Do we have any accountants here?

[GeneFC]

But, there is an open source, well respected, and very capable package called GNUCash.

Just as FreeCAD does not make a designer, a good accounting package does not make an accountant.

Gene

[drmacro]

But, there is an open source, well respected, and very capable package called GNUCash.

Just as FreeCAD does not make a designer, a good accounting package does not make an accountant.

Gene

Which is exactly why I have not volunteered...I not an accountant, nor have I played one on TV.

[MisterMaker]

Asked a friend of mine who is in finance and he said asking an accountant to work as a volunteer is like looking for a lawyer with a moral compass.

[Jee-Bee]

I don't know exactly... but when i look at wow it works in the Netherlands( and Belgium could be something similar).
In the Netherlands there exist an Accountant what is a high level financial function(laws and change of laws are also part of his job). Big companies have one. But need also external ones checking if there financial year reports are what they need to be.
But we have also what is called here a "boekhouder" and his function is much lower financial function. a boekhouder is much more the one who do the financial administration...
I'm not sure if FC is so big that it needs a Accountant.... I can imagine that a boekhouder level is probably enough(for now).

What a option is is contact the blender guys since that is a Netherlands based organisation...

[wandererfan]

My local non-profit needs a real accountant twice a year. Once to do the tax return and once to review the financial statement for the annual report.

Once the chart of accounts is decided, the person keeping the financial records doesn't need to be a professional accountant. Jee-Bee's boekhouder (bookkeeper) sounds about right.

[sliptonic]

Asked a friend of mine who is in finance and he said asking an accountant to work as a volunteer is like looking for a lawyer with a moral compass.

That's understandable. Why would someone with special training and skills that are highly marketable want to spend their time working for free? It's ludicrous! Oh wait.

Also, we don't need an actual accountant or cpa. Just someone with some experience so developers can give their time away working on the code.

[onekk]

Also, we don't need an actual accountant or cpa. Just someone with some experience so developers can give their time away working on the code.

Probably the most interesting answer is the ones given by @wandererfan and @Jee-Bee as US is different from EU in term of Taxes and regulations.

The fact that probably there will be some "overseas" payments in two ways, so some "non EU" people will pay to the FPA and probably the funds will be payed by the FPA in other countries than EU will make things slightly more complicated.

So probably there were need more than one professional, and expert of "taxation and international laws" to have some advices and one "accountant" who make the "dirty work" of writing figures on some books, using maybe some caveats supplied by the "expert" and probably another that will "make the tax payments and related things" in the country were the FPA is created.

I think that probably the fellow who do the dirty work probably could be "a volunteer", but for other professionals it is difficult to find a person that will work "pro bono".

Sadly even in EU there are different regulations for different State in term of taxation so probably a French guy could not be more useful to keep a Netherland "tax register" or whatever is called (this genre of terms are the most difficult to translate correctly).

Plus dealing with Tax offices is difficult in every country, so I think that is a work mote complicated that coding.

Regards

Carlo D.

[Jee-Bee]

Yes there are differences between europe and US. But i'm quite sure that there for an organisation as FC also a big amount of overlap.
The local country where taxes has been payed is most important.
Beside that the highest risks are as far as i can see:
- FC get money from a high risk country
- FC sends money to a high risk country
I don't expect that that differ much from US. There are list from that that i think every european financial person should be able to find back(https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-econ ... untries_en).
I'm sure there are also list of persons / organisations you don't want get money from .... but i can't find that one.

[Jee-Bee]

I forgot a list...
Europe has also a list with sanctions. That one is wider as the high risk countries. see: https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/europea ... nctions_en (there is a map where you can find everything...)

[adrianinsaval]

speaking of countries, I tried to donate through paypal the other day (and again today to take this screenshot) and got this stupid message:

Screenshot 2022-07-31 121021.png (23.93 KiB) Viewed 561 times

Translated it says:

Donations to this receiver are not compatible in this country

I'm from Paraguay, is this something that FreeCAD can control or is it just paypal's bullshit?