On Tue, Dec 6, 2016, at 05:33 PM, Giannis Konstantinidis wrote:
Looking at Joerg's reports, I notice Paypal has some high fees
as
well. But I guess they're lower than some other alternative
solutions/platforms.
I really appreciate that everyone is concerned about fees. However, our
regions are not currently spending their entire budgets, therefore I
encourage everyone to not worry about fees.
If RH is forcing us to use a system that incurs high fees, I will talk
to RH about changes so we can save money or additional budget to cover
those fees.
BUT - until we are spending all of our money the fees don't matter.
This DOES NOT mean that we can use any money transfer method we want
without consideration of fees. On the contrary we should all be good
stewards of the money. But it does mean that if the fee savings is not
significant in the grand scheme of the budget, not necessarily your
local economy, don't worry about it. For example, sticking with an
inconvenient platform because it has a 3 EUR fee and avoiding a more
convenient one because the fee is 7 EUR is silly. Avoiding a 30 EUR fee
is smart though.
> Andsomething like Western Union could be legally quite
questionable,
> it's IMHO
> banned for good reasons at different companies; but I don't have a
> specific
> clue about Red Hat here though. But in the very last end, using a
> bunch of
> payment providers for reimbursement adds IMHO much more work to the
> persons
> doing this work currently in their free time. And as often we
> transfer the
> money, as more charges and conversion fees get IMHO applied - while
> we have
> still a credit card as our base provided by Red Hat.
>
I do not know whether RH prefers to avoid WU or not. I'd like to
gain
some insight.
I am 99% certain that Western Union is not going to be acceptable to
RH accounting. I will inquire about this option once we have a list
of options.
The goal of the conversation, as I understand it three things:
1) Determine where we are having trouble with reimbursements and figure
out why (sounds like communications)? and then figure out how to
solve this.
I am not hearing people talk about this enough.
2) Determine a list of alternative reimbursement providers and the
regions/countries they are to be considered for. This should be a
company website, region/country that needs it, and an explanation of
why PayPal isn't acceptable and why this is a better choice.
Once you all have this list together I will need to work with RH
accounting to decide if we can use any of them and work them into a
policy statement. I am happy to do it, but I need your local knowledge
to source the company names. Keep in mind that companies that have a
negative reputation in the US (i.e. Western Union) or that cannot
process money from credit cards are unlikely to be accepted.
3) Figure out ideas for a reasonable policy for when the project should
pay expenses in advance/on behalf of someone and when someone should
need to do a reimbursement. This policy needs to balance the ease of
purchasing for both the project and person, the local economic
situations in play, and the ability for the project to ensure that
all requirements are met.
Let's talk more about this too please.
regards,
bex