complicate things, and there are fees, so I guess the difference would be minimal if it even would be relevant. Have you looked into how to transfer it though? I mean if it's too complicated/costly that might make it more beneficial to keep Flattr as an option.

About the PayPal: In general I agree 100%, there is however the matter of the IPB license, which Jason has been paying with the money from the legacy PayPal account. I don't really know if there is a good way to pay for it via SPI :unsure: If I recall correctly they aren't that keen on recurring payments (which I can understand, they can't have credit cards for all the accounts they manage and using the one they have too far and wide is risky, and if nothing else I guess it's more work to keep track of where they take the money from so to speak). They do take care of paying for the server though, right? So maybe one more thing wouldn't be too bad, and if paid via credit card I think you can pay e.g. yearly so it's not something they need to spend a lot of time on.

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Hmm, about €200 in a year is a fair amount of money, so the question is how much of that would we still get if we removed the option of donating via Flattr. On the other hand, having money in multiple places does complicate things, and there are fees, so I guess the difference would be minimal if it even would be relevant.

Frankly, as it is, the Flattr money is nearly useless. It's a huge headache to disburse funds from Flattr for any purpose our project would actually need. I hate working with Flattr and I don't want the existing money to be forgotten or otherwise go to waste somehow. I think that if the ~10 monthly donors really want to donate to 0 A.D., they can use the mainstream methods.

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Have you looked into how to transfer it though? I mean if it's too complicated/costly that might make it more beneficial to keep Flattr as an option.

Flattr has a form where you can fill in bank account details and withdraw all the money in the Flattr "wallet balance". I believe the SPI treasurer could just use that form. If we all agree, I'll write the treasurer and verify this. I don't think Flattr would charge anything, but SPI's bank might. Still, I think it's worth a one-time commission.

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About the PayPal: In general I agree 100%, there is however the matter of the IPB license, which Jason has been paying with the money from the legacy PayPal account.

That's a good point I hadn't considered (and I was wondering why the balance went down in the legacy account between 2014 and 2015. This explains it).

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I don't really know if there is a good way to pay for it via SPI [...] They do take care of paying for the server though, right? So maybe one more thing wouldn't be too bad, and if paid via credit card I think you can pay e.g. yearly so it's not something they need to spend a lot of time on.

Yeah, they take care of the server. If we all agree, I'll write the treasurer and verify this, but based on our experience with the web server, I think we should be fine.

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Flattr has a form where you can fill in bank account details and withdraw all the money in the Flattr "wallet balance". I believe the SPI treasurer could just use that form. If we all agree, I'll write the treasurer and verify this. I don't think Flattr would charge anything, but SPI's bank might. Still, I think it's worth a one-time commission.

Ah, then I don't see any issues with it.

 

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Yeah, they take care of the server. If we all agree, I'll write the treasurer and verify this, but based on our experience with the web server, I think we should be fine.

Ok, well then I'm for it. I'm sure Jason would be glad to not have to think about it (or to have me nag him once or twice a year =) ), and it would be nice to have things in one place :)

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From a convenience perspective and just streamlining operations, I think moving to one account makes total sense.

I had a few questions but looks like Erik and Aviv both of covered it.

With a project of this scale and being spread out in different time zones and jurisdictions, I think having one single source of monetary transactions makes total sense and I fully endorse the idea :thumbsup:

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  • 9 months later...
  • 10 months later...
On 12/8/2016 at 11:06 PM, Jeru said:

We currently have EUR 805.18 in the Flattr "wallet balance", up from EUR 619.75 in November 2015. I am attaching a month-by-month transaction log of the last year or so.

Now we have EUR 885.28 and we are down to 2 Flattrs per month, one from each giver. Each one is donating USD 0.01-0.03 per month.

---

Today I sent SPI another reminder about this task. It's been over a year since my original e-mail. 

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  • 1 month later...

Michael Schultheiss, SPI treasurer, wrote me yesterday:

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Apologies for the delay. I'm working with Flattr to verify the account so we can withdraw the funds. I should have this done in the next few days.

 

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