Minutes from Finance Meeting 24/04/20
Present: Ben, Kaeden, Nina, Dean, Paul
Action points from this meeting:
AP: Contact Ann to get their bank details and pass onto Ben - Paul
AP: Put labels on income/expenditure charts - Ben
AP: Put together some summary for public - Nina, Dean and Kaeden
Work distribution
I need to do all tasks involving the bank account, ie. setting up and paying expenses, updating the account spreadsheet. So I’m super grateful for all the work done on analysis / communications / admin that can be handled by other people
Accurate variable meal costs
Need input of cafe eg @Paul here, plus @insideout’s analysis (most accurate reading i have is 93p)
Dean: Assumes people will claim their petrol. There are people who aren't claiming. Used averages from last week to make cost/fuel for petrol. Different for just using reciepts or assuming people are claiming back. Utilities should be done, found out supplier Bulb, used business rates to work out standing charge plus usage. Very low. Gas isn't on all day any more, not using coffee machine. Other cost is waste cost. Everything else, food and consumables are average over the time, so round about the £1 mark is right.
Paul: Changeable factor is now getting more supplies from Small Heath foodbank and TRJFP so it could go down more. But because this is only week 4 we're just starting out. Fareshare definitely cheaper than Bookers. At the moment checking week on week whether there will be enough donations for 150 meals a day.
Paul: Need to figure out the waste charge. Hope not a massive charge and will know soon.
Fareshare: Band 1 80 Kg £30.00, Band 2 120 Kg £45.00 = 15p/meal
Ben: Based on the estimate that 140g is a meal that would be 15p/meal which sounds like it makes financial sense. Imagine this will mostly be perishable stuff rather than staples which we'd have to get elsewhere. But sounds like a more reliable source of veg basically.
Paul: Need to check whether it's majority fresh or useable. Remember 10% or so of weight will come off veg during processing e.g. feeling.
Ben: Will talk to Dylan about this.
Dean: Currently ingredients is costing 42p/meal so this is a potential saving. 15p sounds much better, but has to be right stuff.
Ben: Agree. Close the Fareshare thing for now. Need more details from Dylan about it's going to be. But do we know how much weight we need on a week by week basis? 120kg doesn't sound enough - not even half right? Can we have an estimate? How much should we ask them for?
Paul: Could go with 120kg if it's flexible. Usually about 250kg. Would need to be able to freeze week by week if we were overloaded with one product.
TRJFP - £50/wk?
Nina: NOt clear on TRJFP what's coming in.
Paul: TRJFP has given us a lot of food in terms of financial value. Very inconsistent in terms of what you get. Would be happy if there is some kind of exchange happening. Can define it over a longer period once we know where the costs are. So far there is a fair amount of range from TRJFP. Until know what Fareshare are offering hard to choose.
Dean: Doesn't have to be either/or. Feel we should be giving something to them. Gaining money over the last 14 days, so fair to compensate. Could be more, but can look at it on week by week basis. Start with £50.
Ben: Anxiety is that our cash flow is not entirely assured yet. Can go upwards later when we have more cash in the bank.
Proposal: Give TRJFP £50 initially per week. Proposal passed by consensus.
Paul: I can ask Ann how to make that payment.
Ben: If you get their bank details and send it to me.
AP: Contact Ann to get their bank details and pass onto Ben - Paul
Fixed costs
Utilities (@Insideout I have entered the data for this and come back with a suprisingly low estimate)
Mostly covered already.
Labour?
Ben: Cafe staff who are giving time to the project - is your furlough money enough without you worrying about money?
Paul: At the moment we are all furloughed on 80%. Fine for me. I can check with the other two?
Ben: We don't have tonnes of money and although this is supported by voluntary donations we want workers to get the value of their labour.
Petrol
How to square the circle of wanting the mileage spreadsheet to be a useful record of miles done, and the fact that the majority of drivers either actively don’t want to claim back money, or don’t reply to requests for bank info
Ben: More than 30 drivers last week and only had bank details for 3 or 4. Just horrible bit of work getting those and setting them up. In the end no more than 10 drivers asked for their expenses back. Good to get people's bank details as part of the driver onboarding process.
Ben: We log all the mileage in the spreadsheet. Good to have full record of miles done for stats. But majority of drivers don't claim the value. So how do we mark that so our weekly totals mean soemthing. For now have marked in red drivers not to pay. Could have a drop down thing - does this driver claim miles?
Nina: Since backroom 3 inputs the miles into the spreadsheet, and since they also contact each driver, they could ask each driver if they want to get their costs back. Could add those details. But wondering who has access to this spreadsheet right now? Have asked for postcodes. Is it secure? Can we make a secure way to give bank details? Could be a task of volunteer coordinator to report at end of day.
Ben: Backroom 3 could help with petrol stuff a bit more. Addresses and bank details will not go in a spreadsheet. Currently their address isn't stored it's the distance to their house. Been getting individually or via finance email which is more secure. COuld be standing task for backroom 3 that if the drivers wants to claim they must send their details to the finance email address. Objections?
Nina: Should provide 2 options. Struggle with checking emails. Need to be aware that all are being paid. I can update that.
Public presentation of finances
Ben: Had help from Julia who is a Gym member. Has been helping with other spreadhset stuff and made the initial public presentation things. We have all the data on the accounts spreadsheet so no point in seperate sheet to make the charts. One makes a simple pie chart. Weekly finance summary to go on website. Trying not to write this because I have enough to do. Nice job for someone else to do. Leo and Sean will put something together based on this chart. Anything else we should be presenting to the public?
Nina: Sophie was quite keen on the graphics but is gone now.
Ben: Do speak to them about it. They have a clear knack, maybe make a bit less technical.
Dean: The totals of spending and paid out are not the same.
Ben: The idea is that this would be on a weekly basis. Number should reflect that for last week, but since then have made more payments.
Dean: Doesn't say which is which in pie chart. Needs a label.
AP: Put labels on income/expenditure charts - Ben
Masks ( how can we budget for these into the kitchen, how much is available for the project to use. do we need to increase fundraiser or create secondary fundraiser)
Ben: Spun off with a flying start. These will be distributed far and wide but need to ensure enough for kitchen. How many of these reusable cloth masks do we think the project should request? I'd say 2 for every in-person physical volunteer (chef, kitchen volunteer, driver) so 1 to use and 1 in wash.
Paul: That sounds good. Had a bag gifted to us this week and doing a wash each day. At the moment 5 in the kitchen max.
Ben: Could have 10-20 masks for everyone at the cafe.
Dean: Can we send out masks to food recipients?
Kae: Already says will do in blog post.
Ben: How much should spend for fabric etc? Somewhere around the £500 mark would get the supplies thing off to a great start. Hoping next week the gofundme issues will be sorted. So would suggest £500 but not yet.
Ben: I don't think we should have a new fundraiser for the masks. But nice to have more flexibility. Prefer to keep the one gofundme but internally we budget for the mask making.
Dean: How much do we have access to?
Ben: Around £2200 cash but already around 500 has been spent by kitchen. So not nothing but around £1500/week costs.
Finance admin issues
Gofundme - we have about 2wks cash on hand (£2,200 at time of writing) but currently an issue getting more of the donated funds out of Gofundme because of their payment partner’s verification process… still waiting for final confirmation that this is all resolved which is a bit anxious-making
Ben: Because set up with org bank account it has tripped sirens. In pretty frequent contact to resolve this. But they don't process the payments themselves so everything is slow as has to go through bank support as well. Last heard I've given them all the paperwork they've asked for and they need to sign it off any day now. Haven't had any new money out for 3 weeks now. Our first lump has tided us over. Estimated next payment of 2 May would be fine if it is guaranteed. If there isn't a valid withdrawal method set up for 30 days, the campaign pauses to stop dormant campaigns. Coming up on that at the end of next week. I just have to keep nagging them. If need to I could change it to mine but don't want to go there if it will take longer.
Other points raised from analysis by @Insideout
Dean showed their screen and explained the spreadsheet and projections.
Paul: What about meals per drivers?
Dean: Not currently included. Would lower cost. Think the without is more genuine. Important to hold 142 as max
Nina: How did you do automate this?
Dean: Lots of formulas you can use.
Nina: Thank you for doing this. How to do something for social media? Happy to do it with you.
AP: Put together some summary for public - Nina, Dean and Kaeden
Ben: Good to get more volunteers engaged in finance. Easier with these cool charts and spreadsheets.
Gocardless - all sorted! We can take subscriptions now -> Report back as item for next agenda
Grant applications
Sean talked about grant to sponsor us for fabric for mask making.
Paul said there are loads of grants we could apply for and he could get them during work.
We are doing okay do far, would prefer to be less from establishment.
Fundraising
Keep up circulation on social media.
Do we need to top up from £8000 to £15000?
New kitchen could be springboard for upping donations
