FILE NAME: sigcomm/conf/guidelines/treasurer AUTHOR: Chris Edmondson-Yurkanan, chris@cs.utexas.edu, +1 512 471 9546 DATE: 6/27/2003 CONTENTS OUTLINE: 1. Role of treasurer 2. Skeleton of typical SIGCOMM TMRF 3. Business plan and possible adjustment of fees 4. Bank account 5. Periodic bottom-line projections 6. Input to advance program 7. Pre-registration issues 8. On site Registration issues 9. Selling tutorial notes and proceedings on site 10. European conference issues 11. Treasurer's final report 12. Cash Box 13. Unusual registrations ******************************************************************************* See the example TMRF's on the previous web page: * SIGCOMM 2000 is a final report on a detailed example of a European conference using a conference mgmt firm, and the site was a hotel. * SIGCOMM 2002's tmrf has not been finalized, so the data available is what was approved in January and thus is not an uptodate example * The Workshop Example TMRF is an approximate summary of the HotNets-I final tmrf. See comments for HotNets issues, and this should be helpful to the Latin American Workshop. * SIGCOMM 1999's tmrf is finalized and annotated, but it had some unusual attendance and expenses for the Technical History of the Internet Tutorial and the Panel with all SIGCOMM Award Winners. ---------------------------------------------- Most of what is below has not been updated in years So, be sure to read the ACM Conference Planning Section 1 and Section 3 pages: http://www.acm.org/sig_volunteer_info/conference_manual/ 1. Role of treasurer a) RESPONSIBILITIES - act as comptroller ( not "check-writer" ) 1) write the business plan (with input from committee members and ACM) 2) get & manage a conference bank account, including deposit the fund- raising checks & pay those bills NOT billed directly to ACM 3) monitor conference planning to assess impact to bottom-line 4) maintain up-to-date projections of conference finances 5) plan how to track ( or handle ) registration $ (with/for reg. chair) 6) decide if and how credit card payments will be handled 7) Make sure checks ( from ACM ) are at the conference for the SIGCOMM award winner and the student paper award winner 8) provide cash and a security box at the conference 9) Review all conference bills 10)Write conference final report b) DELIVERABLES 1) join ACM if you are not a member ( treasurer and gen. chairs only ) 2) send the draft business plan to ACM for approval by sponsors 3) distribute the business plan to the conference committee 4) give the publicity chair ALL financial amounts for Advance Program 5) prepare a list of all items to be sold at the conference and amounts to be charged for the registration chair 6) Pay tutorial presentors the honorarium and expenses agreed to by the tutorial chair 7) Send conference final report and close-out bank check to ACM, with copies to conference committee and sponsoring SIGs c) AT THE CONFERENCE 1) provide cash and a security box at the conference ( before onsite registration starts ) 2) bring checkbook to handle a number of small, miscellaneous bills 3) Pay tutorial honorariums to the tutorial presentors 4) Make a quick, conservative projection of the conference financials after the first day of the conference. ( this is for the gen. chair and SIGCOMM business meeting ) 2. Skeleton of typical SIGCOMM TMRF a) ACM's term for "business plan" is Technical Meeting Request Form (TMRF) and it consists of a high level schedule and a financial plan. The SIGCOMM conference planning milestone file should be used instead of the TMRF schedule. Additionally, all SIGCOMM conference treasurers should maintain on-line files with the following information. Consistent reporting of this information will help future treasurers immensely. Thanks! Revenue ======= Code Description Budget YTD actual Lastyear ---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 0100 Registration ideally, with a breakdown by each category ( number of people x rate = total ). Conferences are NOT in general a money making activity, but they cannot be a money losing activity, either. Registration fees should straddle the line of covering all costs and contingencies without being excessive and without being unusually inexpensive. 0200 Proceedings Sale these are EXTRA proceedings sold at the conference ( number of proceedings x rate = total ) 0300 Tutorials ideally, with a breakdown by each category ( number of people per tutorial x rate = total ) PS - conducting good tutorials is how most organizations "make money". 0800 Grants/Donations this is where the fund raising money goes ( itemize each donation received ) Subtotals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Expense ======= Code Description Budget YTD actual Lastyear ---- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 1000 Promotion/Publicity call for papers ( number printed; general itemized costs including design, labels, and printing ) advance program ( number printed; general itemized costs ) 1500 Conference Committee itemized; ( typical expenses include postage, copying, minimal support for travel to the conference, gen.chair travel to ACM's conference organizing workshop ) 1600 Registration itemized ( envelopes+badges+signs+ribbons+supplies; personnel ) 1700 Operations/Award Meeting room rentals audio/visuals Award: student paper award ( plaque, plus agreed amount ) 1800 Conference Food/Bev coffee (am) number x rate coffee (pm) number x rate Lunch 1 number x rate Lunch 2 number x rate Reception number x rate Social number x rate 1900 Special Events Typically rentals/entertainment for reception or Social, frequently, this quantity = 0. 2000 Proceedings Important: specify how many are to be sent to conference; the printing charge is only for this subset ( may not be true for Mobile Computing and Networking.... ) shipping to conference Program Committee travel for a few people to program committee meeting postage, lunch, other 3000 Tutorials - not to be combined with conference expenses honorariums agreed upon travel/subsistence of tutorial speakers copies of course notes coffee breaks lunch 4000 Exhibits - usually $0. 8000 ACM admin. (9% of revenue) ALL ACM SIGs are "taxed" by ACM, including a tax of 9% of all conference revenue to cover the multi layers of ACM support. 8998 Contingency for budgeting purposes Subtotals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Totals ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. Business plan and possible adjustment of fees a) The best business plan is one developed with input from the individual chairs. b) Although the common practice is to base your business plan revenue on the previous year's business plan, you should be aware of the variability of the fixed costs: for example, the lunch and coffee breaks and reception charges can VARY dramatically from location to location. Thus, the SIGCOMM 93 treasurer suggested to be sure to cover the fixed per person costs by adjusting the registration rate if necessary. c) Student registration fees should be as low as possible ( a break-even philosophy ). SIGCOMM has not subsidized these students, but keeps the fees just covering whatever is included in student registration. Student registration does NOT typically include the social event. Sometimes it has included lunches. d) However, student registration should be priced to ENCOURAGE registra- tion by the due date for both tutorials and the conference. e) Fees for nonmembers should always be higher than the fee for registering as a member PLUS the amount to become a member. The registration form needs to have three check boxes: a. SIGCOMM members b. Nonmembers c. Nonmembers who want to become members. The fee for c would be equal to a+membership fee and would be less than b. Thus, most nonmembers will prefer to check box c. Also, many companies pay registration but not membership. People from these companies may prefer to pay SIGCOMM membership as part of the SIGCOMM registration. Some may come to SIGCOMM conference just for this reason. ( quote from Raj Jain ) 4. Bank account I suggest you just use ACM as your "bank". If necessary to get a local bank account, use Merrill Lynch. See below: Also, ACM can wire transfer funds if they have the following info (to pay bills): THE COMPLETE NAME OF THE BANK THE COMPLETE ADDRESS INCLUDING CITY AND COUNTRY A ROUTING NUMBER (USA) A SWIFT CODE (FOREIGN) A BRANCH CODE IF AVAILABLE THE COMPLETE NAME OF THE BANK ACCOUNT HOLDER HIS OR HER ADDRESS AS SHOWN ON THE BANK ACCOUNT RECORDS THE BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER The conference planning manual has additional specifics on getting a bank account, but ACM has Merrill Lynch now which helps conferences to have treasurers who are not local to the conf. site: Date: Wed, 02 Mar 1994 09:00:31 -0400 (EDT) From: "Michael Lichtenstein, Director, Office of Financial" Subject: Merrill Lynch for Conference Bank Accounts Sender: TREAS_SIG@ACM.ORG To: SIG Chairs & SIG Treasurers , I am pleased to announce a more streamlined and efficient approach to conf- erence bank accounts, and that is the introduction of the nationwide Merrill Lynch organization, with 457 retail branches in the U.S., as our new conf- erence "banker." Individual bank accounts would be opened for each confer- ence, but a number of advantages are provided in using the same organizat- ion nationwide. The main advantages/features are less paperwork in opening the account, account balances are automatically invested, electronic trans- fers can be done anytime, monthly statements are issued, deposits can be made in person or by mail, checkbooks are issued to pay bills, credit card process- ing is available, accounts are insured up to $25 million, fees are competitive with what banks charge, and there is an extensive network of retail branches. With two exceptions (accounts needed outside the U.S. and where a conference is co-sponsored and the other society is responsible for banking arrangements), we ask that you use Merrill Lynch exclusively. Your program director will work with you in setting up these accounts. 5. Periodic bottom-line projections It helps to structure the projections by fixed costs and per-person costs, in order to deal with any fiscal "bad news". The importance of these projections increases as the conference draws near and we have some actual registration data. 6. Input to advance program ( ie to the publications chair ) *All $ data should come from the treasurer, including fees for registration, and any incidental fees like extra social tickets or T-shirts... *Credit card procedures need to be worked out before then. Which credit cards....? *Single day registration has not been supported by SIGCOMM conferences except in rare cases. 7. Pre-registration issues * Is the registration chair going to deposit the money or is the treasurer? * Who is going to handle the credit card paperwork? Talk to ACM about this. * What needs to be tracked? ( check #, amount, .... ) 8. On site Registration issues * cash * info collected ( cash, check... ) * on site credit cards?????? * exactly what is for sale besides registration ( extra copies of proceedings, tutorial notes, t-shirts, lunch/social tickets ) and for how much? 9. Selling tutorial notes and proceedings on site * SIGCOMM has sold tutorial notes for a nominal charge of $25. for people attending the conference but who couldn't attend. No notes have been sold after the conference. * Extra copies of the proceedings have been sold --- the most ever was at SIGCOMM92 where the treasurer arranged for extra copies of old proceedings to be at the conference as well. Note: in order to sell proceedings at the conference, you have to have extras there. ( not always the case ). 10. European conference issues * one unexpected cost can be "currency transfer", especially if some currency is volatile. * bank charges are different.... * beware of converting dollars to "X"; it is easy to multiply instead of divide.... * beware of how to avoid the European community VAT. For example: " Pat, I have avoided the VAT issue because of administration. If we registered for VAT, we would need an accountant to sort out everything and prepare the final figures for the VAT-man. There is also the matter of charging VAT on conference fees. The advice I have received is that we would have to charge VAT on all conference fees, irrespectively of where they are paid because the conference venue is London. We are therefore talking 17.5% off the gross income but only VAT back on expenditure in the UK." Soren Sorensen (SIGCOMM 94 treasurer, London) 11. Treasurer's final report: THIS IS SO IMPORTANT, for some of the following: * ACM wants you to finish this within 3 months. * The conference committee for the next year wants you to have finished it ASAP so that they can work with real estimates for their TMRF. * The SIG treasurer wants some rough estimates quickly, in order to plan out the rest of the ACM financial year (July 1 - June 30). * Future treasurers and conference committees want more than just a one total summary --- they want to know how much the basic items cost and want to know about advice for the future. 12. Cash Box ----------- where does one get a cash box? what kind of business? An office supply store (Staples, Office Depot). ---------------------- 13. Unusual registrations - a new phenomenon is occurring where people are asking for invitation letters for false purposes. Ask me for information about how to handle this.