Financial Database Programme

- as per announcement in the AVNews, March 2002

Stuart Leard and Manuel Thomas have now completed the Auroville Financial Database. The database is derived from 2300 profit and loss accounts and 2300 balance sheets. A large part of the work has been to create uniformity in data definitions.

Some observations:

• smaller units contributed far more, percentage-wise, than the bigger units

• net profits are much larger than in the outside world

• if the 5 largest units are removed, the net profit comes down to 1%

• in 1998-99, the contribution to Auroville of the smaller units was 118% of the net profits

Clarity..

In the database, a unit's investments in itself were included as contribution to Auroville. While this is understood somewhere philosophically, it obscures the true contribution picture considerably.
Also, some units include their maintenances in their contribution to Auroville figures.

Formally accepted by FAMC

The Financial Database will be kept at the Social Resource Centre, and access to it provided there. No one will be allowed to copy the whole database and take it offsite for individual use.

The FAMC was asked and agreed to recommend funding to update this database in the future, or to otherwise assure that it would be regularly updated by Auroville personnel. It was agreed that guidelines for use of the database should be drafted and submitted to the FAMC for approval. 

The Auroville Financial Database was formally accepted by the same.