Expense account
The expense account in the general ledger registers the details of all expenses and invoices.
Wikimedia Belgium has a bank account to settle invoices (both incoming and outgoing), expenses, incoming payments, membership fees, and small donations (without fiscal certificate) from the general public or enterprises.
General ledger rules
[edit]Wikimedia Belgium doesn't have bank cards, nor credit cards. We don't handle cash. All transactions are done via the bank account, to have a proof of the transaction, and to avoid any abuse or discussions. Debit and credit payments are transferred separately for easy verification. For transparency reasons, we don't accept aggregated payments.
At any time during the booking year, the expenses are reported through the general ledger, the bank account statements, and finally the (yearly) financial statements.
The Foundation grants are administered on a separate Foundation bank account, to keep the yearly WMF budget separate from the internal and third party transactions.
General ledger Expenses sheet
[edit]We maintain an expense spreadsheet with one line for each invoice or expense claim item. This way we are able to easily perform aggregate reporting and reconciliation:
- reconcile payments, general ledger bookings, invoice documents, and expense claim items tickets;
- cost center reporting;
- activity accounting;
- expense categories reporting; (prepare expense statements)
- prepare the jaarrekening (income and expense sheet).
Expenses documents and invoices
[edit]All documents about payments are stored below the Expenses map, year by year, and per booking reference number. This way an easy reconciliation is possible, to validate the jaarrekening.
- One unique booking reference number for all invoices coming from the same provider, to store all the PDF invoices. Prefix the invoice with the sequence number.
- One unique booking reference number per expense claim, to be able to store the spreadsheet, and its item tickets. Prefix the tickets with a sequence number corresponding to the sequence number in the spreadsheet.
To create a new map, in Google Drive, or Microsoft Explorer; there is a menu in the top left corner: New -> New folder.
Booking reference number
[edit]For each payment we generate a unique booking reference number. This number matches exactly amongst the bank statements, the general ledger, and the Google Drive.
Format (example): D2025-20, this is a D followed by the fiscal year, a dash and a unique sequence number:
- (repeated) incoming invoices: invoices are gathered in one map, per service provider:
- every invoice is stored as a PDF document
- every provider sends us 1-12 invoices per year
- the third party has its own invoice sequence number;
- expense claims from volunteers all have a unique Booking reference number (D-number), one for each expense claim, because the sequence number is used for numbering the expense items by activity date.:
- expense claim items are numbered sequentially by date, starting at 1 for each expense claim
- to monitor expenses by volunteer a pivot table is created
- for transport a separate pivot table is maintained (legal requirement).
Legal requirements
[edit]| Prefix | Usage |
|---|---|
| /A/ | Salaries |
| /B/ | Expense claims |
| Pensions |
Mandatory Payment reference field prefix
[edit]As per the Belgian tax authorities the free communication field of any type of expense payment must start with a /B/ prefix for the tax authorities to be able to detect and investigate potential fraudulent transactions.[1] This is required for all types of expense claims: volunteer allowances, reimbursements, and volunteer fees. For reimbursements, volunteers have the obligation to register their receipts and invoices, which must reflect the real amounts. Expenses must be paid in the year in which the costs were incurred. Not adhering to those rules can have as consequences that the beneficiary has to pay social security and taxes on the expense claim amounts. It also exposes the organisation to fiscal fines.
Example payment reference: /B/ D2025-10 Expenses 2nd quarter
The D2025-10 is the general ledger booking reference number, which is incremental within each calendar year.
The /B/ prefix must not be used with flat-rate expense allowance, for special occasions like New Year gifts, or e.g. prizes of a photo contest. Those payments are not legally considered as expense claims.
Payments to enterprizes use a structured payment message.
Car allowance
[edit]Volunteers can drive a maximum of 2000 km per year. The maximum amount can be calculated on the price per km. Only those expenses can be combined with a flat-rate expense allowance, A monitoring pivot table is required for this purpose in the general ledger.
See also
[edit]Notes and References
[edit]- VSDC review, nr. 200, maart-april 2022, p. 5
- VSDC review, nr. 201, juni-juli-augustus 2022, p. 4
- ↑ VSDC Review 194, Jan-Feb 2021, p. 4 - Handleiding: Werken met vrijwilligers