Hello Team,
In the team meeting of yesterday, I got the impression that we are interpreting
budget in different ways (and I just realised that some problems on budget
discussion of last year could have been caused from different interpretations).
For me a budget (for DebConf) is a best estimate of monetary flow (for a
specific DebConf), as estimated in a definite time. The accounting (ledger) is
the money (and stuffs) spent (or promised to spend, [invoiced]). The allocated
money (for e.g. different tasks or teams) is an additional concept.
Budget should be versioned (e.g. using the date), it is ok to have supplements
/ amendments (as it is ok to have a release 2.1), just it should be clearly
tagged. (so let’s not get an official moving budget).
Teams (or/and tasks) could have allocated money, and to allocate this money we
could require a plan. I see this allocated money as money that teams (tasks)
could spend, according the plan, without asking -team (and possibly DPL) at
every money spent/change (within the plan).
The allocated money could be (and should be) in line with the budget (and its
amendments), but the budget should not be a list of only allocated money. E.g.
in last meeting: video team expenses are probably nearer to 5k then 0k, so we
must put 5k in budget, but it is ok not to allocate yet 5k of money for them
(so that 5k is not yet free spendable by the video team).
Note: It could be also ok, to budget 10% more, per team, than allocated money,
or 2x as common done with time budgets. (just to show that allocated !=
budgeted).
This is my understanding of accounting, but it is important to be in line with
Nigel's interpretation, and that all the team is also in line with Nigel. We
really need to avoid to have unnecessary misunderstandings on budgets, plans,
expenses, etc.
ciao
cate
PS: and probably there is no “necessary misunderstanding” nor “unnecessary
understanding"
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