MODULE 2 - Section 3

Finances

30-40 Minutes to complete section and related assignments

In this section you will learn how to:

Create a Budget
Deposit, Advanced and Final Payment
Transferring Team Funds
Funds Reconciliation

Creating a Budget

Creating a budget involves covering the expenses related to the short-term team and their investment in your community and the long-term transformation you are working toward.

As you budget, you will be thinking through a variety of layers related to the team including the selection of lodging, meal costs, transportation, project materials and more. You will also be leveraging your expertise about your community resources and local relationships, while making decisions about what will help the team make the most out of its investment.

Keep in mind that the purpose of a budget is to ensure all expenses are covered from arrival to departure during a team's visit. A team’s presence in-community is intended to support the community, not create a financial drain. The budget is the way to account for any costs incurred related to the team’s engagement while in-community.

Process

You will create a budget for a team not long after the initial details of trip dates, approximate number of team members and an idea of the team’s engagement is largely settled.

That information will help you begin to think through a potential schedule and related budget items.

While arrival and departure are fairly self-explanatory, it is important to consider how the team will get from the airport to the community site or their place of lodging, and vice versa. In any scenario chosen, the host-coordinator is responsible for communicating any pertinent details related to arrival or departure with the team leader, including how to safely navigate the airport, rendezvous points, and how to manage luggage through the airport.

GuidancE

Only share your budget with the Short-Term Teams Department.

A budget is intended for internal use only and the finer details should not be shared with the goer-group. Too often sharing budget details actually creates more difficulty than it does clarity, sometimes even complicating the remaining short-term team process. The Team Registration Document will tell a team what is/is not included in the cost. If you have a goer-group pressing you for specifics, please reach out to the STTs Department for some guidance. We do not make our budgets secretive. However, we can offer some coaching insights that will prove helpful or, if preferred, be a communication pipeline between you and the goer-group to help explain things in a way that brings understanding.

Think Value and Cost

For many global workers where the value of donor dollars is highly appreciated, the general trend is to think about what things cost. Frugality is a good virtue to use when creating a budget. However, be sure to consider value in your decisions as well. For example, it is cheaper to put the team in a hotel on the other side of town, but it doesn’t offer breakfast options nearby for the team, the accommodations are a bit lacking, and it will require an extra 45 minute drive time back and forth every day. The better value may be spending the extra few dollars a night for lodging closer to where the team will be engaging and afford them the ability to wake and eat close by. When you think through the budget, be sure to consider both value and cost.

Don’t Sell Your Community Short

When creating your budget it can be easy to feel like you don’t want to burden the short-term team financially. They are giving their time, energy and resources to come visit and that seems like a lot already. While that sentiment is understood and appreciated, remember you and the community are contributing time, energy, resources, etc. as well. If there are valid expenses related to the involvement of a team such as gasoline if using your personal vehicle or if the services of a translator would help so you don’t have to be the only one doing it the entire time by all means factor those into the budget. While we don’t want to pad the budget, we certainly don’t want to undercut the community or create an equal-but-opposite burden on you or the community in trying to accommodate the team. The goal is for a team to support long-term transformation, not detract from it. In many cases, a few extra dollars can help release a great deal of potential. f you are unsure if an expense qualifies, please reach out to the STTs Department.

Highlighted Resource

Budget Tool

Here you can view the budget template tool. Instructions on how to use the template are built right into the tool.

Featured

Short Term Team Budgeting Calculator

Deposit, Advanced Payment & Final Payment

Deposit:

The majority of short-term teams will be required to submit a non-refundable deposit of $100 per person for their team. The deposit is later deducted from the final team payment. The STT Department calculates when the deposit will be due; it is typically due around 4 months out under normal circumstances.

Advanced Payment:

The advanced payment is funds that the community may sooner than the final payment in order to secure earlier expenses in the preparation process. A common example is securing payment for lodging more than a month in advance.

Final Payment:

The final payment consists of the remaining team funds minus the deposit and any advance payment. The final payment is collected from the short-term team 40 days prior to the team's departure. This allows the home office time process funds, which occurs only on Mondays, in enough time for the community to receive team funds.

Use of Funds and Funds Transfer Process

Barring unique community circumstances, it is general practice for the host-coordinator to be responsible for the use and tracking of team funds related to team expenses.

Team funds are typically transferred to the community around 30 days prior to the team arrival in order for the coordinator to begin making preparations. In order to transfer funds, the host-community team must decide which bank account is best for receiving team funds so they have access to them for team expenses.

The Short-Term Teams Department will request that the coordinator complete a Short-Term Team Advance Request form in order to collect accurate bank information for the funds transfer.

Funds Tracking and Reconciliation:

Once team funds have been transferred from the home office to the host-community, they will need to be tracked and reconciled for IRS purposes.

Team funds need to be accounted for within 60 days from the date of initial transfer to the host-community account. The host-coordinator will use a Rydoo account to reconcile the funds and upload expense receipts. A tutorial on how to submit short-term team expenses is available in the resource section.

You will need to account for all team funds. To help you with the funds reconciliation process, be sure to collect and save receipts for all purchases made in excess of $25 using team funds. Funds less than $25 do not require a receipt. However, they still need to be accounted for.

If you do not receive a receipt, you will need to create one in order to account for where those funds were used. When possible, if you have given funds to an independent person who provided a service, please have them sign the created receipt.

Created receipts should record the following: Date of service provided, name of business/individual who provided the service, amount paid, and purpose of the expense.

A helpful way to keep track of expenses is to have one location to save receipts and one location to document the expenses and required information. Staying organized with expenses is critical as it will ensure that you are spending on par with the budget and are able to account for those expenditures accurately and quickly after the team arrives.

Tips:

When possible, pay in advance for expenses. This gives you time to account for them prior to the team’s arrival.
Since team funds typically arrive 30 days in advance and accounting is due back to the home office 60 days after receipt, this means that by the time a team departs you will only have a few weeks to account for the funds depending on their length of stay.
Feel free to use the Team Expense Tracking Sheet resource to help you stay organized. You can print it out or use it in digital form.