Archive of Our Own ^beta

sanders Sun 26 Oct 2014 11:31PM UTC

Hi, blue,

I love AO3, too, and have an answer. It's a bit long, and includes enough numbers to put most people to sleep, so I apologize in advance.

Here we go.

Machinery and Depreciation costs aren't included in the Expenses listed on the Profit and Loss statement in the Annual Report. They're considered an asset of the OTW, so they appear on the Balance Sheet, and make the total of money spent last year significantly larger than our standard expenses reflect. Last year, we spent just over US$25,500 on servers, bringing our actual expenses to $80,104.03.

In comparison, we've already spent $52,343.99, and expect to spend an additional $45,000-50,000 before the end of the year, an increase of more than $70,000. With the addition of more servers, we also budgeted for an increase in our monthly colocation costs, a team of consultants to help with database management, and additional fees in the analysis program we use, adding $21,000 to the budget.

Based on previous requests, AD&T received a budget for a contract consultant as well as presented new requests this year for training registation fees and e-book resources for staff. This was initially budgeted at $25,000, and reduced to $9,500 when AD&T chose to contract with an individual rather than a company.

Open Doors was granted a modest budget for their fanworks preservation projects, used to cover the costs of keeping a site open on a separate domain until it can be imported to AO3. This was a new expense of $500.

Travel budgets were set aside for the staff on Journal and Development and Membership, as well as a general fund to reimburse personnel representing OTW at various conferences, cons, and meetings. This added just under $15,000 to the budget.

After last year's fundraising drives, and in preparation for the two scheduled in 2014, we also had to restock the items offered as donor premiums, a cost of $5,500. We also set aside money to cover an increase in fees for shipping of those premiums. The success of each drive also brings an increase in fees paid to PayPal for processing, anticipated in the budget to go up by about $500 (it will actually roughly double given the results of the drive that just ended).

Expanding the Board retreat to a Strategic Planning retreat and growing the size to include 17 people (rather than last year's seven), as well as the need to rent a venue for the meeting, expanded the budget by $13,000 over 2013.

Smaller increases were also seen in budgeting for expenses like wire transfer fees as we purchased servers outside of the US; a filing fee for our federal tax return (we earned enough in 2013 to no longer qualify for free filing); a ten percent increase in the cost of Directors and Officers Insurance; and a temporary increase in the capacity of our chat rooms for a special event.

All told, the budget plans for $141,000 more in expenses than in 2013. With a little over two months left in the year, we won't spend the full amount set out for some items, which will offset the additional PayPal costs and a much-needed but unexpected upgrade for some of our software.

Thanks for the question, and for bearing with me through the answer.

~sanders
OTW Board of Directors
Treasurer

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