What Open Collective does, and who each part is for

Twenty modules, one per row. Tick what you want, write what you think in the last column, then copy the lot and hand it over.

Your notes are saved in this browser as you type, so closing the tab does not lose them. They live only on this device — nobody else can see them until you copy the list and send it.

What it is is the software. The problem it removes is written as a problem on purpose, because a problem can be checked against reality — read each one and ask do we actually have this?

Two rows are ticked and greyed. Nothing works without them; that is a fact about the code, not a recommendation.

Keep	Module & who it serves	What it is	The problem it removes	If you leave it out
The foundation — cannot be removed
Keep Accounts and profiles	Accounts and profiles Collective adminAnyone looking See the profile page in the fork: any collective's page	One table holds every kind of profile — a person, a company, a group, a fund, an event. Each gets a page and a web address.	Without it, a person, a company and a group each need their own handling — and none of them can pay each other.	Locked. Every other module refers to accounts. There is no version of this software without it.
Keep The ledger	The ledger AccountantFiscal hostAnyone looking How the ledger works The ledger row pattern	An append-only record of every movement of money. Each movement writes a group of rows — the amount, and every fee taken out of it, separately.	Nobody can answer “where did the money go” without someone compiling it by hand, and the answer is then only as honest as whoever compiled it.	Locked. This is the actual product. Everything else is a way of putting things into it or reading things out of it.
Money coming in
Keep One-off contributions	One-off contributions ContributorCollective admin Docs The rupee flow we proposed	Someone pays once, by card or bank transfer. A receipt is issued and the money lands in the ledger.	People want to give and the only way to take their money is a bank transfer they must trust you to record.	Skip it and money can only be added by hand by an admin, which works but means somebody is always doing data entry.
Keep Recurring contributions	Recurring contributions ContributorCollective admin Docs needs the payment provider to support it — Razorpay does, via subscriptions	Monthly or yearly giving that renews on its own, and that the giver can stop themselves.	Every month starts at zero. Nothing can be committed to, because nobody knows what will arrive.	Skip it and every month starts at zero and somebody has to ask again. It is the single biggest difference between a project and an organisation.
Keep Tiers and goals	Tiers and goals ContributorCollective admin Docs See the tier cards	Named levels of giving with their own description and reward, and public targets with a progress bar.	An empty amount box tells a would-be giver nothing, so they guess low or close the tab.	Skip it and you get a plain amount box. Perfectly usable; measurably less persuasive.
Keep Company giving — funds, bulk transfers, gift cards	Company giving — funds, bulk transfers, gift cards ContributorAccountant Docs	A company puts money in once and distributes it across many groups, or hands staff credit to give away.	A company willing to fund thirty groups needs thirty approvals and thirty invoices, so it funds none of them.	Skip it and companies can still give, one payment at a time. Only worth having once a company actually asks.
Money going out
Keep Expenses and reimbursement	Expenses and reimbursement Person getting paidCollective adminFiscal host Docs in the fork: the dashboard's “3 expenses have not been reviewed”	Anyone submits a claim with a receipt. An admin approves it, the host pays it, and every step is visible.	A volunteer who spent their own money has to ask a particular person by email, then wait with no idea what is happening.	Skip it and spending happens over email and lands in the ledger only if someone remembers. That is the point at which a transparent budget stops being true.
Keep Payouts to bank accounts	Payouts to bank accounts Person getting paidFiscal host How Wise payouts work	Approved expenses are paid automatically to a bank account, and the payment fee is recorded as its own ledger line.	Someone retypes account numbers into a banking portal for every single payment. That is where money reaches the wrong person.	Skip it and the host pays by hand and marks it paid afterwards. Workable at low volume, tedious and error-prone above it. For India this needs RazorpayX, which is separate from the payment gateway.
Keep Virtual cards	Virtual cards Collective adminFiscal host Requires a card-issuing provider; the fork supports only Stripe issuing.	A card number with a spending limit, issued to a person, with every charge appearing automatically.	People must spend their own money first and wait to be repaid, which quietly excludes anyone who cannot afford to.	Skip it and people pay first and claim back. Not available in India through any provider this platform supports — treat as out of reach for now, not merely optional.
Who holds the money
Keep Fiscal hosting — holding money for other groups	Fiscal hosting — holding money for other groups Fiscal hostCollective admin Why become one Host fees	One legal entity holds money on behalf of many groups, takes a percentage, approves who joins, and pays everyone's expenses.	A group that wants to raise money must first register a company, open a bank account and file returns — months of work before the first rupee arrives.	Skip it and you get an independent collective — one group holding its own money in its own account. Simpler, and enough if you never intend to host anyone else. This is the single biggest fork in the road on this page.
Keep Projects — ring-fenced budgets	Projects — ring-fenced budgets Collective adminAccountant Docs	A pot of money inside a group, with its own balance, page and team. It can only spend what has been allocated to it.	There is one pot and one level of access, so nobody can be trusted with a budget unless they are trusted with everything.	Skip it and every rupee sits in one pot and only full admins can spend. Fine for a small group; limiting the moment you have more than one thing going on.
Keep Events and ticketing	Events and ticketing Collective adminContributorAnyone looking In the fork: BrusselsTogether has seven events.	A dated page that sells tickets, tracks who is coming, and puts the takings straight into the budget.	Ticket income sits in one system and event costs in another, so nobody can say whether the event made money or lost it.	Skip it and you use an outside ticketing service and add the money by hand afterwards. Perfectly common.
Trust and paperwork
Keep Team, roles and permissions	Team, roles and permissions Collective adminAccountant Ten roles exist in the code, including accountant and community manager.	Named roles — admin, member, accountant, host — each seeing and doing a defined set of things.	Showing an accountant the numbers means giving them the ability to move money.	Skip it and everyone with access can do everything. Fine among three trusted people, indefensible beyond that.
Keep Two-factor authentication and payout security	Two-factor authentication and payout security Collective adminFiscal host Docs	A second proof of identity, demanded again at the moment money is about to move rather than only at sign-in.	One stolen password empties the account.	Skip it and a single compromised login can pay out the balance. Strongly recommend keeping this whatever else is cut.
Keep Tax forms, KYC and legal documents	Tax forms, KYC and legal documents Fiscal hostPerson getting paidAccountant Docs	Collecting identity and tax paperwork before somebody is paid, and blocking the payout until it is done.	Someone has to remember, for every payment, whether the paperwork is done — and the payment goes out either way.	Skip it and compliance becomes a person's job and a spreadsheet. What ships is built for United States tax rules — Indian requirements are different and none of this transfers unchanged. Assume rebuilding, not configuring.
Making sense of it afterwards
Keep Reports and exports	Reports and exports AccountantFiscal host Docs	Transaction reports by period, and exports shaped to whatever columns your accounting software wants.	Year-end is a fortnight of copying figures from one system into another.	Skip it and somebody copies figures out by hand every quarter — the exact task the ledger existed to remove.
Keep Accounting categories and bank reconciliation	Accounting categories and bank reconciliation AccountantFiscal host Bank sync uses Plaid and GoCardless in the fork — neither covers India well.	Your own chart of accounts applied to each transaction, and a live bank feed matched against what the platform thinks happened.	Money moves in the real bank account that the platform never sees, so the published balance is wrong and nobody notices.	Skip it and that gap goes unnoticed until an audit. The bank-feed providers the fork supports do not cover Indian banks; expect manual import instead.
Community and reach
Keep Updates and conversations	Updates and conversations Collective adminContributorAnyone looking Docs in the fork: three updates and two threads on BrusselsTogether	Posts that reach contributors by email, and public discussion threads on the group's own page.	People who gave money never find out what it did, so they do not give again.	Skip it and you need a newsletter tool and your contributor list lives in two places.
Keep Discovery, badges and embeds	Discovery, badges and embeds Anyone lookingCollective admin Docs	A public directory, plus buttons and contributor lists you can paste into your own website.	Nobody finds you unless you send them a link, and sending them elsewhere to give loses most of them.	Skip it and every visitor must arrive by a link you sent them. Only matters once there is more than one group to browse.
Keep API, OAuth and webhooks	API, OAuth and webhooks DeveloperCollective admin OAuth docs API reference	A full programmatic interface, sign-in for other apps, and notifications pushed to your own systems.	Anything not built here can only be built by changing the platform itself.	Skip it and every integration becomes a change to the platform itself. Cheap to keep, expensive to add back.

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