Money Tracking
"War is not so much a matter of weapons as of money" - Thucydides
Money Tracking Overview
[Money Tracking] is a system for keeping track of how much every office is spending and how much money is coming in. Any brother can view what the offices have spent, but only excomm can add, edit, and delete transactions.
The page also keeps track of each account's current balance. Each transaction has a date, the accounts to which and from which it represents a transfer of money, the term (ie West Class) in which it happened, a memo, and the amount of money (which affects the sum).
By default the Money Tracking page loads transactions from the current term, but you can take a look at the budgets of other terms by choosing a different class from the pull-down menu at the top of the page--the one that says "Select term:"
Setting It Up
Because our chapter may sometimes add new offices or accounts and may remove others, Money Tracking needs to be told the names of all the accounts that exist. This must be done for your term before Money Tracking can be used.
Don't worry, it's quick and painless. Go to the Excomm Page for the Treasurers here. The page will load account information for the class that the website thinks is the current term. If the term it loads isn't the one you want to change, use the menu at the top of the page labeled "Choose a term to create accounts for:"
Note: If the term you want to edit doesn't show up in that menu, it's because the Recording Secretaries haven't filled out the name and start date of the term. Tell them to go to the [Recording Secretaries Excomm Page] and make an entry for the current term. You shouldn't do this yourself because everyone needs to come to a consensus about when the term should technically start.
Rather than having to manually enter every account name, you can just copy all of the account names from some other term. Using the menu at the bottom, choose a term to copy account names from and select "Copy". As the name implies, this will create new accounts for your term with the same names as the old term you had selected.
The page will now list the accounts you've created. If you want to add new ones, you can use the little box at the bottom of the list. If you want to rename or delete an account, click on its name and you'll be taken to a place to do that.
Once you're satisfied with the account names, Money Tracking is ready to go! You can start adding transactions right away.
Warnings
Please read these warnings before using the Treasurer's Excomm Page.
Deleting accounts
Be careful when you delete an account. If you delete an account which is involved in transactions, every transaction it's involved in will also be deleted (and there's no way to recover these). Just make sure when you're on the Edit Account page that you're working on both the account name and term you want.
Hidden accounts
You'll notice that previous terms have accounts such as (Fundraisers), (Deposits), (Pay Outs). These are imaginary accounts which represent money coming into and leaving the chapter. Any account whose name is in parentheses will not have its own section in the transactions list, but can still send and receive money. Money Tracking does some testing on transactions involving (Fundraisers), (Deposits), and (Pay Outs) to ensure that they make sense (one cannot take money out of the (Deposits) account, for example). The best thing to do is to make sure that you have all three of these accounts in every term. Failing that, you should at least make sure that you have at least one account for money coming in, and one more money going out.
Excomm Powers
Excomm has the power to add, edit, and delete any transaction from any term. For indeed, "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." - George Orwell
Adding transactions
You can create a new transaction with the "New Transaction" box at the bottom of the page. Each item is fairly straight-forward. If you'd like to warp history for your own personal gain or define the course of the future to consolidate your power, you can choose the term in which the transaction happened by changing the "Class: " pull-down menu.
Editing transactions
To edit a transaction, simply click on the text of its memo. It'll take you to a box just like the "New Transaction" box. You can change the term in which a transaction happened here as well.
Deleting transactions
To delete a transaction, click on its memo as you would to edit it. The 'Edit Transaction' page has a 'Delete' button.