Expenses & administration.

Some additional guidelines to keep in mind considering the approving, allocating, and spending of budgets.

• After budget approval, the total budget for a project will be transferred to a bank account managed by the Council. The Council will receive two debit cards with access to online banking.
• All spending must be approved by Management in advance. If the project is green-lit then the budget for the project will be transferred to the bank account of the Council. The account is emptied after every Council term. Left-over budget from projects must be transferred back to the Lifely account.
• All budgets are excluding FAT (BTW), are not transferable to the next month/year and are calculated based on fulltime employment.
• Only the Treasurer is allowed to make purchases through the Council bank account.
• Monthly budgets that haven't been spent will be transferred back the following month to the main Lifely account.
• The Council is responsible for making sure there is a FAT (BTW) receipt or invoice for all purchases. All invoices and receipts must be sent to [email protected]. Please, always include Lifely Council: in the subject matter. This way our bookkeeper can track all of the expenses more easily.

Managing budgets & projects.

Always remember, just because you as a Council member are responsible for the output of the budgets you spend, never forget to ask colleagues and third parties for help. So this is how we would advise you to manage the budgets:

• Set goals for the project and come up with a way on how you can measure them (Project Pulse can help you measure your own performance).
• Ask for help. A lot of the responsibilities of the Council have been performed by the Management and Leads of Lifely. An outside perspective will bring you surprising input, it will help you break through mental blockages and can give you a blueprint on how we used to handle projects in the past.
• Treat any project you manage like a Lifely project. Create a resource allocation plan, plan kitchen reviews and plan retrospectives.
• In order to keep control over the quality of outcome, create check-ins with all parties at every 15% to 25% of the budget spending. Make sure that at every check-in you have your Resource allocation plan and planning open, are you really still on track or do you need to escalate?
• Make sure you reflect in retrospectives on the goals you’ve set at the start of the project.
• Escalate on time! If you feel progress is lacking, budgets are not being met, or you feel stuck, ask for help from the Lifely Management. That is what we are here for. It doesn’t matter whether you ask for help in negotiating an offer from a third party or all the way in the beginning of the process when you are still setting your goals.
• Never forget, making mistakes, even if that means blowing your budget, does not matter, as long as you reflect on your mistakes and create policy and process on how to mitigate this in the future.