Handbook/Working at the OKF

From Open Knowledge Foundation

On this page we document useful information for those starting to do some work for the Open Knowledge Foundation.

Contents 1 Getting Paid 1.1 How much time to invoice 2 Contract 3 Tools 4 Expenses Policy 4.1 What's covered 4.1.1 Events 4.1.2 Travel 4.1.3 Accommodation & Subsistence 4.1.4 Other costs 4.2 NOT COVERED 4.3 The OKFN "credit card" 5 Consultancy Policy 5.1 Rates 5.2 Approval 5.3 Billing 6 See also

Getting Paid

• Step 1. Fill in your timesheet. See timesheets page for more information.
• Step 2. Submit an invoice. If it is the first time you are using Xero, you will need to email payments [at] okfn.org to be set up with an account. If you don't want to use Xero or don't have an account please submit invoices to payments@okfn.org.

When submitting invoices (either on Xero or otherwise):

• Invoices within Xero should be submitted as an "accounts payable invoice".
• Please include bank details (including SWIFT/BIC and IBAN if non-UK) in your invoice. (In xero do this on an extra 'blank' invoice line) Also include your VAT number IF you have one. (if you don't know about this, you don't have one)
• From = Name of person submitting invoice
• Please put a brief description of the work and the month in which it was done.
• Please include your company name, address and the name of the person who has done the work being billed for.
• Agreed expenses should be included as part of your invoice (ignore the Expenses feature in Xero)

If you are expensing items we need receipts available for them. Ideally your receipts should be electronic or scannned/photographed paper, and stored in the OKFN dropbox in folders: Admin/Expenses/PERSONNAME/YEAR-MONTH-PROJECTNAME If you don't have dropbox access, please email your receipts at the time of submitting your invoice to foundation coordinator or foundation admin. Note that expense claims not backed up by receipts will not be paid.

• Regardless of whether you are VAT registered, please show the VAT amounts related to any UK expenses you invoice for, if there was VAT on that item. OKFN may be able to reclaim that VAT, but only if you show it on your invoices. e.g. If you buy £100 of paper for an OKFN event, then you should show it on your invoice as something like: Net-£80 VAT-£20 Gross-£100 The exceptions to this are Travel (eg flights, buses, trains), and any purchases you made personally overseas - these should NOT have VAT shown in Xero. If there's VAT on your receipt, ignore that, and put the total amount in Xero. If VAT is not payable please use the "No VAT" category (and NOT "exempt" or "zero-rated"). (any questions, email payments@okfn.org)
• If you have expenses you must write them in as what they are DO NOT USE "direct expenses" or "general expenses" - use a specific category like Travel (trains, planes, taxis, buses) or Hotel or Food&Drink/Subsistence or Stationary or whatever. If you don't know the right category email payments at okfn.org for help.
• Your time should be booked as "contractor -- XXXX" depending on what type of work you did. DO NOT use "wages" or "consultancy" or other categories :)
• About VAT and your time. If you are in the UK and NOT VAT registered DO NOT add VAT. If you are in the UK and VAT registered you need to charge VAT and as a VAT registered organisation you should be able to figure out what you need to charge; we DO NEED your VAT number too please. If you are OUTSIDE the UK and NOT VAT registered DO NOT add VAT. If you are OUTSIDE the UK and VAT registered DO NOT ADD VAT to your invoice but PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR VAT NUMBER.
• (In Xero) If you don't know the project or account code just leave it blank and email a foundation coordinator for help. Don't just leave it blank and take no action. You should be aware what work you are doing if you are on the team enough to have Xero access! If you want your invoice paid promptly please enquire earlier rather than later.
• (In Xero) You must create an Accounts Payable invoice (*not* an Accounts Receivable one)
• If you are filing a line in Xero without VAT, please use the "No VAT" category (and NOT "exempt" or "zero-rated").

NB: Our general payments terms are 30 days and that is from the date you submit your invoice for approval, NOT from whatever date you choose to write on it - though we aim to pay as quickly as possible. Any questions on invoices and expenses and VAT should be addressed to foundation coordinator or foundation admin or payments@okfn.org

The invoice process in Xero has a few steps. First of all you draft an invoice; you can save one or more invoices as "drafts" whilst you work on them. Once you are done, and you have all the expenses receipts and so on ready, you can submit your invoice for approval. At that stage a foundation coordinator will review (approximately weekly) and approve, assuming that the work has been done, the time on the invoice matches timesheets, and expenses follow our procedures). Once the invoice is approved, it will be paid in our next payment cycle in general.

How much time to invoice

(If you are on a fellowship or paid for piece work this does not apply!) If you are paid by the day or by the hour you may have to think about how much to invoice. There are sometimes questions about rounding time, etc.

Our current guidance is as follows. If you are unsure please talk to Laura James.

• Your contract will say how many days or hours a week we expect you to work. If you find you are doing substantially more or less than this please talk to your manager, project manager, and/or Foundation Coordinator.
• If you work straightforward days (note an OKFN day is 8 hours unless your contract specifies otherwise) then feel free to invoice according to days worked.
• if you work part time, or flexitime, you may prefer to invoice by the hour, based on actual hours you worked & recorded in Toggl.

Contract

If you're a contractor we will send you our standard contractor agreement. You should have a signed contract within a week or so of starting paid work. If this hasn't been arranged by this time please contact a foundation coordinator.

Tools

Every project and working group has its own toolset. However two good central points of information are the OKFN wiki and Planet Open Knowledge Foundation.

Expenses Policy

This policy covers anyone working with the OKF who has a contract clause permitting them to claim expenses - which covers the majority of our contractors.

• Retain receipts for all expenses.
• Expenses should be added to your monthly invoice unless exceptionally large when they can be separately invoiced. See invoicing info [above](#getting-paid).
• Any purchase or event attendance which will individually or collectively exceed £100 GBP in value needs prior approval by Laura James or Rufus Pollock or a project manager who has a budget to operate with. If you have any questions about expenses please email payments@okfn.org.
• All prices are quoted in GB pounds, equivalent in local currencies apply.

What's covered

Events

• If we agree an event is worth attending, core to clear with RP & LJ whether ticket price is worth spending if price is over £20 GBP.

Travel

• Please keep in mind that OKF is a non-profit with a limited budget. Advance, discount booking should be used wherever possible. If you had sufficient time to book in advance but didn't then we will only reimburse the equivalent of an advance price ticket. We will not reimburse costs for missed trains/flights/connections if you were at fault.
• We will not reimburse travel costs to your usual place of work.
• For off-peak UK train travel a network railcard saves us money.

Accommodation & Subsistence

• Up to £45 per night (if options within budget are not available then LJ or RP can approve this).
• Up to £8.50 for lunch or breakfast and up to £12.50 for dinner in subsistence costs when away from usual place of work for more than 12 hours.
• Alcohol costs cannot be claimed unless as part of agreed entertaining for an event (e.g. sponsoring a bar or dinner at a conference).

Other costs

e.g. refreshments for events, leaflets, postage

• In full subject to clearing a max spend with LJ or RP beforehand
• Phone / Skype credit costs (effort should be made to use free services as much as possible)

NOT COVERED

• People's internet costs to work from home
• Food while away from home when away for less than 12 hours.
• Booze while away from home
• Frivolity :)

The OKFN "credit card"

This is actually a debit card and may be used to make payments for things. Process:

• get an email from your project manager or foundation coordinator agreeing to teh payment you want to make, and confirming it is covered by an appropriate project budget
• get the card details or request someone (the foundation coordinator maybe) to make the payment for you
• send an email to payments@okfn.org including the RECEIPT (the email confirmation or a PDF or a photo of the paper receipt, whatever) and also including the email from the project manager confirming it's ok to spend the money

Consultancy Policy

This policy governs members of the paid OKFN team (contractors) who may wish to provide consultancy services under the OKFN name. If you have any questions about this section please talk to a foundation coordinator. (In fact, you should probably do this anyway)

Rates

You should charge at a minimum the daily rate OKFN pay you, plus 25% for overhead costs. You will need to add VAT to this. So ensure any quotes are clear as to whether they are inclusive or exclusive of VAT. In all cases rates should be confirmed with a foundation coordinator before a final quote can be confirmed to the client.

Approval

• Before issuing a quote and/or proposal to a potential client you need the approval of the Foundation Coordinator or Chairman of the Board.
• Approval will ensure there are no potential conflicts of interest, reputational risks or stretches on our resources as a result of the proposed work.
• It will also ensure pricing is appropriate and sufficient to cover costs.
• Quotes and proposal documents should be stored in a Google Docs folder to which the core OKFN team have access.
• You might want to look at the template for small projects

Billing

• OKFN will invoice clients for you.
• Please email payments@okfn.org with the details of who and what to invoice.
• It may take up to 5 days for these requests to be processed, so please submit them in good time.
• You will need to invoice the OKFN for your own time spent on consultancy projects.
• Please itemise this work as a separate line on your monthly invoice and use an appropriate project code so that it is clear what the work is and that it is being recharged to a client - talk to a foundation coordinator if you have any questions.
• We will generally pay you once the client has paid their invoice to us.

• • Last revised 2012-03-16**

See also

• Rules
• Starting a new paid project