Paying for things

Whether it's a purchase under an existing budget, something that just came up that you desperately need, or a digital tool that everyone should have... we want to have a clear system for how we spend the coop's money.

Here's what we have as our working agreement on this for the moment:

Invoices

If you have received an invoice for something, please:

1. forward it to [e-mail] AND

2. add a note to the email indicating what this is in plain English, what it's for, if the invoice is a 'receipt' or a 'payable' and how payment is, or has been, made (so nobody else has to scroll through the invoice trying to infer which project/product/team this is part of). e.g. "This is a receipt for the buttons for Alvis, pre-paid by wire transfer."

3. we might reply with questions (e.g. is this a recurring amount, how often do you expect to be purchasing these, was this already part of a budget we know about...)

Budgeting

If you have a project you're working on where you expect to be buying things:

1. let's build a budget for the project so that you can buy the things you need in a cost-effective way, feel free to create a task in ClickUp and invite me and/or Oona to join you as Watchers etc.

2. once we have a budget, it can be referenced either for A above, or C below.

'de minimus' purchases (and common sense)

If you have something you need to buy or spend money on that isn't part of a budget:

1. if it's less than $50 (one-off), please just go ahead and buy it with the understanding you'll have to defend the purchase if it comes up - just use your head on this one. And make sure you still follow process A above.

2. if it's more than $50, or it's any kind of subscription or monthly recurring payment, just send a note to whoever you think is the right person to determine if it makes sense - I imagine there'll be one of three outcomes: a) it doesn't make sense to buy this, b) it makes sense but this should be part of a budget, not a one-off, c) this makes sense as a one-off.