At the beginning of the year, FAmSCo ratified changes in budget, approval, and reimbursement processes. One of the benefits is that we have control over the money Red Hat has given us for regional support. One of the changes was to start proper budgeting and track all expenses we’re doing.

I’m a treasurer for EMEA which means I’m responsible for spending in the EMEA region. Yes, that’s the unpopular guy who always says we have to save money, can’t spend that much etc. 🙂

Today, I finally closed the first quarter of the fiscal year 2014. It means I’ve collected all expenses and closed the entries. And what are the results?

Events:      $9350 (Planned)      $8554 (Allocated – after cuts)      $7782 (actually spent)
SWAG production:      $1500     $1500      $1413
Shipping:      $500      $200      $0
Total: $11,350      $10,254      $9195
The complete budget is on Fedora wiki.

As you can see, we were able to save some money on events although there were two events which weren’t included in the original plan. SWAG spending was fairly close to the limit because it’s something you can plan and control the most easily. It’s also amazing what we were able to produce for $1413. It’s mainly due to a new vendor who produces quality stuff for incredible prices. We didn’t spend any money on shipping. That’s something very seasonal. We ship most packages after releases. Fedora is usually released at the end of Q1, but this year it landed in Q2. I’m pretty sure that what we saved on shipping in Q1 will come in handy in Q2 because I’ve already shipped many packages to many countries all over Europe, Middle East, and Africa.

We saved $1059 from the allocated money. It’s a reserve for the next quarters and it’s also a virtual reserve because the allocated budget is still about $3000 over the limit Red Hat gave us. Because the EMEA budget had to be painfully cut at the beginning of the fiscal year, I’m still steering the budget above the limit and hoping there will be some money saved in our budget or left in other budgets at the end of the fiscal year to meet the limit. But strictly speaking, by saving $1059 in Q1 we just met the limit and didn’t create any reserve.

And that’s enough of boring numbers for today 🙂