Getting Started with Finance

Owned by Yanshen Zhou
Last updated: Jul 15, 2022 by Amanda
2 min read

Hi and welcome to the Finance team! Below, you will find some introductory information that has been provided by @Tyler Chang to get you started!

 

Responsibilities for finance members at the Midnight Sun

The team has three main functions:

  1. Accounting: an internal tracker for recording the income (donations and sponsorships) and the expenditures (reimbursements and team purchases).

  2. Reimbursement forms (see the respective Confluence page)

  3. Budget Reporting: The finance team is also responsible for preparing a budget report for the term. The information should include the needs of the Project Manager.

 

Google Spreadsheet (Accounting 1 of 2)

Access to the “Consolidated Financial Information” spreadsheet will be provided to members. Data from individual purchases automatically flows through to the ‘1 – Purchases – individual!’ sheet. On this sheet, only column R, T, U, V, and W should be inputted (in respect to the expense claim form, see the “reimbursements” page on Confluence). The information from that sheet is rearranged into the ‘Finance Tab!’, the responsibilities for this sheet include:

  • Sum the amount from column F spent to column G

  • Complete the drag-down options for columns D and E.

 

Wave Accounting (Accounting 2 of 2)

Wave is a 3rd party website that is used as a backup to the spreadsheet. The income and expenditures, as listed in the Google Spreadsheet on sheets ‘Finance Tab!’, ‘2-Purchases – Team!’, and ‘3-Income Receipts!’.

Each one of the sheets contains a wave reconciliation number that is used when entering in the Wave account. For more on Wave, click here.

 

Budget Reporting

            The purpose of this report is to inform the whole team (technical and other business teams) of the financial situation of the team. An attached PowerPoint has been provided as a reference. This report is generally prepared in the last month of the term and delivered to the other teams before the term ends.

The budget should include the following:

  • An overall of the sponsorship and donor income

  • The outstanding endowment fund balances and if they have been claimed or unclaimed

  • An overview of the team’s total budget (total expected spending) vs actual spending

  • The individual sub team’s total budget (total expected spending) vs actual spending

Notes: All the data can be retrieved from the google spreadsheets. Additionally, the finance manager can contact the SSDC for the operating account balance – this represents the actual operating account which will usually be lower than the operating balance the team reports.

The spreadsheet is not perfect. Modification may be required for the future.

Thanks for reading and feel free to visit our other finance pages!