- Joined
- Nov 20, 2023
- Messages
- 126
- Points
- 93
Howdy everyone -
I am reviving an initiative previously led by former Admin (ADM) Rigaudon to address PWO's financial position and fund allocations. The Community has a vested interest in PWO, and members have expressed a desire to understand how their contributions support PWO and its services. Furthermore, we (the Staff team) have expressed our wish to be more transparent, both with in-game progress and donations/server logs.
Thus, starting this year, I will be volunteering my efforts to create monthly, quarterly, and year-end financial summaries and reports. The goal is to provide greater insight and transparency to the Community, while also guiding internal and external discussions about important topics such as Token Store costs, spending behaviors, and reserve management.
One particular aspect we are excited about pursuing is establishing proper donation channels to allocate the majority of excess funds to several recognized charities. We have quickly accumulated reserves over the years—mostly due to heavy reductions in server costs and generous donation amounts in recent years. As a result, "emergency funds" and other benchmarks mentioned in prior discussions have been surpassed at this point, and thus, we feel comfortable engaging in these charitable efforts. As much of the Community knows (or refuses to believe at times xd), Staff are not financially compensated, and any funds removed from the reserves are used to offset costs expensed from personal accounts because PayPal can be a pain.
In terms of cadence, I aim for quarterly (3-month) updates, which will be released around the middle of the following month. E.g., Q1 (January-March) will be released around mid-April. In terms of communication, I ask that everyone direct questions through me, so I can help answer and/or determine if it requires further Staff knowledge or expertise.
Now, with that said, onto the report~
FY25 Annual Report
PWO's Cumulative Net Reserves (Jan 2026)
FY25 Net Reserve Area Chart
FY25 Income Breakdown
FY25 Expenses Breakdown
FY25 Expenses - Budgeted vs. Actual
FY25 Expenses & FY25 Income Breakdown
As a side note, we also have access to monthly Token Store stats if the Community is at all interested in seeing. These statistics include total Pokémon bought (including how many specific shinies), total 'Items' bought, and total Tokens spent. I will post them separately if it gets cleared with the Team.
I am reviving an initiative previously led by former Admin (ADM) Rigaudon to address PWO's financial position and fund allocations. The Community has a vested interest in PWO, and members have expressed a desire to understand how their contributions support PWO and its services. Furthermore, we (the Staff team) have expressed our wish to be more transparent, both with in-game progress and donations/server logs.
Thus, starting this year, I will be volunteering my efforts to create monthly, quarterly, and year-end financial summaries and reports. The goal is to provide greater insight and transparency to the Community, while also guiding internal and external discussions about important topics such as Token Store costs, spending behaviors, and reserve management.
One particular aspect we are excited about pursuing is establishing proper donation channels to allocate the majority of excess funds to several recognized charities. We have quickly accumulated reserves over the years—mostly due to heavy reductions in server costs and generous donation amounts in recent years. As a result, "emergency funds" and other benchmarks mentioned in prior discussions have been surpassed at this point, and thus, we feel comfortable engaging in these charitable efforts. As much of the Community knows (or refuses to believe at times xd), Staff are not financially compensated, and any funds removed from the reserves are used to offset costs expensed from personal accounts because PayPal can be a pain.
In terms of cadence, I aim for quarterly (3-month) updates, which will be released around the middle of the following month. E.g., Q1 (January-March) will be released around mid-April. In terms of communication, I ask that everyone direct questions through me, so I can help answer and/or determine if it requires further Staff knowledge or expertise.
Now, with that said, onto the report~
FY25 Annual Report
- As mentioned in the footnotes of the annual report, alternative procedures were used to determine/estimate certain balances, such as total donations and accurate reserve counts up until Fiscal Year 2025 (FY25).
- As of Jan 2025, PWO's net reserves increased by 9% ($8k) and reached $95k in total.
- Unable to obtain annual reports of donations, an alternative procedure was used to derive them.
- Ending Balance = Beginning Balance + Income (Donations) - Expenses.
- Donations = Ending Balance - Beginning Balance + Expenses
- Donations = 95k - 87k + 4k = 12k
PWO's Cumulative Net Reserves (Jan 2026)
FY25 Net Reserve Area Chart
- Based on 3 major benchmarks from prior discussions:
- 1/18/22 - $45,838.61 - $8.93 net reserves per day between 1/1/08 - 1/17/22
- 1/16/25 - $87,431.87 - $38.02 net reserves per day between 1/18/22 - 1/15/25
- 1/13/26 - $95,542.78 - $22.41 net reserves per day between 1/16/25 - 1/12/26
- Time series graph-based benchmarks. With the starting date of January 1st, 2008, to ease calculations.
- Moving forward, monthly data will help with developing better time series regressions (Holt's Winter) and other fun models.
FY25 Income Breakdown
FY25 Expenses Breakdown
FY25 Expenses - Budgeted vs. Actual
FY25 Expenses & FY25 Income Breakdown
- In past years, PWO was able to reduce annual main server costs from €6000 to €2200. Billed every May, but for reporting purposes, will stretch expenses across 12 months. Reducing prepaid costs once the expense is recognized (in this case, monthly). Let me handle the accounting...
- The decision was made in January 2025 to upgrade to Slack Pro. Billed every February, and has been extremely helpful to have an unlimited message history when revisiting old conversations/topics.
- DNS costs are billed annually, but it is an extremely small charge of $19. Mail provider expenses are paid $10 every 10 days (so typically $365 every year).
- Included a 1.1x multiplier to create an initial budgeted amount for expenses. Provides cushion when calculating for rises in costs in the future. As there is minimal historical data to lean on, used the actuals as the base.
- Charity donations will be included in the future once it has been finalized.
As a side note, we also have access to monthly Token Store stats if the Community is at all interested in seeing. These statistics include total Pokémon bought (including how many specific shinies), total 'Items' bought, and total Tokens spent. I will post them separately if it gets cleared with the Team.
Last edited:
