[Ambassadors] Some budget questions

[Max Spevack]

On Tue, 22 Mar 2011, Christoph Wickert wrote:

> BTW: We didn't use the whole budget but because of the late order we 
> only did 300 media for a total of 2,376.62 EUR = $3,380.

Well, we will all collectively (and I in particular on my end) make sure 
we get a purchase order for F15 media in EMEA opened far in advance even 
of the final images being ready.

>> FY11 total -- 8080 EUR
>>
>> The final budget numbers that you referenced are $3780 USD for F13 
>> and $7980 USD for F14, for a total of $11,760.
>>
>> Going to Google *today* and typing in "8080 EUR in USD" gives me 
>> $11,493, which is pretty close.
>
> Even if the total numbers match I wonder why the numbers for the 
> individual releases are so different. Where are they taken from? They 
> are obviously not the invoices but rather based on information you get 
> from your billing people, right?

We don't often work with Purchase Orders for Fedora costs.  Most 
everything is put on credit cards, with the exception of media, because 
that's a lot of money.

The way it works with the purchase orders is:

In NA, the Ambassadors figure out how much they want to produce, we get 
an estimate from the vendor on how much they think that will cost, I 
open a purchase order for that amount in USD, and then the vendors send 
the invoices in to the finance department.  Once the person who opened 
the PO (in this case me) notes that the media was received, the vendor 
gets paid.

The process in EMEA is similar, but we've always needed help because 
someone in Munich has to open the Purchase Order in EUR for the MediaBit 
supplier.  This used to be Alessandra, and this most recent time Daniela 
has helped us out, for which I have given her many many thanks :)  On my 
end, what I see is "$FOO in RH Europe opened a purchase order for 5000 
EUR ($X USD) on your behalf for supplier $BAR.  Do you approve?"  I say 
yes.  I note down that amount in my personal budget tracking which ends 
up on the public expenses page, and then I pretty much just assume that 
all the German speaking folks take care of the details.

> My question was more about where the numbers are from than if the 
> numbers were correct. I didn't expect you to go through all the bills 
> of the last years now because we all trust you. I think you have more 
> important things to do and we should try to help you. I hope the 
> Financial SIG is a good approach to share the workload and have more 
> transparency.

Christoph, I sincerely am glad that there are people out there like you 
who actually bother to take a look at, and ask questions about, all of 
the financial transparency that we do.  It makes me feel like that work 
is worthwhile.

--Max