Software, Services and Hosting

How are these costs budgeted for and paid

Hosting and online services can easily balloon out of control. Even a cost that seems negligible as a monthly fee tends to add up when it just comes off a credit card for three years without questioning.

This is how these costs are managed:

Budgeting

Each project should budget for software services and hosting costs. Depending on the nature of the project and the services it needs, some of its needs might be covered by an existing subscription, discount, or could be paid for out of core.

Ask for help from #technology-advice-group to see how projects can be paid for.

Who pays

The client or project grant should normally pay for hosting and software services when under active development (there is a budget for a project, and it has an allocated project manager), ideally hosting costs should be paid for by the client or the project grant.

Make sure you are clear about whether grant funds are allowed to be kept aside to pay for hosting or services for the next year or more. Consider what records need to be kept so that auditors are happy that the money is being managed and applied to the right costs.

Central support can pay for hosting when the cost of admin effort of allocating costs on a shared account to different projects exceeds the cost of the service

The core funding can pay for hosting when

• it is an innovation project, until it receives its own revenue, at which point that revenue should start paying for its hosting

• it

  • is not under a managed budget,

  • doesn't have a project manager

  • we couldn't hand hosting over to the client

  • is sufficiently valuable to the public

  • is sufficiently affordable

  • is in line with our vision.

  • The Technology Infrastructure unit will review these costs periodically and ensure that this remains true.

Before the contract ends

Before the end of the project's active development period, the project manager needs to make arrangements for the ongoing hosting of a project.

1. Make a list of all the hosting and other online services used by the tool

2. If it's a client project

   1. figure out if they will be taking over hosting, or if we are willing to host it long term from core funding or reserves.

3. If it's a grant project

   1. figure out if grant funds can be kept aside for long term hosting, or if we are willing to host it long term from core funding or reserves.

Invoice processing procedures

Invoices for active projects should be entered into Xero by the project's Project Manager.

Invoices for shared accounts and inactive projects are entered by Finance. Approval depends on whether the project is currently active.

• See the Software, services and hosting budget and invoice processing procedures.
• See the AWS invoice allocation procedures.