Whenever there’s a storyline with quark, they talk about money/latinum.
I remember in one of the next gen episodes that there was discussion about money and Picard said something about how they’ve moved away from money.
So do Starfleet get paid now?
Update: thank you for the quick responses. From what I’m gathering the tldr is that the following is the answer
- Ferengi love for money/not being a post scarcity society by design
- Bajorans being so near their slavery times and not post scarcity yet
- Quark creating an atmosphere of camaraderie/gambling/upgraded replicators/actual food
All this requires some form of currency.
How I’ve always seen it:
Starfleet (and perhaps a large portion of the UFP) do not use money or valuable materials to pay their workers and other organisations within Starfleet and likely those other UFP worlds under the same philosophy.
However, they do need to deal with many civilisations that do not subscribe to the same ideals. As such, they would likely maintain funds by trading to and from these civilisations.
It would be possible as others suggest to either bill Starfleet directly, or for officers to be able to requisition various precious items/currency as/when needed.