Re: Treasurer's Report as of 2011-08-31

This report uses a cash-based method of accounting, recording donations
when deposited (not when the check was written or received by us) and
recording expenses when sent or scheduled for payment (not when
incurred).

Income Statement
for the Period August 01, 2011 - August 31, 2011

Income
Ordinary Income
aptosid 3.00
Debian 3,647.00
DebConf 11 10,502.00
FreeDesktop.org 5.00
OpenOffice.org 285.00
OpenWrt 60.00
PostgreSQL 520.00
SPI General 527.00
SPI 5% 81.50
The HeliOS Project 110.00

Total Ordinary Income 15,740.50
---------

Interest Income
Key Bank Money Mkt Savings 1.53
Chase BusinessClassic Checking 0.16
Chase Bus Select High Yield Savings 11.76

Total Interest Income 13.45
-----

Gross Income 15,753.95
---------

Expenses
Ordinary Expenses

aptosid
Processing Fees 0.47
SPI 5% 0.15

Total aptosid Exp 0.62
----

Debian
Processing Fees 24.26
SPI 5% 32.35
Travel (DC10) 950.00

Total Debian Exp 1,006.61
--------

DebConf 11
Processing Fees 0.43

Total DC11 Exp 0.43
----

FreeDesktop.org
Processing Fees 0.55
SPI 5% 0.25

Total fd.o Exp 0.80
----

OpenOffice.org (OO.o)
Processing Fees 14.35
SPI 5% 14.25

Total OO.o Exp 28.60
-----

OpenWrt
Processing Fees 3.10
SPI 5% 3.00

Total OpenWrt Exp 6.10
----

PostgreSQL
Processing Fees 12.40
Server hardware 4,115.70
SPI 5% 26.00

Total PostgreSQL Exp 4,154.10
--------

SPI
PaySimple Monthly Fee 29.95
Transaction Fees 222.82

Total SPI Exp 252.77
------

The HeliOS Project
Processing Fees 2.10
SPI 5% 5.50

Total HeliOS Exp 7.60
----

Total Expenses 5,457.63
--------

Net Income 10,296.32
=========

Balance Sheet as of August 31, 2011

ASSETS
Current Assets
Chase BusinessClassic Checking with Interest 8,528.04
Chase Business Select High Yield Savings 97,585.75
Key Business Reward Checking 88,380.75
Key Business Signature Money Market Savings 36,015.37
Ameriprise Cash Mgmt Acct 13,401.62

Total Current Assets 243,911.50

TOTAL ASSETS 243,911.50

LIABILITIES & EQUITY

General and current liabilities 0.00

Equity
Reserves held in trust
aptosid Earmark 69.32
Debian Earmark 54,638.19
DebConf 11 Earmark 46,355.50
Freedesktop.org Earmark 12,849.10
Gallery Earmark 7,410.80
GNU TeXmacs Earmark 63.60
LibreOffice Earmark 12,000.00
Madwifi.org Earmark 1,454.09
OpenOffice.org Earmark 21,268.64
OpenVAS 45.71
OpenWrt 945.60
Open Voting Foundation Earmark 153.65
OSUNIX 0.56
Path64 9.31
Plan 9 Earmark 6,500.00
PostgreSQL Earmark 32,129.06
Privoxy Earmark 446.50
The HeliOS Project 173.66
Tux4Kids Earmark 8,788.85
YafaRay Earmark 4,897.20

Total held in trust 210,199.34

General reserves 33,712.16

Total Equity 243,911.50

TOTAL LIABILITIES & EQUITY 243,911.50

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

If I understand this correctly, on cash assets of roughly 1/4 million
dollars,

> Balance Sheet as of August 31, 2011
>
> ASSETS
> Current Assets
> Chase BusinessClassic Checking with Interest 8,528.04
> Chase Business Select High Yield Savings 97,585.75
> Key Business Reward Checking 88,380.75
> Key Business Signature Money Market Savings 36,015.37
> Ameriprise Cash Mgmt Acct 13,401.62
>
> Total Current Assets 243,911.50

held in fixed-interest accounts, i.e., accounts which do not fluctuate
with the stock or bond markets, we received interest of less than $14
last month

> Income Statement
> for the Period August 01, 2011 - August 31, 2011
>
> ...
>
> Interest Income
> Key Bank Money Mkt Savings 1.53
> Chase BusinessClassic Checking 0.16
> Chase Bus Select High Yield Savings 11.76
>
> Total Interest Income 13.45

which is an annual interest rate of roughly

100 * 12 * 13.45 / 243911.50
=>
0.066 %

Rounding up, zero point zero seven percent.
That is, a little bit more than one twentieth of one percent.

--Barak.

(Not speaking for Michael, our current Treasurer, but having preceded him in
that role, here are some thoughts.)

Hi Barak,

On Fri, Sep 16, 2011 at 12:21:40PM +0100, Barak A. Pearlmutter wrote:
>
> which is an annual interest rate of roughly
>
> 100 * 12 * 13.45 / 243911.50
> =>
> 0.066 %
>
> Rounding up, zero point zero seven percent.
> That is, a little bit more than one twentieth of one percent.

Given how low interest rates are in the US currently, lots of accounts do have
such bad rates. It's surprisingly typical, and these things are hard to compare
quickly across countries (your country of Ireland has a very different
situation right now on this point).

You're right that for our amount of money, some better rates are likely
available, but within the FDIC-insured world in the current US interest rate
climate, we won't get dramatically more. This is especially true if we continue
our current practice of splitting the money between more than one bank, both
for significant convenience reasons and to stay below government insurance
limits. In other words, $250k is not the relevant tier from any single bank's
perspective.

There are other investments that aren't government insured which can be
prudently considered, but before taking any such risk we should have more
man-hours available for such things than (primarily) a single busy spare-time
volunteer Treasurer.

If you want to identify specific banks and account products we should consider
for better interest rates, do let us know. Some relatively obvious preferences
are that it should be a US bank (including US subsidiaries of foreign banks) or
credit union offering a US-located deposit account (with or without
checkwriting privileges) denominated in US dollars, insured by the FDIC in the
case of a bank or the NCUA in the case of a credit union; and that we want room
to grow in all of our accounts before we reach $250k held with any one
institution, which is the current government insurance limit. The account of
course needs to be available to nonprofits, not solely individuals.

Finally, be cautious about suggesting online-only accounts; those often are
only accessible via several-day delayed transfer to a linked account of the
same owner, and are very lacking in customer support, which is how they can
offer such good rates. Similarly, even standard savings accounts have other
transaction frequency restrictions. All of these may (or may not) affect their
suitability for us.

Probably the best place to direct specific thoughts is treasurer(at)spi-inc(dot)org
since this is primarily his responsibility, but it's reasonable to CC whichever
of the board, spi-private, or spi-general you think is the most appropriate.
I'm definitely not trying to create more work for one very overworked Mr.
Schultheiss. :-)

- Jimmy Kaplowitz
jimmy(at)spi-inc(dot)org

P.S. - Thank you for crunching the numbers. It's been a while since anyone had,
though I remember doing it at some point in the past and having a similar
reaction to yours.