Draft expense policy

expense-policy.md

• Status: Early draft proposal
• Last update: 2023-8-22

Goal

Provide an expense policy for the Tusky project that is:

1. Legal
2. Fair
3. Transparent
4. Observable by non-project members
5. Verifiable by project donors

No expense will be paid if it did not go through this process

Not about grants

This is not about paying people to do specific short-term work for the project. That is the [[Grant policy]]

Overview

An expense is incurred when the project purchases a tangible asset or enters in to a contract.

Note: When the project has a legal entity behind it the expectation is that individuals should not be incurring direct expenses on behalf of the project. The project should be able to pay for things directly.

For example, buying a domain name, or employing an artist to produce a specific work,

Expenses go through the following stages.

1. An expense is proposed
2. An expense is approved or rejected
3. The expense is incurred
4. The expense is paid

The expense proposal, minutes of the discussion approving / denying the proposal, artifacts that the expense paid for, evidence it was incurred, and proof of payment will be made public by the project.

This provides a set of checks and balances to ensure that an expense is incurred legally, approved fairly, and paid promptly, and allows project donors to review the expenses the project is incurring.

Proposing an expense

An expense proposal explains why the expense needs to be incurred, and should clearly state:

• What expense is being proposed
• Why the project would benefit from this
• Who will incur the expense (if not the project)
• What the cost is
• (if appropriate) Alternatives that were considered

Different expenses may require different levels of detail. As the value of the expense increases the expected amount of detail included also increases.

For example, the expense for "Renewing the tusky.app domain name for the next two years" would require no more than one line for each bullet point, because it's probably about USD 20.

A hypothetical "Purchase a license for Obsidian Sync and Share for 10 contributors for a year, at USD 16 per month per contribor, for a total cost of USD 1,920 per year" proposal would require a lot more detail.

Note: That's a hypothetical example above, I just happened to have the Obsidian pricing to hand.

Approving or rejecting an expense

Expenses are approved by TODO.

Approval is communicated by TODO.

Rejection is communicated by TODO.

Incurring the expense

After the expense has been approved the proposer can go and incur the expense.

Expenses incurred that were not approved will not be paid.

Paying the expense

After the proposer has incurred the expense they submit appropriate evidence for the expense (e.g., invoices) and its approval to TODO.

Expenses should be paid out within two working days of receiving the submission, and confirmed back to the proposer.