The ledger is our source of truth at Open Collective. It is the foundation that makes possible crowdfunding contributions, added funds, grants and expenses. All these financial interactions generate transactions that are recorded in the ledger. Most users interact with the ledger indirectly by making contributions and submitting expenses and for most users that is enough. However, as the platform has grown, larger organizations who rely on the platform, primarily fiscal hosts and medium-to-large collectives, need to use information from the platform for accounting purposes. In response to these needs we are making the ledger itself more visible, accessible and legible to users.
Stay tuned for an in-depth explanation of the Open Collective ledger
Interested in exploring the Ledger? Dive into the transactions table
From January 2024 payment processor fees and taxes were separated from the transaction record in the ledger.
Over the last couple of years, we’ve received feedback from fiscal hosts and accountants that has prompted us to make a change to the ledger to make more it more consistent and future proof. We’ve modified the ledger so that payment processor fees and taxes are recorded as separate transactions.
This is how payment processor fees and taxes were represented in the ledger until now, as fields/properties of a transaction:
For contributions or expenses made after January 2024, separate transactions will be recorded for payment processor fees and taxes. For example:
The default export configuration hasn’t changed and still includes a column for payment processor fees. However, from 2024, payment processor fees are exported as separate transactions and the payment processor fee column will be set to zero. If you need to continue to export data (from the 1st of January 2024 and onward) with payment processor fees as a column (instead of separate transactions) enable the “Separate transactions compatibility” option. This will convert the newly separated payment processor fee transactions back into transaction columns.
In the dashboard transactions tool the new transactions (for payment processor fees and taxes) will appear as separate transactions. In this screenshot the blue line on the right hand side of the table is a visual indicator for a group of related transactions. Here you can see that a (now separate) Payment processor fee transaction is related to the contribution transaction.
From your transactions you can export a CSV file that can be used to further process transactions for your reporting and accounting needs.
To download a CSV of your transactions click on the 'export CSV' button in the top right hand corner.
If you have applied any filters on the transactions page these will be applied to the export set. At the bottom left corner of the export screen you will see a confirmation of the number of transactions included in that set.
You then have an option to decide which fields you would like to export. The “Platform Default” export is a selection of fields created to answer typical reporting and accounting needs. So it may be a good starting point. If it is, simply click “Export CSV” and your export file will begin to download.
Select the export set “Legacy Platform Export (Pre-2024)”
Make sure that the option “Export taxes and payment processor fees as columns” is turned on.
You can further customize the export set by selecting which fields will be exported and in what order. For this select “New Preset.”
Presets are shared within your organization so when defining a New Preset, ensure you give it a meaningful name so that your fellow admins will be able to recognize and utilize it.
Select your desired fields in the 'Available fields' section.
Reorder your selected fields in the 'Selected fields for export' section.
You are also able to clear the selection to start your preset from scratch
Save and Export your Preset
You have the option to save the preset, this will make it available to all admins of your Collective/Fiscal Host.
Export a Sample to test the data set before committing and downloading the full CSV via Export CSV.
type | kind | amount | paymentProcessorFee | netAmount |
---|---|---|---|---|
type | kind | amount |
---|---|---|
You can also filter to see only those transactions using the “kind” filter:
Platform Legacy Export (pre 2024) At the beginning of 2024 we made some changes to the ledger that effect the transaction export. This included a shift from representing payment processor fees as fields of transactions to .If you require backwards compatibility with the exports that were generated before we introduced these changes:
CREDIT
CONTRIBUTION
100
1.8
98.2
CREDIT
CONTRIBUTION
100
DEBIT
PAYMENT_PROCESSOR_FEE
-1.8
Take a sneak peek into the Open Collective Ledger with the Transactions table. We have designed the new transactions table to look and operate more similar to a 'bank statement'.
To view the Transactions page navigate to your dashboard and navigate to Transactions. Utilise the account switcher to switch accounts.
In the transactions table you can see the Date and Time of the transaction, the account, the Recipient/Sender, the Kind of transaction and the Net amount with the Currency.
The transactions you see are based on the context in which you are using the tool.
If you are individual you will see transactions that are related only to you (expenses you submitted and contributions you made.
If you are a collective administrator you will see all the transactions that are related to the collective (all the added funds, contributions made to the collective and expenses submitted to the collective).
If you are a fiscal host administrator you will see all of your organizational transactions and all the transactions related to the collectives you host.
Hovering over individual transactions will bring up a blue line to the left. This indicates the groupings of transactions.
Multiple transactions occur from the initial transaction for example based off the below screenshot
Guest donates $5 to Logseq
This triggers
Logseq sends a 74 cent in payment processor fees to Paypal
Logseq sends a 50 cent fiscal host fee to Open Source Collective
Open Source Collective receives a 50 cent fiscal host fee from Logseq
Open Source Collective sends a 25 cent platform share to Open Collective
Open Collective receives a 25 cent platform share from Open Source Collective
To dive in and review any particular transaction, click to trigger a draw to slide out from the right displaying more information.
Group ID
Date and Time
Type of Transaction
Account
Amount
Payment processor fee
Opposite account
Opposite transaction ID
Related contribution
Transactions for hosted collectives are included in the 'All' transactions view you can use the tabs to only view transactions from the hosted collectives or the fiscal host
We have removed pending orders/contributions in this view (these can be seen in the Contributions section)