Travel refunds via registered mail - don‘t!

Hello,

after the conference, we have received travel refund requests via registered mail again.

With the TDF setup, this imposes quite some additional work. Every so often, someone needs to go to the post office during its business hours and grab that letter.

However, as you may know, we don’t have employees actually in Berlin who could do this job.

Therefore:

PLEASE DO NOT SEND TRAVEL REFUNDS VIA REGISTERED MAIL!

The alternative is to hire a person to do this job in Berlin. This costs us several thousand Euro per year (salary, social security, side costs etc.).

The other alternative is to not pay any travel refunds to anyone who sends their documents via registered mail, so eventually people understand the problem.

Please help us to keep things lean and effective. DO NOT SEND REGISTERED MAIL.

Send us a digital copy before, and then via regular mail.

Please also inform your local communities about this as well.

Thanks
Florian

I do understand why people do this, Florian, since international packets are frequently lost and people will be concerned that they will not be reimbursed if the paper receipts do not arrive. Perhaps another approach is to ask people to send via normal mail after the reimbursement has been received? Alternatively guarantee they will be paid even without the paper copies?

We usually refund people as soon as we have a digital copy of
everything. We ask them to send the documents on paper afterwards. Only
those who (un)reliably repeatedly fail to send their documents will not
get the advance payment, but I am not sure if that is applicable for
anyone right now.

As Sophie confirmed, the paper copies can be needed in case of an audit,
also in France, not only in Germany. Not requiring them just shifts the
problem - when an audit takes place, we can run into a problem if we
don’t have the documents and in time.

Individual shipments can get lost, this is plausible and explainable. It
becomes a problem when we in general don’t have paper receipts.

As pointed out in a different thread, Wikimedia seems to handle it
similarly (and is even more strict with deadlines).

My proposal is that we stick with:

  1. once we get everything digital, we do the payment
  2. we ask people to send things to Berlin, via normal mail, afterwards
  3. we ask people to not hand them to a member of staff at the conference
  4. those who (un)reliably fail to provide originals will get payment not
    in advance anymore
  5. should we identify countries from where a shipment is a problem, we
    will try to find individual solutions, but for this, people need to talk
    to us, and not just send us things without further comment

If #2 and #3 are a problem, we need to hire someone and rent a space for
the materials, but that will cost money. If we all help together a bit,
things will be easy for everyone.

So currently, it works a bit differently. Board, MC and team are refunded immediately, for the other members of the community, I wait for the documents to be in Berlin.
I send reminders about a month after the requests if documents are not there yet. I think it’s legitimate to wait for the documents to be in Berlin and members understand that it’s not to annoy them or delay their refunds. If they need the money earlier, we have always made exceptions.

There is a possibility to add a follow-up number to snail mails which is different from the registered number where you have to pick up the mail. But this way you can follow what you sent.

If the community member tells me that they have sent the documents but they didn’t arrive, in that case, I inform Florian and I refund the person based on the documents we have in the TSP.

If sending the documents is an issue or is more expensive than the refund itself, then the refund request is sent to SPI. For example, most of the Asian refund requests go to SPI.

At any time, community members can ping me if there is an issue or something they are not sure about. From what I remember, we have refunded all the requests even when they were entered a year or more after. Compared to some other communities, we are very flexible (GNOME for example, requests the refund requests to be sent no later than 90 days after the last day of travel, otherwise they are ignored).

So I join Florian on his requests to not send registered mails, to not give your documents to him or Stephan or me. Talk to us in case you meet an issue in the process or you have a special request. And please follow the process described in the wiki, in a timely maner, and read until the end of TDF/Policies/Refunding - The Document Foundation Wiki.
Also, no need to ping me when you have entered the request, it will be processed in the next days.

Indeed, now I remember. We paid everyone in the past, but then never received documents from many (they were paid so they didn’t see the urgency anymore), had to chase the papers repeatedly, and eventually switched to the current mode, as it became unbearable.

As you say, we can always make exceptions in justified cases.

Yes, exactly. With the number of requests we have to process, it’s unbearable.

I thought back in the day we had an address (is it here https://maps.app.goo.gl/k2ECaS4uCq8zZoHG9 opposite the hole in the map ? =) that would accept mail, scan and send it to us, kindly provided by Mike.

It seems having the ability to reliably receive registered post at our main business address is rather an important feature for several use-cases.

Clearly there are other alternatives - eg. getting some sort of Corporate Service Provider (lawyers and notary do that but surely there are cheaper options too) that can provide this service for the benefit of the Trustees. That is is surely a reasonably do-able thing which would not involve hiring someone in Berlin to watch a letterbox waiting for post to arrive ?

Usually, these services neither take registered mail you to have to sign
in person or pick up (which is the problem, otherwise they would just be
dropped in our letterbox), nor do they store a lot of documents for you,
which is another requirement we have.

Deutsche Post is offereing this including registered mail when having a gmx/web.de account…

Yup. And having a virtual office in Berlin, including scanning / document forwarding, and a fully valid legal address / “address for service” seems possible and quite affordable.

I doubt we want to have TDF’s registered mail routed through a
GMX/web.de freemailer account :slight_smile:

Receiving registered mail and getting it forwarded possibly a week later
(which is what they offer) is not a smart decision. Plus it then needs
someone to scan the documents so we have them digitally (TDF doesn’t
even own a scanner or printer). We also don’t know if they would pick up
stuff from the post office, which is the origin of this thread.

For those reading this discussion thread, I think it’s also important to
understand why things are as they are.

In general, even with people on site, it would be quite tedious to get
many travel refunds via registered mail which requires a signature. (A
“drop-off” registered mail is no problem.) People are not there 24/7,
deliveries take place also on Saturdays, and sometimes the postal
service directly drops things off at the next post office to pickup.

With the TDF, the setup is even more particular. Back in 2014, more than
ten years ago, I made a proactive proposal to have some storage and
office space with the option to have administrative staff on site. That
was turned down by a majority of the back then board. The window of
opportunity is now gone, so we need to deal with things differently.
And, see above, even with that, regular pickups are time-consuming.

Registered mail with signature is not needed. Let’s save time and money
on everyone’s end.

And on a general note, I think this thread shows quite well some of the issues at TDF.

Sophie and me both inform the members that receiving travel refunds via registered mail we have to sign or pick up adds quite some overhead. Both of us have been doing our jobs for more than a decade.

Now the discussion goes around various options, none of which seems fit, and rather create more work than less.

We do not need to accept travel refunds via registered mail. We do not need to make prepayments. We do not need to accept travel refunds two years or more after an event. Other organizations, for the sake of effectiveness, don’t do this either. And in case of need, we’ve always been flexible and found a solution.

It reminds me of some discussions from the past, when conference attendees should have been registered via email, because “they cannot be asked to fill in a form”.

I stick with what I said:
If we want TDF to grow and evolve and stay stable, we need to support one another. If everyone contributes a bit, the burden for individuals will be much smaller. In result, we can do more and better, and achieve more for everyone. That TDF seems “stuck” is also a self-inflicted problem.

Hi @floeff ,

All I’m saying is that those are rather standard problems, with affordable off-the-shelf solutions. None of the points you’re making above pose any actual issue, just check the next entry on the 1st page of a google search please.

Apart from the issues mentioned: Changing service providers, addresses (at about 150 places…) and workflows, so community members can send travel refunds via registered mail, that seems a massive overhead.

We should solve actual problems, not create new ones.

Just wanted to mention that the refund request website doesn’t lett us choose events which have already taken place, e.g. no LibreOCon 2025 here:

https://refunds.documentfoundation.org/events

the site is also rather confusing. For example, I was just looking at my LOCOn 2024 request page, and noticed that after it had been approved, I still need to perform another “accept” action - at least that’s what the system says. And the site doesn’t (?) tell me whether I actually got any reimbursements or not - the reimbursement list is empty.

So, not saying that sending anything by registered mail is a good idea, but perhaps someone (mistakenly) thought it is somehow simpler than using that website?

Yes, it’s not displayed any more after the event is passed because if you had followed the process and went through the “Before the event” part, you’d have a “Ask for reimbursement” button in your request for travel support.
See here: TDF/Policies/Refunding - The Document Foundation Wiki

The event is here:
https://refunds.documentfoundation.org/events/90

It does, change the date for the “between” input box and click search to include events in the past.

1 Like

Hi,

You have to set the date to 1/09 in the filter and you will see the Libocon.

best,

On the TSP (travel support program), Sophie has most hands-on
experience, as she is handling the request together with Stephan, so I
happily defer to her. :slight_smile:

A general comment I can make:

When we looked for a tool back in the day, we discovered the TSP which,
if I am not mistaken, has been developed by/for the openSUSE community.
We tried to avoid reinventing the wheel and have put it in place for a
few years.

I agree there are some things that can be made easier with this tool
indeed, every so often I also stumble over something that’s not clear to me.

I am not sure if we can implement features and bugfixes ourselves and if
there is any synchronization with upstream. However, it migth be worth
collecting such proposals, and if sensible, budget for work on TSP in
the next budget.