Purpose
This is a forum post to summarise the user stories related to Payments and Accounting. There’s much more more technical detail in a thread elsewhere on what Resonate needs to do in managing payments and accounting for them including a discussion of how that could be done, but the purpose of this extract and summary is to:
- explain the context by summarising some overall goals, principles and assumptions;
- focus more on the various user needs, including payers/payees, in payments and accounting, recognising that although different, payments and accounting need to be considered together, as they have many interdependencies.
There is a fuller and more technical deck on the topic here:
However, this forum post is the place we are summarising the user stories in this area, it’s not a list of work in a roadmap, ‘epic’ or backlog of work within an epic - that’s a separate process
Context
Overall Goals and Principles
Record the ‘counterparties’ (usually platform users) that we have a financial relationship with
Record balances of what we owe / are owed externally by maintaining accounts
Execute payments, receipts and transfers
Record Transactions
- Receivables - amounts that debtors owe to us.
- Payables -amounts that we owe to creditors.
- Receipts - money received into our account (or wallet) that either fully or partially settles a receiveable.
- Payments made - money paid out that either fully or partially settle a payable.
- Transfers - money moved between accounts
Follow standard, accepted accounting principles.
Support multiple currencies and internal credits
Allow co-op officers, accountants and auditors to correctly and automatically account in corresponding co-op ledger accounts with the minimum of manual reconciliation and be able to fix things when they go wrong
Related Documents
Payments and Accounting services provide close support for the User and Membership user stories
User Stories for Payments and Accounting
role | As a …. I want to ……………………. so that I can………… | |
---|---|---|
Payments | ||
P01 | user | As a signed in user I want to purchase some listening credit to add to my credit balance so that I can listen to paid tracks or spend it on other services. |
P02 | user | As a (signed in) user I want to be able to choose to join as a co-op member, pay my membership subscription and purchase supporter shares or other ‘products’ or make donations so that I can ‘play fair’ |
P03 | member | As a co-op member I want to easily and securely access and maintain my personal membership data and transaction history |
P04 | user | As a user I want to have a choice of convenient, affordable and secure methods of payment / payment services for use with Resonate |
P05 | user | As a user I want to be able to see what I owe / am owed in simple statements, request payment / repayment where appropriate, record my attempt / intent / promise to pay and receive receipts where requested |
P06 | user | As a user (Arist, Listener, Worker) I want to be able to transfer or gift balances of listening credits to other users (subject to AML constraints) |
P07 | user | As a Listener when I ‘buy now’ I want to be able to award additional amounts of listening credit as a gift to artists |
P08 | user | As a Music Maker I want to segregate earned credit from my listening credit and be able to transfer earned credit to my listening credit balance so that I can get better/earlier value for my credits than a cash payout. |
P09 | co-op sec | As a co-op secretary I want Resonate to offer a choice of convenient and affordable methods of payment (in and out) so that we are not ‘locked in’ to one supplier of services and can add / change services easily |
Finance | ||
F01 | fin controller | As a fin controller I want to record the ‘counterparties’ (usually platform users) that we have a financial relationship with so that we understand our finances and comply with obligations. |
F02 | fin controller | As a fin controller I want to record balances of what we owe / are owed externally by maintaining accounts with entries and balances for each counterparty we are dealing with financially so that we (as P01) |
F03 | fin controller | As a fin controller I want to record Transactions: Receivables, Payables, Receipts, Payments made and Transfers according to recognised ‘double-entry’ principles so that there is no loss or creation of funds. |
F04 | fin controller | As a fin controller I want to account for value in different currencies including listening credits and manage associated conversions and rate history so that we operate fair and consistent exchange |
F05 | fin controller | As a fin controller I want like to maintain internal user accounts of different types (e.g. listening credits) maintain records of balances for each and support transfers and conversions. |
F06 | fin controller | As a financial controller, I need tools to enable transaction reversibility, so that errors and failures can be corrected and properly recorded with an audit trail. |
F07 | auditor | As an auditor I need to assure integrity of accounts with proof of automatic reconciliation to source transactions |
F08 | auditor | As an auditor I need to ensure that approval workflows feature appropriate ‘separation of duties’ so that opportunity for fraud is minimised |
Membership Finance | ||
M01 | co-op sec | As a co-op secretary I need to ensure that membership records are up to date, paid if appropriate, complete, approved and accurate |
M02 | co-op sec | As a co-op secretary and administrator I need to ensure membership renewals are paid and actioned and if not, memberships are terminated. |