Accounts updates

[ben]

I have begun a spreadsheet for our accounts which we can use, unless there is an easier way to do it - we could do it in the cafe accounts software if it’s possible to partition it off somehow. But then I wouldn’t personally be able to help since I have very limited knowledge of Quickbooks etc

It’s based on the red gym spreadsheet so it may be a bit idiosyncratic.

Solidarity Kitchen accounts

Even if it’s quite basic I would appreciate something of a budget from the cafe team. I can see issues with attaching absolute values to things (we have no idea how long we will be able to run for) but if we could say x% goes to ingredients, x% to consumables, etc that would be a help.

[ben]

Updated for wk 13 (first week of operations: £3,988.83 surplus

[ben]

Wk 14 (second week of operations): £258.15 taken, £153.99 spent = £104.16 surplus.

Cumulative: £4450.90 taken, £357.91 spent = £4092.99 surplus

The expenses are predominantly petrol costs at the moment.

Once we have another full week of spending I will start making our finances public.

[Lai]

Noice. Thanks so much for this!

[ben]

Wk 15 (3rd wk): £0 taken, £351.93 spent = £351.93 deficit

Cumulative: £4450.90 taken, £709.84 spent = £3741.06 surplus

We ‘took’ no money this week due to Gofundme withdrawals being stopped for a security reason that is now resolved (the fundraiser is up to about £6.5k now).

We’re starting to see more ingredient costs come through, about £250 this week.

Now petrol payments are being paid the week after, there is a payment lag.

Julia has volunteered to work on the public accounts summary which will hopefully appear shortly.

[ben]

Wk 16 (4th wk): £0 taken, £929.19 spent = £929.19 deficit

Cumulative: £4450.90 taken, £1639.03 spent = £2811.87 surplus = 63% remaining on hand

Another week of no paper income - I took Gofundme at their word last week when they said it was resolved, but really they are still waiting for the payment provider to verify our account again. We are over £7k and due to get another couple of grand in a week or so, provided it gets signed off by them. Currently we have about 3 weeks’ cover. Obviously I am feeling anxious and monitoring this but there is nothing extra to be done on our end right now.

I think we have a good idea of the ingredient and delivery costs of our meals now (see @Insideout’s cool analysis: Financial income verses expenses and 2 week Projections (per meal cost is estimated at £0.89)

This will go up once we factor in utilities and may vary according to ingredient supplies, but with the current good source of free/cheap ingredients we are smashing the unit cost.

[ben]

Week 17 (5th wk): £1,500 taken, £636.91 spent = £863.09 surplus

Cumulative: £5,950.90 taken, £2,275.94 spent = £3,674.96 surplus = 62% remaining on hand

Income this week was from a single, very kind donation. I’m still keeping on GFM to sort out the bank account nuisance but we have a reasonable amount of headspace now. Fundraising on GFM is going excellently too, we have passed the £8k mark.

We now have a good idea of basically the full cost of our meals, which is still just under £1

[ben]

Week 18 (6th week): £0 taken, £513.25 spent = £513.25 deficit

Cumulative: £5,950.90 taken, £2,707.74 spent = £3,243.16 surplus = 55% remaining on hand

Fundraising continues to go excellently (over £9k on GFM)

[ben]

Week 19 (7th week): £3.56 taken, £358.60 spent = £355.04 deficit

Cumulative: £5,954.46 taken, £3,066.34 spent = £2,888.12 surplus = 49% remaining on hand

Although Gofundme is now fixed the big drop didn’t come until just into wk 20 so you’ll have to wait until the next update for that. We are starting to receive a small amount of subscription income from Gocardless (coming up to £100/month) with a lag on payout, that accounts for the £3.54 income.

As of this week we have enough cash on hand to start taking on projects which require more initial outlay

[Nina]

Do you think we should encourage more donations through social media post?

[kaeden]

Yeah good idea, I will make a post tonight or tomorrow.

[ben]

Week 20 (8th week - we’ve been doing this two months!): £872.60 spent, £5,187.29 taken = £4,314.69 surplus

Cumulative: £11,114.79 taken, £3,938.94 spent = £7,202.81 surplus = 65% remaining on hand

Got the big payout from Gofundme so the numbers look much better now. Gocardless is also paying out regularly and we continue to slowly get new subscribers.

[Sergio]

How do the subscriptions look so far? How much are we getting weekly and monthly through gocardless?

[ben]

It’s not very much in the grand scheme of things and it’s still only been increasing very slowly (perhaps we need to focus our messaging on getting people off gofundme and onto gocardless subscriptions). Currently we are getting payments monthly of about £75 and weekly £4.00. So ~£90 in total a month, minus fees. Actual weekly payouts depend on what donations went through that week so they vary

[Lai]

@Sergio @ben I didn’t put links to weekly forms on the website:
https://cooperationbirmingham.org.uk/donate/

Nothing else is weekly really. Monthly seems to be the standard for this kinda thing.

[ben]

Week 21 (9th week): £772.22 spent, £2,265.52 taken = £1,493.30 surplus

Cumulative: £13,407.27 taken, £4,711.16 spent = £8,696.11 surplus = 65% remaining on hand

No new subscribers which is perhaps no surprise, however the Gofundme continues to get some big donations (including £1,000 on behalf of the Millie’s Masks project), plus two £500 donations directly to the bank account. As I said in the general meeting, we do have a lot of money to spend.

[ben]

Week 22 (10th week): £700.92 taken, £1,043.89 spent = £342.97 deficit

Cumulative: £14,108.19 taken, £5,755.05 spent = £8,353.14 surplus = 59% remaining on hand

Comparatively less coming in from GFM this week due to when donations arrived but it is still doing fine - over £12k now. It was an expensive week thanks to a few large invoices and the fact that I’ve done all the payments for this last week on Sunday evening rather than on Monday so I can have some time off! So we have paid out twice in this week and will pay much less week. There is a bill coming up for washing machine service plus a couple of non-contact thermometers. However things are still rosy and we should be thinking of more ways to spend money effectively.

[ben]

Week 23 (11th week): £419.59 taken, £4.45 spent (not a typo) = £415.14 surplus

Cumulative: £14,527.78 taken, £5,759.50 spent = £ 8,768.28 surplus

Not so much coming through our fundraising sources last week. Due to paying wk 22’s expenses in wk 22 itself (rather than in wk 23 as would be usual) expenditure was low as well though.

Haven’t had to pay for the machine service yet - has that happened yet @Paul?

[ben]

Week 24 (12th week - 3 months!): £350.37 taken, £514.20 spent = £163.83 deficit

Cumulative: £14,878,15 taken, £6,263.70 spent = £8,604.45 surplus = 58% remaining on hand

Money fundraised is down for the 3rd consecutive week although our expenses are still under control - things are arguably beginning to organically tail off on the kitchen project front.

[ben]

Week 25 (13th week): £81.36 taken, £1,170.96 spent = £1,089.60 deficit

Cumulative: £14,959.51 taken, £7,444.66 spent = £7,514.85 surplus = 50% remaining on hand

This was the lowest week for fundraising so far (excluding weeks when we were having payout problems with Gofundme) and also very expensive in terms of ingredients (a few invoices coming at once?). Next week looks to be back on track in terms of expenditure (close to the average for the previous 8 weeks) but income is still pretty bad. Once we have a clearer idea of upcoming projects and our next moves we should start fundraising more concertedly again