Hi Richard,
I think I was a bit misunderstandable here.
I'm not talking about the local reports but about the "translations" of
them for WMF. I would be more than happy if WMF would do it themselves.
This is what these fellows are doing as of my understanding in the next 6
months.
The bright future for me would be the "automated" version of this: WMF pays
for an accounting firm preferably a "big four" company (Deloitte, KPMG,
Ernst & Young or PriceWaterhouseCoopers) to do the accounting for all the
chapters.
Why?
Because they are present in almost every country in the world.
For small/new chapters and other current and future formations in need to
present an audited statement for the WMF it would be definitely a benefit
to have someone do the job. If they would do the local "regular" accounting
imo it would be even better.
So I have two levels here. One "normal": the local and one
"translated" for
WMF. These big firms are capable of doing both. Maybe if we look into that
deeply it can turn out that on a global level we might end up saving on the
accounting costs with such a contract. But that is just my idea, no data to
support it. The fellows will be definitely able to answer such a question
though in six months time.
Balazs
2014-11-21 12:46 GMT+00:00 Richard Symonds <richard.symonds(a)wikimedia.org.uk
Hi Balazs,
This, while at first glance a credible idea, wouldn't work for a number of
reasons:
- it misunderstands how major accounting firms work. Even if one
accounting group carried out the work, the people doing the work would
be
the local accounting firms (eg KPMG Hungary, KPMG UK). These firms would
have different methodologies and practices.
- Some chapters, including WMUK, have a legal responsibility to be
independent. Having someone else report our finances would jeopardise
that
independence.
- Bigger chapters - and some smaller ones - already have established
reporting procedures and practices, which in some cases are better than
the
WMF's systems. It would be extremely difficult to update our systems
from
our own, to WMF-led ones.
- There would still be delays and errors in reporting - and the dates
would still change because each country has different tax years (etc).
- Every organisation measures things differently - we all have different
cost centres, nominal codes, departments etc - having the WMF come in
and
change them would be very difficult and would run the risk of some
organisations losing accuracy in their reporting (or would run the risk
of
having a massively complex system to account for everything). At its
simplest level, definitions of things like "governance" or "office
costs"
vary from country to country. For example, in WMUK, we count general
postage of letters as office costs, but items that fall under the Royal
Mail definition of parcels instead come out of the budget for a
project. If
you're to have the same reporting for every country, you need to all be
using the same definition of "parcel"!
- Finally, every organisation's goals are different - and indeed our
funding streams are different. WMUK is mostly funded from outside the
movement, and as a result we are able to use our resources to fund
non-Wikimedia projects - for example, OpenStreetMap, or OpenCorporates,
if
we wanted to. We can even fund political lobbying to a fair degree,
which
is something the WMF can't do as easily. This means that the WMF has no
interest in counting that expenditure, because lobbying for open
knowledge
is not a WMF goal in the same way that it's a WMUK goal. It would be
funded
without using WMF funds, and would be spent on non-WMF goals.
Very complicated, and I'm sorry to write such a long email, but
standardising financial systems across continents is a very difficult thing
to do!
All the best,
Richard Symonds
Wikimedia UK
0207 065 0992
Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and
Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513. Registered
Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT.
United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of a global Wikimedia
movement. The Wikimedia projects are run by the Wikimedia Foundation (who
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*Wikimedia UK is an independent non-profit charity with no legal control
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On 21 November 2014 11:38, Balázs Viczián <balazs.viczian(a)wikimedia.hu>
wrote:
Hmm...I would love to *outsource *financial
reporting to WMF together
with
a couple of other tasks as well (program
evaluation for example).
Imo the best would be to contact our (that is WM Hungary) accountant
directly so they can get the data organized as wanted, on time, with
explanations requested, etc.
In long terms I would love to see a global contract with KPMG (as WMF is
using them, or another of the big four) where KPMG (or an alternative
firm
if not present there) would take this task over
from local chapters.
That would ensure that the data is collected the exact same way (with
same
definitions and methodology used) in every single
country, without delays
or errors in reporting and on the best dates for WMF.
Not to mention that it would decrease the workload of the chapters what I
think barely if ever happened yet.
Balazs
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